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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 19, 2022
I'm coming from a serious typist point of view, not a keyboard enthusiast. The only way you're going to catch me hitting anything lower than 80 wpm at 100% is at the bottom of a bottle. I don't believe in factoring price into a review, because sales come and go, but I did pick this up for $40. You can use any keyboard for gaming because I doubt anyone has gotten a competitive advantage between keyboards because they could strafe 4.7ms faster.
Coming from other gamer marketed keyboards like the SteelSeries apex pro (probably the worst analogue keyboard) or the Corsair k100 (I rather have any other analogue) they're linear and I like some response when I'm typing light and working. It seems like the only other premium option would be the A4tech, but it's far at 1.5mm. I ordered the Z20 optical mechanical too and I'll probably just gift it to someone because I like this short throw so much. All of the Mac chiclet keyboards have an issue where you can get a response -before- the actuation registers. These switches give a response -after- the actuation registers. I'm not really trying to justify anything, I'm sure what I've spent researching keyboards was, like most hobbies, a waste of time and resources.
I think this Z15 can almost realistically expect to command the MSRP they want. I'd definitely spring full price for a tactile 1.1mm optical on the Z20, but I'd recommend kailh switches for anyone looking to minmax their office duty. You care a lot less about bottoming out when gaming but bottoming out 10,000 lines per day is as fatiguing as hangboarding for 5 minutes. I think these would have sold like hotcakes at MSRP if they came with the tactile copper switches.
The actual chassis is super premium. Heavy with a pretty brushed top plate and some slick beveled edges. Dual finish on the bottom mold. They're north facing LEDs, but they're very bright. A lot of the other keycaps are much less milky and would show better. The software might be a little more crashy than other brands and the RGB layering is just bad, but if colors and effects are that important to you then you should be using third party software like OpenRGB anyways. RGB color accuracy is poor. The magnetic wrist rest has 0 padding, but a lot of other wrist rests that come with much more expensive keyboards are just as bad.
Coming from other gamer marketed keyboards like the SteelSeries apex pro (probably the worst analogue keyboard) or the Corsair k100 (I rather have any other analogue) they're linear and I like some response when I'm typing light and working. It seems like the only other premium option would be the A4tech, but it's far at 1.5mm. I ordered the Z20 optical mechanical too and I'll probably just gift it to someone because I like this short throw so much. All of the Mac chiclet keyboards have an issue where you can get a response -before- the actuation registers. These switches give a response -after- the actuation registers. I'm not really trying to justify anything, I'm sure what I've spent researching keyboards was, like most hobbies, a waste of time and resources.
I think this Z15 can almost realistically expect to command the MSRP they want. I'd definitely spring full price for a tactile 1.1mm optical on the Z20, but I'd recommend kailh switches for anyone looking to minmax their office duty. You care a lot less about bottoming out when gaming but bottoming out 10,000 lines per day is as fatiguing as hangboarding for 5 minutes. I think these would have sold like hotcakes at MSRP if they came with the tactile copper switches.
The actual chassis is super premium. Heavy with a pretty brushed top plate and some slick beveled edges. Dual finish on the bottom mold. They're north facing LEDs, but they're very bright. A lot of the other keycaps are much less milky and would show better. The software might be a little more crashy than other brands and the RGB layering is just bad, but if colors and effects are that important to you then you should be using third party software like OpenRGB anyways. RGB color accuracy is poor. The magnetic wrist rest has 0 padding, but a lot of other wrist rests that come with much more expensive keyboards are just as bad.
