Review: Epomaker Shadow-X mechanical keyboard

Review sample provided by Epomaker

The Epomaker Shadow-X is a 70% gasket mount wireless mechanical keyboard priced at USD 85.99.

Bottom line: This is a beautiful keyboard with solid build quality and wonderful typing experience with dampened typing sound. The 1-inch LCD shows useful info such as battery life, connection mode, date, time and others. There's auto switching for Mac and Windows keyboard layout. Limitations would be the lack of function keys. Downside is even without the function keys, this keyboard is as big as 75% keyboards.

Specs

• Number of keys: 70 keys+1 knob
• Connectivity: Wireless and wired
• Battery: 3000mAh
• Structure: Gasket-mounted
• LED Direction: South-facing LED
• Keycaps: Double shot PBT material
• Plate material: PC
• PCB type: 3/5 pin hot-swappable
• Bottom layer: Silicon pad
• Sandwich layer: Poron foam, IXPE switch pad
• Compatible system: Win/macOS/Linux/Android/iOS
• Dimension: 370.4 x 129.8 x 47.8mm
• NKRO: yes
• Weight: Around 0.8kg

Things included

• Keyboard
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• Three extra Epomaker Flamingo Switches
• Keycap and switch puller
• Yellow keycaps for Esc, Backspace, Enter, Spacebar and arrow keys
• User guide

Design

Shown above is the Epomaker TH80-X 75% keyboard with 79 keys and below's the Epomaker Shadow-X 70% keyboard with 70 keys.

Design of the Epomaker Shadow-X looks good and looks serious. If you want a splash of colour, you can swap out some of the keys for those eye-catching yellow keycaps.

Despite being a 70% keyboard, it's actually bigger than the 75% keyboard shown above. The space from the missing row of function keys is taken up by keyboard deck at top and bottom, and the keyboard extends out to the right with the arrow keys, PageUp PageDown etc keys.

The main selling point of this keyboard is probably the looks. Because if you don't like the look, there are more compact keyboards that still offer the row of function keys.

To get the ` and ~ keys, you have to press Fn + Esc and Fn + Shift + Esc. To get the function keys F1 to F12, you press Fn + number keys. You can see the whole list of keyboard shortcuts supported from this online manual.

The keycaps are made with double shot PBT material. The keycap profiles look like OEM and I had to fold out the feet behind to make the top face me more for a more comfortable typing experience.

There are four rubber feet beneath the keyboard with good grip on the table.

The fold-out feet can be deployed at two heights, and they have rubber feet too.

At the top right there's there are the keys Insert, Delete, Home, End, PageDown and a knob for switching between different connections and power.

There are status lights for CapsLock, WinLock and connection.

The knob can be turned to six positions:

• Cable connection
• 2.4Ghz - Purple
• Bluetooth 1 - Red
• Bluetooth 2 - Green
• Bluetooth 3 - Blue
• Power off

There are no labels for the knob so the best way to know which connection to switch to is to turn it all the way clockwise or anti-clockwise, and count the clicks as you turn.

This keyboard supports Mac and Windows and will automatically switch keyboard layout depending on which is connected.

The 1-inch LCD shows useful information such as

• Date, day and time
• CapsLock
• Mac/Windows layout
• Battery life
• Connection type
• Keyboard shortcut group

You can also upload a photo or GIF to the LCD. For some reason the GIFs have this flashing vertical bar at the right side. It's probably a software issue since I don't see that with the status display. When uploading an image or GIF to the LCD, you can't just hit Save, you have to hit Upload. The file transfer speed is really slow so prepare to wait.

Typing experience is wonderful. The typing sound is dampened and the feel is good. As someone who prefers a quieter environment, I like the sound here more compared to the Epomaker TH80-X that I've reviewed recently. If you want something even more quiet, check out the Epomaker RT100.

The switches available are

• Epomaker Flamingo Switch - linear, 35gf
• Gateron Pro Yellow Switch - tactile, 45 - 55gf
• Epomaker Budgerigar Switch - tactile, 35gf
• Epomaker Bluebird Switch - linear, 35gf

At the top of the keyboard is the USB-C charging port and a holder for the 2.4Ghz USB-A receiver.

There are beautiful 18 lighting effects to choose from.

You can use the Fn + Menu + Enter to select settings and Fn + Menu + Arrow to adjust.

The Mac keyboard layout will swap Alt for CMD and Ctrl for Left Ctrl. I use FInal Cut Pro and I wasn't able to use the keyboard shortcuts that use Right Ctrl.

Driver

The driver I've tested are the Windows driver v2.0.5 and Mac driver v1.2.70.

Keyboard has to be connected to the computer to use the driver.

Here's what the driver can do:

• Change lighting effect, brightness, speed
• Create custom function key shortcuts
• Upload image or GIF to the LCD
• Adjust date and time on the LCD
• Program macros
• Share image/GIF/macros with others

Conclusion

The Epomaker Shadow-X is a well made keyboard with wonderful typing experience. The main downside is for a 70% keyboard without function keys, it's as big as keyboards with the function keys.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Beautiful design
+ Solid build quality
+ Automatic switching from Windows to Mac keyboard layout
+ Can be paired to 4 devices (3x Bluetooth + 2.4Ghz)
+ Fast re-connection
+ LCD display that shows time, connection, battery life, image and GIF
+ Works with Windows, MacOS and Android
+ Can work when charging
+ Many beautiful lighting effects to choose from
+ Has feet for height adjustment
+ Wonderful dampened typing experience
- No reduction in size even without the function keys
- Customising LCD requires cable connection
- Uploading of GIF is slow
- Mac layout's right Ctrl key is actually mapped to left Ctrl

Availability

The Epomaker Shadow-X is available from Epomaker online store