Thermaltake Tt eSports Knucker Gaming Keyboard Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,430 words · ~7 min read
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this video is brought to you by the Intel Core i5 4670k unlocked processor
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add an Intel 520 series SSD to your Haswell system for unbelievable overall
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performance welcome to a very special outdoor unboxing I basically dragged a
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dining room table out into the yard with me and we are going to be checking out
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the TT Esports by thermal take knucker now I originally thought that said
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knuckler and uh so my initial impression was really a keyboard that you operate
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like this
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no probably not actually uh so the knucker is a plunger gaming keyboard
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which got me pretty excited about it and the reason for that is that plunger
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switches are a type of keyboard switch that I have never encountered before so
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they are a sort of like they're a membrane switch okay so to be clear
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these are not a mechanical switch but they have been engineered and integrated
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into this keyboard by the thermal take team in an effort to simulate the
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tactile experience of a mechanical switch with a membrane switch that is
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obviously coming in at a lower price point than what you would pay for a
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mechanical keyboard such as the Mecha G1 which is also a thermal take keyboard so
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in terms of included accessories we've got ah some replacement key caps so they
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give you WD key caps as well as your
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arrow keys that you can replace on the keyboard as well as a key cap puller all
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right coming a little baggy like that we've also got the keyboard itself as
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well as a thermal take tte Esports battle dragon sticker and then a manual
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which hopefully you don't need for a keyboard because I'm going to tell you
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everything you need to know about the knucker in this particular video it has
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a couple of unique features okay so there's the plunger switches which are
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kind of like what they're saying and I haven't tried them yet I haven't touched
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this keyboard yet what they're saying is that it's a lighter mechanical switch
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feeling at a lower cost it's only 15
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million key press is for the total sort
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of rated endurance compared to 50 million for a Cherry MX switch but they
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should be lighter and therefore more comfortable for some people now there's
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a couple other unique things check out these s buttons here those actually
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change the repeat rate of the keys so
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you can go anywhere from 1X to 8X by holding function S1 S2 S3 S4 this looks
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like a feature that was actually built specifically for one of their sponsored
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Gamers which is very cool because a lot of companies talk about how they work
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with sponsored Gamers to design their peripherals but a lot of the time it
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really feels like the company designed the peripheral and then went in search
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for gamers to put their stamp on it um not going to name any names of course so
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plunger switch offers response feeling like a mechanical switch enhanced anti-
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ghosting function for up to 12 keys with USB and 16 keys with PS2 oh yeah and
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that uh repeat rate changer only works with PS2 um plunger switch enables excellent
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gaming elasticity with life expect up to 15 million keystrokes so let's have a
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look at this they also say they're quieter than mechanical
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switches they sound about like blacks to me so in terms of the audible level here
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I want you guys to I'll get my mic in nice and
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close Okay so they sound about like a Cherry MX black which is a very very
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quiet mechanical key switch by comparison s sort of compared to all the
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other ones maybe even closer to Reds uh the other sort of unique feature is
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function F12 illuminates the battle dragon down here and other than that
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it's a fairly standard keyboard layout this right here is a cardinal sin though
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for me um long shift Keys long enter keys and long backspace keys are a
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requirement for uh for for getting sort of the Linus seal of approval because I
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have small hands and here if you actually we're going to switch places I
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think this is known as crossing the axis am I am I right be roll um so what
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happens for me is when I'm on the home row here if I reach here I you can
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already tell from The Limited flexibility in my hands I can barely reach this let alone this like my hand
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will move from the home row see that that L I'm I'm not able to keep my
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finger on there so that's that's a problem for me uh but it might not be a
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problem for you especially if you have larger hands than I do and let's get
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impressions of the sort of the back of the keyboard you got your little razors
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here this is good I love it when manufacturers include this where you've got a little rubber piece here along
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with the rubber piece here so it actually doesn't slide even when you
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elevate it a little bit the wrist rest is non- removable on this keyboard and
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that's probably at least partly due to the fact that this is illuminated and
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let's get some impressions of the actual Keys here
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so they do feel like they have a tactile
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bump they definitely do are they mechanical key switches are they
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replacement for mechanical key switches see you've probably never seen anything quite like this
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before no they rebound very quickly though which is nice um a feature of
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membrane keys so that that's something that we kind of expect to see they have
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a very it feels like a shorter no maybe not a shorter travel hard to say but
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they have very small key caps and if I had to complain about something on the
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keyboard then it would be that the key caps have a bit of a wobble to them you
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see that so while the actual plunging of
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the key switch feels more like a mechanical usually a Cherry MX keyboard
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tends to have uh tends to have a bit of a tighter F on the key caps can you see
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that be usually tends to have a tighter fit on the key caps because right now it
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feels a little bit unsteady like if I press on one corner of that key there's
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more resistance whereas if I press it directly then there's less
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resistance that said I don't think this
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would slow down my whop my typing in any
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way so that's not really going to be points off actually it feels very
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natural to type on uh they're using a unique cyan print on the key caps
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themselves so it's doesn't have white printing on it it has kind of a a blue
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color printing on it that looks quite unique and I guess it's probably
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conclusion time at this point so what is the knucker it's a very unique
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keyboard it's definitely better than
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other mechanical keyboards from what I've felt in my limited time with it I
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can already tell you guys there's no question there it is closer to the
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mechanical experience it doesn't offer the same durability and it doesn't have
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the same kind of build quality that you'd get with something like Mecha G1
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but it is better than other mechanical keyboard so it's kind of like how you
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know the Logitech g15 gen 1 holds a special place in many gamers Hearts
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because even though it was a mechanical keyboard it was A Cut Above mechanical
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keyboard compared to the other stuff out there so I guess that makes them kind of
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similar better membrane keyboards is this a good thing yeah probably because
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not everyone's going to be able to drop 80 bucks on an entry-level mechanical
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keyboard $80 to $100 some people are just going to stick with membrane so
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we'd rather they at least have a better membrane keyboard thanks for checking
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