Price / Where to Buy:
US – Approx.: $119 – Poseidon Z RGB on Amazon
RGB switches for keyboards have been around for over a year now and while it is the current trend amongst brands, prices have remained quite steep due to the lack of competition. With gamers limited to either the original Cherry MX offerings from Corsair or those from Razer, both brands have sat on top of the market for a good length of time over the past year. While Razer has had plenty of success with its own offering packing Kailh switches, similar brands have failed to reach the same level of popularity. That’s changing lately with Tt eSports heavily pushing their Poseidon line of mechanical keyboards, all of which are equipped with Kailh switches. Tt eSports has just recently announced the availability of their new RGB mechanical keyboard and that’s what we have for review today: the Tt eSports Poseidon Z RGB mechanical gaming keyboard. Let’s take a closer look, read on!
Specification
COLOR | BLACK |
NO. OF MACRO KEYS | NORMAL MODE : NO GAME MODE : FULL KEY 102 (BESIDES FN AND WIN KEY) TOTAL 510 MACRO SETS |
NO. OF GAME PROFILES | 5(EACH CONTAIN NORMAL AND GAME MODE) |
WEIGHT | 995 GRAMS |
DIMENSION | 440 X 133 X 37 MM |
INTERFACE | USB |
MEMBRANE, MECHANICAL, PLUNGER | MECHANICAL |
ANTI-GHOSTING KEYS | FULL ANTI-GHOSTING |
ON-BOARD MEMORY SIZE | 512KB |
POLLING RATE | 1000 HZ |
BACK-LIGHT | RGB 16.8MILLION COLOR |
WRIST REST | NO |
SMART CABLE MANAGEMENT | YES / 3 WAYS |
MULTIMEDIA KEYS | 7 |
KEYSTROKE LIFECYCLE | 50 MILLION |
CABLE LENGTH | 1.8M |
OTHER FEATURES | ADJUSTABLE BRIGHTNESS |
GRAPHICAL UI | YES |
Closer Look
Packaging seems to have taken a different direction for Tt eSports as the Poseidon Z RGB now employs are more simple yet stylish packaging design in their boxes. Instead of the flashy lightning and diamond plate of the Poseidon Z, the Poseidon Z RGB has a lot of straight lines and evenly spaced text in its packaging. In my opinion, this gives it a more mature feel while still maintaining the stylishness of the RGB focus of this product.
The internal of the box is the same as previous ones with the Poseidon Z RGB wrapped in bubble wrap for cushion during transit.
Package bundle is simple: the keyboard, a warranty policy sheet and a guide booklet. Curiously, Tt eSports didn’t include the extra red keycaps included in the other Poseidon products. Possibly to keep the lighting effect uniform.
The Poseidon Z RGB is a full-layout keyboard retaining the standard form of keyboards we’ve come to know. There isn’t really much to talk about here.
The Poseidon Z RGB retains the underneath to reposition the cable to suit your desk. It doesn’t have one going to the front though or sides though. Five rubber feet line the bottom with the stands in their expected positions. Looking closely we can see a bit of space to easily lift up the stands, nothing special but good attention to detail from Tt eSports.
Lights on!
Here we have the keyboard with the stock lighting option which is fully lit with RGB color set for the key lighting layout. You can fully customize this via the software available for download at Tt eSports website.
The baseplate is sandblaster metallic grey. It doesn’t show through the keys and acts more as a reflective surface to maximize the lighting effect. From this image you can also see the Kailh switches, we have the blue switches for our samples and the Poseidon Z RGB is available in both brown (silent) and blue (audible) switches both with tactile feedback.
Lighting Effects
Wave
Ripple
Reactive
Arrow
Here are the four major LED effects available for the Poseidon Z RGB, these are the ones showcasing the LED capabilities of the keyboard with the other effects being Fully Lit (color customizable), Pulse and Spectrum Running which cycles the colors. While there’s no advanced interface to program your own RGB effects, we’re still hoping Tt eSports implements such a feature so right now the only full layout LED RGB effect we can get is the Wave and Ripple effect.
