EVGA Z20 Keyboard is coming for Corsair & Razer's throats!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys i'm random frank p and today we're gonna be checking out the brand new evga z20 optical gaming keyboard that is coming from corsair and razer's throats and as evga's first like gaming keyboard release it's very very impressive a lot of great stuff going on here so today we'll go through it all pros and cons because yes even though it's packed with some cool stuff there's still some downsides talk about my experience do a sound test all that stuff in case you're interested in picking up the new evga z20 now first up retails will set you back 175 dollars which is still more affordable than its razer and corsair counterparts but this can be bought for only 88 dollars if you're an edj elite member which i mean is a crazy good price for this checking it out with its full-size layout it does have that gamer look to it with full rgb a brushed aluminum top plate and those angular edges to it but visually yeah it's on par with what you see from like the corsair k95 and their k100 now there's a lot of cool features going on here with the z20 so i can hit you with them right out of the gate for a quick little overview we have dedicated multimedia keys and a built-in volume dial on the top right 5 dedicated macro keys on the left side of the keyboard along with a separate gaming mode key up top a time-of-flight sensor which is pretty much like a proximity sensor for some extra added security dual rgb light bars on both sides of the keyboard for some underglow new linear optical switches known as the light strike lk from bloody these are smooth to type and game on also lightning fast a detachable magnetic wrist rest a usb passthrough on the back side as well as a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack on the left side of the keyboard something i haven't seen in a few years we also have things like two different flip out feet on the back side to elevate it to different heights per key rgb lighting and a 4 000 hertz pulling rate which versus a traditional mechanical keyboard which is only around a thousand this four times faster more responsive you couple that with the optical switches and it's just going to feel lightening fast when you're typing your gaming now unfortunately the cable here is non-removable and uh definitely pretty thick but again plus you factor in things like the usb pass-through headphone jack uh the breakout cable here is going to result in three different cables so if you're going to want to use all these three then you're gonna have to power all these you know accordingly taking a closer look the five macro keys are obviously all programmable in addition to the entire keyboard that's all done with their software we'll take a peek at a little bit but macros as i say always clutch and those dedicated media keys while it's become more common to have these nowadays it's nice we do have them here and unlike its competitors the media keys themselves are tactile and square so in terms of aesthetics it visually matches the look of all the keycaps so it's all uniform however keycaps here are unfortunately that standard sort of high shine abs plastic with that aggressive gamer font which i never understood why companies opt to do that like we get it it's a gaming keyboard but the font doesn't have to listen to afi and we're 14 bracelets on each arm and with abs that means upkeep here is going to require more attention and wiping down over time since the finish is going to show you know more fingerprints and oils from your hands the wise keys and the five macro keys do get that additional sort of shine through strip and some ribbed texturing on the bottom half which i don't mind otherwise the materials to the keycaps themselves are smooth to the touch also worth noting the shine through characters are only on the top side of the key so for example the arrow keys have the brightness in the rgb effect print they're not going to be fully illuminated on the bottom and that also applies to the nine profile switching character prints on keys one through nine again it's minor and the rgb is pretty bright overall it's just not going to shine completely even before we move on let's chat about that time of flight sensor and personally i haven't seen a proximity sensor integrated into a keyboard like this before so i can definitely appreciate the innovation from evga pretty much this just allows you to do things like put the pc to sleep or unlock the pc as you approach and sit in front of it or if you're walking away from your desktop you can lock the pc or put the pc to sleep that kind of thing so a cool idea you know again i can appreciate the innovation for sure and i'm happy to see evga take a chance on a new feature like this so big thumbs up for that um i do wish it had more features integrated into it though with the time of flight sensor like for example maybe recognizing hand gestures or something but i'll show you more how to you know set it all up and stuff in the software in just a little bit and then we'll dive into what most people care about the most when it comes to a keyboard is the switches evga is using the light strike opticals and in my unit i went with the grey linears this is also available in the clicky option as well for those who want to annoy your friends over discord but they're a light switch at just 45 