WEBVTT

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You know I like displays and you know I like keyboards. So what if they took a display

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and put it inside the keyboard? So we've got the EpoMaker Shadow X

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and they sponsored this video so I could take a look at their keyboard and tell you what I think.

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Wow, there it is. It's a 70% hot swappable board, gasket mounted,

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pour on foam, PC plate, and this one's got bluebird switches.

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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,

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which is always great. I like to see the dual ones, not just the switch puller,

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which makes sense because it's hot swap. So you can take these switches out if you don't like the ones that come with the board

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and put whatever you do wanna put in. Comes with a decent little sleeved cable,

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USB-A to C. Then we've got extra switches and extra yellow keycaps.

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So actually I think the yellow and gray could work pretty well.

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These are extra switches. Maybe they're the bluebirds, they are blue.

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The top is like a sea foam green and then we've got a blue on the bottom housing.

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Let's do a little bit of investigation just to see if these are the same thing

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that we're dealing with here. They are, okay, so they're all bluebird switches.

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They're linear switches, not super lighter heavy, they're about a 47 grand actuation force.

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It's got a little screen here that we'll try later on.

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And then aside from that, it's kind of a compact size. My only real problem is they say it's designed

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for enthusiasts and professionals and it does look really nice. I really would like a little bit more space shaved off.

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These outer bezels are kind of long. It's really not the end of the world,

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but it's not the tiniest keyboard in the world.

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Now, considering it's wireless, we do have a battery in here and it does 3000 milliamp hours, which is okay.

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Definitely not the highest battery I've ever seen, but it's not tiny either.

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It's reasonably comfortable to type on

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with not an egregious typing angle or anything like that.

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Also, if you don't like the typing angle, it has one of my favorite things, two stage feet.

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So you want a little bit, you want a lot,

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flip the feet up, put it down, and you're good to go. If I flip it over, it looks like a pretty typical case.

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We've got a bunch of screws on the bottom here so you can open it up easily.

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If you want to, it doesn't look like any are hidden by feet or anything like that.

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And then we've just got four little rubber bars for feet,

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which is totally fine. I actually usually prefer the bars instead of the single little circular nubbin feet

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because it just kind of adds more surface area. And while it might not be

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the most compact keyboard I've ever dealt with, it's only 906 grams, which is under a kilo.

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And it's honestly like not that heavy. So if you want to travel with it,

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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.

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It turns out it's for the different pairing modes, including three different Bluetooth devices

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if you so choose. It's wired 2.4 gigahertz

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and then three different Bluetooth layers. So choose whatever you want.

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I'm going to switch to wired because that's what we want to do. And it is working, I believe.

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I'm happy to say that our wired only comes in

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at 6.9 milliseconds of latency, which is totally acceptable.

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Our wireless receiver, the 2.4 gigahertz, does almost double that going up to 12.36 milliseconds

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of latency, which is still acceptable. And then Bluetooth only kicks it up a little bit to 13.6,

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which depending on your range or what's in between you and the Bluetooth

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or the 2.4 gigahertz could be worse, could be better.

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Your mileage may vary, but it didn't introduce a ton of added latency.

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So it's totally okay to use this in whatever wireless mode you might desire.

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Let's plug it in. You know, I want to type on it and I want to look at the RGB.

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EpoMaker offers their own software on the website

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and you can do whatever you want in here. Set macros, change the screen,

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which is the thing I care about the most. So let me just like paint a little something here

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and let's put a line. Yeah, that's great. Oh, this is gold.

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We should just sell this for sure. Oh, you can upload pictures.

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Oh, it's doing it. Oh my God, it actually worked. Okay, that was actually really easy.

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It's a masterpiece. It's just random scribbling.

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Let me, oh, I think I found it. Select picture. Oh my God.

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Okay, we're going to do it. The system works Linus face. What?

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That's pretty great.

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One thing to note, if you're using software like this, since the pixel count is kind of predefined,

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you definitely want to fill it out a bit better. For example, with this one,

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the picture is not the right aspect ratio. So I've got black bars on the top and the bottom,

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but that's an easy fix when you have more time, especially if you're really good with Photoshop

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or even just paint, honestly, you can upload GIFs or whatever videos you want

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to this thing and have it just kind of go, or you can have it just on the start screen

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that it had there with a bit of information and whatnot, whatever you prefer.

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I love it. I kind of wish I had this on all my keyboards now.

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It's a feature that I would like to keep. I promise they did sponsor this video,

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but I'm really not even chilling. I genuinely want a display in like all of my keyboards now.

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It's pretty cool. As for the RGB, it is south-facing RGB.

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So if you want north-facing for more better shine through on your keycaps,

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you're not gonna get that. My only other kind of complaint is while they have a lot of premium materials in here,

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the stabs are mounted to the plate.

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They're not mounted to the PCB, but let's see, you know, maybe it's okay.

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That's not the worst.

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Yeah, honestly, for plate mounted stabs,

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I'm pretty impressed. I think the spacebar could use a little bit of work, but frankly, that's just about any keyboard you buy.

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You've really gotta fix it yourself, but that's okay. Let's see how the actual typing experience is.

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All right, you know, I've been using tactile for quite a while, but let's see how I am with linear as these days.

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So here we go.

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120 words per minute, 99% accuracy.

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That's not bad. I noticed there's a bunch of comments about how I always say I can type faster.

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Yeah, that's slow for you. 120? Yeah, that's really slow for you.

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That's not really slow for me. That's not bad. 120 is kind of my average, to be perfectly honest.

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Honestly, these switches, I didn't mind them too much, and I do like the sound of the keyboard

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just straight out of the box. It's really that pour-on foam layer,

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and the PC plate that are really giving you that kind of deeper, richer, creamier sound.

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The switches themselves feel good. I don't mind them,

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and I kind of want to get back into linears now. Maybe I'll buy some new switches soon.

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But yeah, overall, the construction is decent.

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I think that plastic keyboards have certainly come a pretty long way in the last few years,

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especially for travel, if that's what you're looking for. Most of the weight in this is probably coming from the battery

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if I had to take a guess. As for price, it's surprisingly reasonable.

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It's on sale right now at the time of filming for $73,

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which is frankly not bad for a wireless keyboard of this caliber.

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Normally it's 86, which is still pretty good.

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That's under 90 bucks, USD. Overall, it's pretty decent.

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I kind of wish the knob had a bit more utility, but if it's the keyboard for you,

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mostly because of this display, maybe look into some other reviews from other creators,

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or check it out at the link below. Thanks so much for watching.

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Make sure to subscribe and have yourself a great day.