User Experience & Conclusion
Altogether, the Poseidon Z RGB is exactly like its Poseidon Z brother. From construction, looks and feel, it is the same keyboard. What differentiates the two is the RGB lighting capabilities which is pretty much a highly coveted features amongst peripherals these days and while we really can’t put a value on how important RGB lighting is, it is enough for some people to fork over a hefty sum to get. Tt eSports is breaking the mold by offering the Poseidon Z RGB at an attractive price point: $119 or Php4750 price in the Philippines. Let’s break down it further before we give our verdict:
Build Quality. We’ve mentioned before in many of our reviews that Kailh switches don’t really deserve all the bad rap their getting just because of their country of origin. We’ve had plenty of Kailh switches here in the labs and have kept it in mind to note the difference in terms longevity between our Cherry MX and Kailh products. While we’ve had the misfortune of having a Black Widow Ultimate (died after 2 years, dead S and M4 key) and a Roccat Ryos Mk Pro (3 weeks only, various dead keys) our Kailh-equipped Tesoro keyboards are still functional since our first one almost 2 years ago. While usage may vary, my other editor NielzX who handles the Tesoro reviews has used his Kailhs as frequently as I have so we can really attest that the Cherry versus Kailh quality war is overdone especially with Razer with pretty much giving Kailh a higher standard to work with. In Tt eSports case, they’ve paid close attention to the design of the switches handing them their own Certified Mechanical Switch stamp and with an incredibly lengthy 5-year warranty, making these keyboards a really attractive offer for those that aren’t too picky with the keyboard design and just one an RGB-LED lit mechanical keyboard.
Functionality. The Tt eSports Poseidon Z RGB is powered off a single USB port and is compatible with any system as it works without drivers. Media keys and other shortcuts extend the functionality of the Poseidon Z RGB. Along with the full-key Macro recording, the Poseidon RGB has an extensive feature set hidden under its traditional looks. While its not as accessible as some of the gaming keyboards out there, veteran macro users would have no problem adjusting to the extra-key less method of macro recording. Now we head to the lighting capabilities: sadly we’re quite a bit disappointed. We expected Tt eSports to at least compete via programmable lighting effects but sadly that isn’t available right now. While there is no word if Tt eSports is working on an SDK for 3rd-party LED effects, its an eventuality for them either via product refresh or a driver update if the current hardware is capable of it. Right now, the user is limited to a few animations that showcase the full RGB lighting capabilities of the Poseidon Z RGB and for the price we feel that’s good enough but we’re still hoping for that SDK.
Bundle. Tt eSports is obviously keeping costs down so this is a straight-up bundle. No nothing and for the price, it’s justified.
Value. And it all comes down to this: at $119 or Php 4750, the Poseidon Z RGB is the most affordable, full-layout RGB LED-lit keyboard in the market right now. Street prices go as low as $99 making it a really attractive offer. In comparison, the Tesoro Excalibur Spectrum was released at $139, the BlackWidow Chroma at $169 and Vengeance K70 RGB at $199. Many will argue about quality and value but that all comes down to user-preference, and in this case Tt eSports is obviously targeting the budget-conscious gamer who still crave for that hint of RGB in their desk.
All in all, its an easy choice to make: if you’re looking for a highly-variable LED lighting on your keyboard but don’t care about lighting effects, the Tt eSports Poseidon Z RGB is the most economical option out right now. Those concerned about quality will feel more at ease knowing these keyboards are backed by a significant 5-year warranty. As for experience, the overall typing experience is the same. While people’s tastes will vary, we are more than convinced that Kailh offer the same experience as their German counterparts.
While its hard to fault the Tt eSports Poseidon Z RGB because of its great value offering, its got a lot of room to improve and most of it centered around two things: its software interface and LED effect functionality. We’ve noted many times over how unpolished Tt eSports’ software is many years ago and it has not improved much after almost 5 years. We highly recommend hiring a UX guy to offer a better interface for the configuration software. As for the LED effects, this can go two ways as we’ve mentioned with either a refresh or should the hardware allow it, a firmware update. This is up to Tt eSports’ R&D department and we really hope they do so. Hopefully its the latter so people who bought this don’t feel shafted if a refresh comes out.
In conclusion, the Tt eSports is an easy purchase if you fall in the category of “you want a full-layout mechanical keyboard that’s below $120 that can change LED colors and don’t need extra keys, but still want some extra functionalities” then the Tt eSports Poseidon Z RGB mechanical keyboard is for you.
Available in Kailh Blue and Brown switches, Tt eSports backs the Poisedon Z RGB mechanical keyboard with a lengthy 5-year warranty. We give it our B2G Silver Award and B2G Value Award!