grams to actuate at just 1.5 millimeters and have a total travel distance of 3 millimeters to bottom out they do feel smooth and with its box construction around the stem itself i see overall during use i didn't notice you know much wobble in fact compared to the razer optic mechanicals these were super stoic and they did have slight less wobble than the stamina corsair k100 alright so now we'll do a full sound test of these light strike optical linear switches all right so two things i want to point out real quick first typically with like a keyboard constructed like this with a mix of like plastics and the brushed aluminum stuff you would usually hear some sort of high pitched resonance or pinging but you really don't have that here the sound overall is pretty good um second those stabilizers they need some work for sure they're not the loosest they're not the most rattly stabilizers i've heard but underneath it's just not doing a good enough job at keeping the stabilizer keys in place uh these could definitely use some tlc on the back end here all right so before we wrap it up with my pros and cons and overall thoughts about the z20 we'll head back to the pc i'll do a demo for you guys of the software so you can check it all out as well as some of the rgb lighting effects and stuff okay so this is their evga unleash rgb software and as you can see it looks kind of dated but it's also pretty straightforward at the same time with your keyboard right here only a few tabs so it's all just laid out right in front of you and the first one is you time a flight tab where you can control your little proximity sensor this is where you can adjust things like what happens when you're approaching the keyboard and what you're leaving and also change the distance that it's reading from 120 centimeters to just 10 centimeters so if you're approaching the keyboard you can change it to do things like wake up the pc or unlock the keyboard because you can also have the keyboard lock you can have it go dark turn off all the lighting or you can have it just go to sleep and also do things like change the time in which it does that after you walk away or approach the keyboard general settings is pretty much for like configuring what the game mode button does in terms of talking about like you know what you can actually do for the windows key set that to be something else change some character uh repeat speeds you just leave most of this stock and then your rgb tab for all the rgb lighting and there's not too much effects what's interesting is they break it up into pretty much as regular effects but also time-of-flight effects so there's a few effects that will actually sort of work with that and change speeds depending on how close you are to the keyboard so for the main stuff you can obviously go through um cycle between them change things like direction for some of the lighting effects the brightness the speed that kind of stuff and it's something we haven't seen before really it's your pretty standard rgb lighting effects that we've seen on pretty much every other keyboard but i did think the slight integration with the time of flight center was cool so again you can see things like as i get closer you sort of like explodes out a bit faster also with the light bar on the left and right side as i'm getting closer to the keyboard that goes faster as well and it all shows real time the effect on the keyboard itself in the little graphic here it's pretty cool key assignment is pretty much just changing whatever you want a key to b so you can go through and reprogram every single key on here minus the obviously the game mode key and the windows keys as they call it here but yeah any key can be any sort of primary or secondary function you want and then macro editor is for creating your macros for a certain key you can go through and do that for any key as well you also have nine different profiles set by key one through key nine and each of those you can have different rgb effects for different macros for all in nine different profiles okay so like i said in the beginning evga is really coming for i think razer and corsair's throats because they're taking a lot of those popular features and adding it to this big time kind of first release for evga in the mainstream kind of gaming keyboard market and what we have here is really really impressive i know for me my time using it i am more used to the optical switches by now after testing you know a lot of different keyboards over the years especially when it comes to linear switches so getting used to the actual like you know bottoming out and actuating at 1.5 millimeters on the overall lighter switch really wasn't too bad it felt fine gaming all responsive it's it's tough to say that i 100 could differentiate that 4000 hertz pulling versus just a faster optical linear switch you know i can't tell which of the two i was noticing being more responsive doesn't matter they're working together and it's still just a very quick keyboard that's what you want when you're gaming that quick response there's really no like issues i can think of with the keyboard itself but i will say it's nice we have the included detachable wrist rest but it is not uh the thickest or most comfy wrist dress that is like the material is fine it feels soft but there's just like no padding or cushioning in the middle itself like when i put my wrist on