No longer is the Cherry MX series the only range of gaming-grade switches

Jun 20, 2014 12:06 GMT  ·  By

Most keyboards use a rubber membrane to get keys to work properly, to rebound after each press, but mechanical switches are more responsive, have a good tactile feedback and last longer. It is little wonder, then, that Tt eSPORTS created its own switches.

The company has formally launched the Poseidon ZX gaming keyboard, which lacks the number pad, but boasts every other asset expected of a gaming-grade peripheral.

Not that the numpad is all that important to games, considering the primacy that the W, A, S and D keys take in mostly every game that can't exclusively be controlled by the mouse. Which is most of them.

Unlike membranes, which cover the entire area beneath the topside of the keyboard in a single, wide sheet of rubber, mechanical switches are individual, one underneath each button.

The switches that Tt eSPORTS used in the making of the Poseidon ZX are its very own mechanical blue, much like the original Poseidon ZX (which also came with brown switches).

The company spent two years testing them with its engineers and with professional gamers (like White-Ra, Team DK, Prime Team, and various other sponsored teams).

The endurance of the blue switches is rated so high that Tt eSPORTS has decided to slap the Poseidon ZX with a warranty of 5 years. It did the same for the rest of the Poseidon Z line too.

Normally, products don't have a warranty longer than 3 years, though some do boast a lifetime warranty, which is more misleading than anything.

After all, lifetime warranties refers to the product lifetime from a marketing standpoint. And with peripherals usually getting successor/replacements every year or so, that's not a very long time.

In addition to the Tt eSPORTS mechanical switches, the Poseidon ZX boasts a blue backlight, which was more of a necessity than a convenience really. No self-respecting gaming keyboard would ship without something along those lines these days.

Tt eSPORTS could have probably gone that extra mile and included a full-color backlight, where red, green and blue LEDs (RGB) could be combined in any one of 16.8 million different colors.

However, that is not what happened. The outfit seems to have chosen a more understatedly elegant, minimalistic concept, as the lack of the numpad implied (it did leave the Poseidon ZX with only 80 keys after all). Sales should begin in July, for the price of $74.99 / €55.20.