Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “I want this on ALL of my keyboards now! – Epomaker Shadow-X”.
You know I like displays, and you know I like keyboards, so what if they took a display and put it inside the keyboard, we’ve got the eot maker Shadow X and they sponsored this video. So I can take a look at their keyboard and tell you what I think wow there. It is: it’s a 70 % hot swapable board, gasket mounted poron foam PC plate and this one’s got Bluebird switches. I’Ve never tried them before they’re linear, we’ll check them out. Today so we’ve got combo key cap and switch puller, which is always great. I like to see the Dual ones, not just the switch puller, which makes sense cuz, it’s hot swap.
So you can take these switches out if you don’t like the ones that come with the board and put whatever you do want to put in comes with a decent little sleeved, cable, USB a to c uh, then we’ve got extra switches and extra, yellow key caps. So, actually, I think the yellow and gray could work pretty well. These are extra switches, maybe they’re the bluebirds.
They are blue. The top is like a seafoam green and then we’ve got a blue on the bottom housing. Let’S do a little bit of Investigation just to see if these are the same thing that we’re dealing with here. They are okay, so they’re all Bluebird switches, they’re linear switches, not super light or heavy they’re about a 47 G actuation Force. It’S got a little screen here that we’ll try later on and then aside from that, it’s kind of a compact size. My only real problem is they say it’s designed for enthusiasts and professionals, and it does look really nice.
I really would like a little bit more space shaved off uh. These outer bezels are kind of long. It’S really not the end of the world, but it’s not the tiniest keyboard in the world. Now, considering it’s wireless, we do have a battery in here and it does 3,000 milliamp hours, which is okay, definitely not the highest battery I’ve ever seen, but it’s not tiny either it’s reasonably comfortable to type on with not an egregious typing angle, or anything like that.
Also, if you don’t like the typing angle, it has one of my favorite things: two stage feet, so you want a little bit. You want a lot. You flip the feed up, put it down and you’re good to go.
If I flip it over, it looks like a pretty typical case: we’ve got a bunch of screws on the bottom here, so you can open it up easily. If you want to doesn’t look like any, are hidden by feet or anything like that, and then we’ve just got four little rubber bars for feet, which is totally fine. I actually usually prefer the bars instead of the single little circular nubb and feet because it just kind of adds more surface area, and while it might not be the most compact keyboard, I’ve ever dealt with it’s only 906 G, which is under a kilo.
And it’s honestly like not that heavy. So if you want to travel with it, it’s really not the end of the world. We figured out the knob. We took a look at the quick start guide in the website.
It turns out is for the different pairing modes, including three different Bluetooth devices. If you so choose it’s wired, 2.4 GHz and then three different Bluetooth layers so choose whatever you want, I’m going to switch to wired cuz, that’s what we want to do and it is working. I believe I’m happy to say that our wired only comes in at 6.9 milliseconds of latency, which is totally acceptable. Our wireless receiver, the 2.4 GHz, does almost double that going up to 12.36 milliseconds of latency, which is still acceptable, and then Bluetooth only kicks it up. A little bit to 13.6, which, depending on your range or what’s in between you and the Bluetooth or the 2.4 GHz, could be worse, could be better uh. Your mileage may vary, but it didn’t introduce a ton of added latency. So it’s totally okay to use this.
In whatever Wireless mode you might desire, let’s plug it in you know, I want to type on it, and I want to look at the RGB epomaker offers their own software on the website, and you can do whatever you want in here. Set macros change the screen, which is the thing I care about the most. So let me just like paint a little something here. Let’S put a line, yeah, that’s great! Oh! This is this is gold. We should just sell this for sure. Oh you can upload pictures. Oh, it’s doing it. Oh, my God. It actually worked.
Okay, that was actually really easy. It’S a masterpiece! It’S just random script! Dribbling uh! Let me oh, I think I found it select picture. Oh my God. Okay, we’re going to do it! The system works lyest, face [, Laughter, ]. What? Oh that’s pretty great um one thing to note: if you’re using software like this, since the pixel count is kind of predefined, you definitely want to fill it out a bit better. For example, with this one um, the picture is not the right aspect ratio, so I’ve got black bars on the top and the bottom, but that’s an easy fix when you have more time, especially if you’re really good, with Photoshop or even just paint honestly, you can Upload gifs or whatever videos you want to this thing and have it just kind of go or you can have it just on the uh start screen that it had there with a bit of information and whatnot whatever you prefer. I love it. I kind of wish.
I had this on all my keyboards now it’s a feature that I would like to keep. I promise they did sponsor this video, but I’m really not even chilling. I genuinely want a display in like all of my keyboards. Now it’s pretty cool.
As for the RGB, it is south facing RGB, so if you want North facing for more better shine through on your key caps, you’re not going to get that my only other kind of complaint is while they have a lot of Premium materials in here. The stabs are mounted to the plate, they’re not mounted to the PCB. But let’s see you know, maybe it’s: okay, that’s not the worst yeah honestly for plate mounted stabs, I’m pretty impressed. I think the space bar could use a little bit of work.
But frankly, that’s just about any keyboard. You buy. You’Ve really got to fix it yourself, but that’s okay! Let’S see how the actual typing experience is all right. You know I’ve been using tactiles for quite a while, but let’s see how I am with linear these days.
So here we go 120 words per minute: 99 % accuracy. That’S not bad! I noticed there’s a bunch of comments about how I always say I I can type faster yeah, that’s slow for you, 120 yeah. That’S really slow for you, that’s not really slow! For me. That’S not bad 120 is kind of my average. To be perfectly honest, honestly, these switches, I didn’t mind them too much, and I do like the sound of the keyboard just straight out of the box. It’S really that poron foam layer and the PC plate that are really giving you that kind of deeper, richer, creamier sound. The switches themselves feel good uh. I don’t mind them and I kind of want to get back into linear.
Now, maybe I’ll buy some new switches soon, yeah overall, the construction is decent uh. I think that plastic keyboards have certainly come a pretty long way in the last few years, especially for travel. If that’s, what you’re looking for most of the weight in this is probably coming from the battery, if I had to take a guess as for Price, It’s surprisingly reasonable. It’S on sale right now at the time of filming for $ 73, which is frankly not bad for a wireless keyboard of this caliber.
Normally it’s 86, which is still pretty good. That’S under 90 bucks USD overall, it’s pretty decent. I kind of wish the knob had a bit more utility, but if it’s the keyboard for you mostly because of this display – maybe look into some other reviews from other creators or check it out. The link below thanks so much for watching make sure to subscribe and uh have yourself a great day.
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