these i could feel the plastic underneath the wrist rest if you just squeeze it like your finger goes right through so there should be a little bit more padding i feel to make the wrist rest more comfortable so quick wrap up to end the video with one final thought that might sell this for a lot of people um again for the pros macros dedicated media keys tons of rgb lighting effects and the light bar you know optical switches 4000 hertz pulling rate all the usb pass-throughs time-of-flight sensor it's a very feature-rich keyboard in terms of cons again not the biggest fan of the keycaps in terms of the them being prone to that you know gloss and stuff over time and the font really isn't the best and uh stabilizers are gonna need some work probably on your end if you get this in i would take time to maybe try to lube them or just do something to make them better now i said when i first started this video off this keyboard is 175 unless you're an evga elite member which is then just 88 that is a huge difference and for all the features this has for just 88 that is an absolutely insane deal so you're probably wondering how do i become an evga elite member and i looked it up it seems pretty you know straightforward if you've purchased one of their recent graphics cards you register it you can become a member save some money or if you purchase multiple hardware in the last year or so i don't remember you can look all up yourself but they give you a lot of different ways to enter the membership program and it seems like it's you know pretty easy and straightforward so you could very easily if you have other evga products save a big chunk of money and get the z20 for just 88 bucks that's a crazy good deal i think in the end that would definitely make this the winner over like the k100 or the huntsman elite and stuff like that because while while razer and corsair have been in the gaming keyboard game a lot longer it's still just very impressive to see evga come out with so many different features built into a keyboard like this for 175 which isn't too bad of a price so cheaper than corsair and razer but 88 bucks damn for the cons i mentioned about it that could very easily be overlooked for 88 bucks so very very impressed overall the z20 good good stuff from evga here very happy to see what they do in the future as well like if this is their first keyboard where are they gonna be in two three years from now what's that next gaming keyboard going to look like so about to wrap it up guys hope you enjoyed my review of the evga z20 if you did give this video a big thumbs up and show your support feel free to follow me on twitter at randomfrankp at last if you haven't already hit that subscribe button hope you all enjoyed have a good daywhat's up guys i'm random frank p and today we're gonna be checking out the brand new evga z20 optical gaming keyboard that is coming from corsair and razer's throats and as evga's first like gaming keyboard release it's very very impressive a lot of great stuff going on here so today we'll go through it all pros and cons because yes even though it's packed with some cool stuff there's still some downsides talk about my experience do a sound test all that stuff in case you're interested in picking up the new evga z20 now first up retails will set you back 175 dollars which is still more affordable than its razer and corsair counterparts but this can be bought for only 88 dollars if you're an edj elite member which i mean is a crazy good price for this checking it out with its full-size layout it does have that gamer look to it with full rgb a brushed aluminum top plate and those angular edges to it but visually yeah it's on par with what you see from like the corsair k95 and their k100 now there's a lot of cool features going on here with the z20 so i can hit you with them right out of the gate for a quick little overview we have dedicated multimedia keys and a built-in volume dial on the top right 5 dedicated macro keys on the left side of the keyboard along with a separate gaming mode key up top a time-of-flight sensor which is pretty much like a proximity sensor for some extra added security dual rgb light bars on both sides of the keyboard for some underglow new linear optical switches known as the light strike lk from bloody these are smooth to type and game on also lightning fast a detachable magnetic wrist rest a usb passthrough on the back side as well as a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack on the left side of the keyboard something i haven't seen in a few years we also have things like two different flip out feet on the back side to elevate it to different heights per key rgb lighting and a 4 000 hertz pulling rate which versus a traditional mechanical keyboard which is only around a thousand this four times faster more responsive you couple that with the optical switches and it's just going to feel lightening fast when you're typing your gaming now unfortunately the cable here is non-removable and uh definitely pretty thick but again plus you factor in things like the usb pass-through headphone jack uh the breakout cable here is going to result in three different cables so if you're going to want to use all these three then you're gonna have to power all these you know accordingly taking a closer look the five macro keys are obviously all programmable in addition to the entire keyboard that's all