Tt eSports Challenger Prime Gaming Keyboard Review

Price / Where to Buy:

US – Approx.: $29.99 – Challenger Prime on Amazon

As much as mechanical keyboards have taken over the high-end gaming peripheral market with their inherent advantages, there’s still a large market for traditional membrane keyboards, but truth be told there are far more membrane keyboards with more extensive features than mechanical keyboards. Ultimately though, many folks are still happy using membrane despite the popularity of mechanical keyboards and brands like Tt eSports acknowledge this by still providing plenty of products for membrane keyboard users. Majority of these are gamers on a budget who just want a keyboard that just looks badass and have some extra features but won’t break the bank. Today we have such a keyboard, the Tt eSports Challenger Prime. Read on!

Features & Specification

• 3 Color Backlighting, with Fine Brightness Adjustment
• Stylized Gaming Design
• Macro Functions and Key Switching
• Membrane gaming keyboard with 6 dedicated macro keys and 3 profiles
• Blue, Red, and Purple lighting with Pulse lighting and adjustable brightness via dial
• 9 dedicated media keys
• Switchable WASD/ keys. WASD can function as arrow keys, and vice versa
• 3-Color Backlight
• Game mode: macro keys enabled, windows key disabled
• Normal mode: macro keys disabled, windows key as normal
• Ability to re-map all keyboard keys independently to another key.

Official product page

Packaging

The Tt eSports Challenger Prime is packaged in a colored box with a brightly stylized front design highlighting the Challenger Prime with a bluish light show. The primary features are highlighted like the tri-color backlight. Over at the back there’s plenty more info including the numerous extra keys found on the Challenger Prime. Inside the package are a discrete bundle of the keyboard and some documentation.

Closer Look

The Tt eSports Challenger Prime features a wide design which is not surprising as the keyboard integrates wrist rests into the design. This gives it a larger footprint and is definitely for larger desks. Along the left hand side are the programmable macro keys and the top are lined with the extra multimedia keys with the large knob definitely the most stand-out design elements here. You’ll also notice the holes on the base of the keyboard, these are drainage holes for the anti-spill design, just in case you spill your drink on the keyboard.

The Challenger Prime features multimedia shortcut keys with a macro profile switches on the left set of the extra keys. This gives us a total of 18 keys macro keys. Other than that polling rate and repeat rate can also be toggled via the shortcut keys making adjustments quick.

The Tt eSports Challenger Prime features tri-color lighting for the entire layout of the keyboard.

Software

The Tt eSports Challenger Prime software (download here for free) extends the functionality of the keyboard by providing an interface to program keys, change lighting and edit your key profiles. It also allows changing of the lighting effects and brightness as well as the polling rate and response time of the Challenger Prime. This is also where you can setup your custom macros.

User Experience & Conclusion

Its tough for people like me who are accustomed to mechanical keyboards to really gauge membrane keyboards like we used to be. Thankfully I still dedicate a membrane keyboard to one of our test benches so I don’t lose touch of what I used to work with. Moving on, the Tt eSports Challenger Prime offers a decent typing experience. While at first the keys do tend to be a bit resistive they do give in after some time of usage (could just be me being used to Red switches though) and ultimately become smooth once you’ve break them in. The extra keys are a welcome addition and for someone like me who love to have music while working or need to dial down the volume quickly to receive a call, the media keys are highly accessible.

For $30, there’s really nothing more you could ask for in this keyboard. Its already packed with everything you’d want on a high-end gaming keyboard but with Tt eSports just asking $30, that’s really a steal already. While we can still nitpick about the Challenger Prime, at the end of the day it is still one functional keyboard and all the extras you get are well worth the asking price.

If you’re a gamer just starting out in the gaming peripheral scene and don’t have much budget to go on, the Tt eSports Challenger Prime is a good choice.

Price / Where to Buy:

US – Approx.: $29.99 – Challenger Prime on Amazon

Tt eSports backs the Challenger Prime with a 2-year warranty. We give it our B2G Recommended Award!