I was particularly lost when inserting the Keystone for the first time it's not intuitive how you go about saving game profiles and lighting settings to the key.
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It takes a little trial and error to figure out how the app is organized and best navigated. The Keystone also works with Asus' Armoury Crate app for customizing the laptop's Aura Sync lighting, monitoring components, controlling the cooling fans, and more. Considering that you probably keep game profiles on your mouse if you hop from one system to another with any frequency, the Keystone feels gimmicky at best.
The idea of a hardware key protecting your most valuable local data in the vein of a physical lock has some merit the game-profile-portability aspect, less so. The Shadow Drive is a password-protected area of the hard drive that unlocks when you insert the Keystone-and after you sign up for an Asus account. The Keystone also unlocks the Shadow Drive, which sounds way cooler than it is. The problem with this scenario is that you can take these settings and profiles only to other Asus ROG laptops with a Keystone slot, and the only other Keystone-compatible laptop I can find is Asus' ROG Hero III. Likewise, the plastic keyboard deck features a checkered pattern, with two-thirds of its surface a dark gray and the other third a contrasting lighter hue.Īlong the right edge sits a unique slot for what Asus calls a Keystone, a physical NFC key to which you can save game-specific profiles and other settings that you can take with you. The thin metal lid has a brushed aluminum texture that moves in one direction over two-thirds of the surface and in a different direction over the remaining third. The keyboard features per-key RGB lighting that can be customized for individual games.Įven with the lights off, the Strix Scar III gives off a gaming vibe with its various textured and patterned surfaces and angled cutouts. A strip of RGB lighting illuminates the front and side edges of the machine, and a large ROG logo glows on the lid. No matter from which direction you approach the Scar III, it's not subtle.