done with their software we'll take a peek at a little bit but macros as i say always clutch and those dedicated media keys while it's become more common to have these nowadays it's nice we do have them here and unlike its competitors the media keys themselves are tactile and square so in terms of aesthetics it visually matches the look of all the keycaps so it's all uniform however keycaps here are unfortunately that standard sort of high shine abs plastic with that aggressive gamer font which i never understood why companies opt to do that like we get it it's a gaming keyboard but the font doesn't have to listen to afi and we're 14 bracelets on each arm and with abs that means upkeep here is going to require more attention and wiping down over time since the finish is going to show you know more fingerprints and oils from your hands the wise keys and the five macro keys do get that additional sort of shine through strip and some ribbed texturing on the bottom half which i don't mind otherwise the materials to the keycaps themselves are smooth to the touch also worth noting the shine through characters are only on the top side of the key so for example the arrow keys have the brightness in the rgb effect print they're not going to be fully illuminated on the bottom and that also applies to the nine profile switching character prints on keys one through nine again it's minor and the rgb is pretty bright overall it's just not going to shine completely even before we move on let's chat about that time of flight sensor and personally i haven't seen a proximity sensor integrated into a keyboard like this before so i can definitely appreciate the innovation from evga pretty much this just allows you to do things like put the pc to sleep or unlock the pc as you approach and sit in front of it or if you're walking away from your desktop you can lock the pc or put the pc to sleep that kind of thing so a cool idea you know again i can appreciate the innovation for sure and i'm happy to see evga take a chance on a new feature like this so big thumbs up for that um i do wish it had more features integrated into it though with the time of flight sensor like for example maybe recognizing hand gestures or something but i'll show you more how to you know set it all up and stuff in the software in just a little bit and then we'll dive into what most people care about the most when it comes to a keyboard is the switches evga is using the light strike opticals and in my unit i went with the grey linears this is also available in the clicky option as well for those who want to annoy your friends over discord but they're a light switch at just 45 grams to actuate at just 1.5 millimeters and have a total travel distance of 3 millimeters to bottom out they do feel smooth and with its box construction around the stem itself i see overall during use i didn't notice you know much wobble in fact compared to the razer optic mechanicals these were super stoic and they did have slight less wobble than the stamina corsair k100 alright so now we'll do a full sound test of these light strike optical linear switches all right so two things i want to point out real quick first typically with like a keyboard constructed like this with a mix of like plastics and the brushed aluminum stuff you would usually hear some sort of high pitched resonance or pinging but you really don't have that here the sound overall is pretty good um second those stabilizers they need some work for sure they're not the loosest they're not the most rattly stabilizers i've heard but underneath it's just not doing a good enough job at keeping the stabilizer keys in place uh these could definitely use some tlc on the back end here all right so before we wrap it up with my pros and cons and overall thoughts about the z20 we'll head back to the pc i'll do a demo for you guys of the software so you can check it all out as well as some of the rgb lighting effects and stuff okay so this is their evga unleash rgb software and as you can see it looks kind of dated but it's also pretty straightforward at the same time with your keyboard right here only a few tabs so it's all just laid out right in front of you and the first one is you time a flight tab where you can control your little proximity sensor this is where you can adjust things like what happens when you're approaching the keyboard and what you're leaving and also change the distance that it's reading from 120 centimeters to just 10 centimeters so if you're approaching the keyboard you can change it to do things like wake up the pc or unlock the keyboard because you can also have the keyboard lock you can have it go dark turn off all the lighting or you can have it just go to sleep and also do things like change the time in which it does that after you walk away or approach the keyboard general settings is pretty much for like configuring what the game mode button does in terms of talking about like you know what you can actually do for the windows key set that to be something else change some character uh repeat speeds you just leave most of this stock and then your rgb tab for all the rgb lighting and there's not too much effects what's interesting is they break it up into pretty much as regular effects but also time-of-flight effects so there's a few effects that will actually sort of work with that and change speeds depending on how close you are to the