As practice shows, not everyone needs mechanical keyboards, which quite often have a high key profile. In the comments to reviews and news, you can meet users who want a slim keyboard with a short key travel. The Cougar company has a model Vantar AX especially for those needs, which is a continuation of the line of thin keyboards with backlight. And today we will get acquainted with such a model.

Design and construction

The Vantar AX captivates at first glance with its slimness and elegance, as well as the metallic coolness of the top panel.

The keyboard is mainly made of aluminum and this gives its structure rigidity. The use of metal does not make it very heavy, but it is felt in the hands and does not slide on the surface during use.

The lower panel is made of high-quality plastic. In general, the quality of the assembly and materials left a good impression, except for one “but”. It is that the metal panel of the keyboard can be scratched, so you should be a little more careful with it. But, thanks to the dark gray color, all these traces of use are not very visible.

Ergonomics and functionality

The Cougar Vantar AX is a full-sized keyboard with a number pad. It will take up as much space on the table as a regular keyboard, but due to the smaller thickness, which in this case is about 15 mm, will look much more compact.

For additional convenience, the keyboard can be raised with the help of folding legs.

Fortunately, the keyboard’s developers kept all the keys of a standard size and with the usual distance between the blocks. Therefore, arrow blocks and other standard groups of keys are well highlighted here.

The F-key row has an additional function of media management and calling standard Windows functions. This functionality works in combination with the Fn key.

Cougar Vantar AX is equipped with RGB lighting. It is not very bright, but it performs its function. All control of the backlight is entrusted to the use of keyboard combinations directly from the keyboard itself, and there are not many options for its adjustment. The manufacturer did not provide this model with additional software, so in this regard it is even a plus — everything works out of the box without any additional manipulations.

Now let’s talk about the keys. In this case, a membrane-scissor system is used. The keys are pressed softly and quietly. I would say that sometimes it is even a little softer than it should be. But working and playing on this keyboard is very convenient.

You can even type large volumes of text with pleasure, which is what I did while testing the keyboard. As for games, the keyboard supports 19-key rollover, which allows the keyboard to accurately register presses on adjacent keys. This is a big plus for a membrane keyboard.