Introduction
TteSports are one of the most popular names in the PC peripheral business. Time and time again, they’ve proven that they can make incredibly competitive products, for competitive prices. Today they’re going all-out with their new Poseidon Z Forged, a premium grade product that promises a lot of cool features that will appeal to both at-home gamers and eSports gamers alike.
As you can see from the specifications below, the Poseidon Z is fully mechanical, comes with 64kb of on-board memory, ten dedicated macro keys and a whole lot more.
One thing that is very cool about this keyboard, it has a built-in onboard DAC amplifier, which operates via USB, giving you an extra way to power your favourite headset; perfect for gaming and way cooler than the usual audio passthrough ports that we often see on keyboards.
In the box, you’ll find a wrist rest, some manuals and a detachable cable. What’s important is that the wrist rest features a magnetic mounting design; no more of those pesky clips that love to break.
The cable is of a very high quality and features a tough braiding as well as gold plated connectors. It’s also a standard microUSB, so if the cable did fail, you could easily replace it with your own.
The immediate standout feature of this keyboard is the metal chassis, hence the “forged” moniker. This gives the keyboard unrelenting strength and the aluminium means that while the keyboard is still heavy, like many other mechanical keyboards, it’s not too unwieldy.
Along the top row of the keyboard, you’ll find extra function keys. Here you can see the multimedia controls.
Master audio controls.
Finally, profile, lighting and Windows-lock controls.
Down the left side, you’ll find five extra mechanical switches that can be configured via the software; great for launching programs or macros.
Then another five down the right-hand side, giving us ten extra keys in total.
One thing that you may have noticed already is that this keyboard has a blue back plate, giving a nice underglow effect, even with the lighting turned off.
Behind the key-caps, you’ll find blue Kailh switches, each fitted with a brightness adjustable blue LED.
The brightness can be toggled via the arrow keys in combination with the fn-shift, much in the same way as the multimedia controls on the F-keys.
The overall finish of this keyboard is premium grade from end to end. You can see how the aluminium top panel curves over the front and back of the keyboard, giving it a nice uniform appearance.
Around the back you’ll find a set of audio and USB ports.
The USB ports are great for hooking up your mouse or headset, but most importantly, those audio jacks are powered by an internal DAC, removing the need for an onboard sound-card to power your audio devices.
The underside of the keyboard has five tough rubber grips that will prevent the Poseidon Z from sliding around your desk. There’s also a few cable routing options, which will help keep your desktop neat and tidy.
The kickstands are super wide and extra strong; little chance of these breaking anytime soon!
When raised, the kickstands have wide rubber grips of their own, so the keyboard doesn’t lose any of its traction on your desk.
The microUSB connector is recessed into the base of the keyboard, helping keep that clear design as tidy as possible.
The wrist rest just pushes onto the front of the keyboard and can be pulled away just as easily. When you pick up the keyboard, the rest droops, but magnets hold it in place, to prevent it from falling. This will help prevent damage and it’s far better than the clips we often see on wrist rests, as they’re often prone to breaking very easily.
No screenshots or even mention of the software? I want to know how versatile the control over the macro keys is. Can I make them open programs? Websites?