keyboard so for the main stuff you can obviously go through um cycle between them change things like direction for some of the lighting effects the brightness the speed that kind of stuff and it's something we haven't seen before really it's your pretty standard rgb lighting effects that we've seen on pretty much every other keyboard but i did think the slight integration with the time of flight center was cool so again you can see things like as i get closer you sort of like explodes out a bit faster also with the light bar on the left and right side as i'm getting closer to the keyboard that goes faster as well and it all shows real time the effect on the keyboard itself in the little graphic here it's pretty cool key assignment is pretty much just changing whatever you want a key to b so you can go through and reprogram every single key on here minus the obviously the game mode key and the windows keys as they call it here but yeah any key can be any sort of primary or secondary function you want and then macro editor is for creating your macros for a certain key you can go through and do that for any key as well you also have nine different profiles set by key one through key nine and each of those you can have different rgb effects for different macros for all in nine different profiles okay so like i said in the beginning evga is really coming for i think razer and corsair's throats because they're taking a lot of those popular features and adding it to this big time kind of first release for evga in the mainstream kind of gaming keyboard market and what we have here is really really impressive i know for me my time using it i am more used to the optical switches by now after testing you know a lot of different keyboards over the years especially when it comes to linear switches so getting used to the actual like you know bottoming out and actuating at 1.5 millimeters on the overall lighter switch really wasn't too bad it felt fine gaming all responsive it's it's tough to say that i 100 could differentiate that 4000 hertz pulling versus just a faster optical linear switch you know i can't tell which of the two i was noticing being more responsive doesn't matter they're working together and it's still just a very quick keyboard that's what you want when you're gaming that quick response there's really no like issues i can think of with the keyboard itself but i will say it's nice we have the included detachable wrist rest but it is not uh the thickest or most comfy wrist dress that is like the material is fine it feels soft but there's just like no padding or cushioning in the middle itself like when i put my wrist on these i could feel the plastic underneath the wrist rest if you just squeeze it like your finger goes right through so there should be a little bit more padding i feel to make the wrist rest more comfortable so quick wrap up to end the video with one final thought that might sell this for a lot of people um again for the pros macros dedicated media keys tons of rgb lighting effects and the light bar you know optical switches 4000 hertz pulling rate all the usb pass-throughs time-of-flight sensor it's a very feature-rich keyboard in terms of cons again not the biggest fan of the keycaps in terms of the them being prone to that you know gloss and stuff over time and the font really isn't the best and uh stabilizers are gonna need some work probably on your end if you get this in i would take time to maybe try to lube them or just do something to make them better now i said when i first started this video off this keyboard is 175 unless you're an evga elite member which is then just 88 that is a huge difference and for all the features this has for just 88 that is an absolutely insane deal so you're probably wondering how do i become an evga elite member and i looked it up it seems pretty you know straightforward if you've purchased one of their recent graphics cards you register it you can become a member save some money or if you purchase multiple hardware in the last year or so i don't remember you can look all up yourself but they give you a lot of different ways to enter the membership program and it seems like it's you know pretty easy and straightforward so you could very easily if you have other evga products save a big chunk of money and get the z20 for just 88 bucks that's a crazy good deal i think in the end that would definitely make this the winner over like the k100 or the huntsman elite and stuff like that because while while razer and corsair have been in the gaming keyboard game a lot longer it's still just very impressive to see evga come out with so many different features built into a keyboard like this for 175 which isn't too bad of a price so cheaper than corsair and razer but 88 bucks damn for the cons i mentioned about it that could very easily be overlooked for 88 bucks so very very impressed overall the z20 good good stuff from evga here very happy to see what they do in the future as well like if this is their first keyboard where are they gonna be in two three years from now what's that next gaming keyboard going to look like so about to wrap it up guys hope you enjoyed my review of the evga z20 if you did give this video a big thumbs up and show your support feel free to follow me on twitter at randomfrankp at last if you haven't already hit that subscribe button hope you all enjoyed have a good day\n"