The ever-lovely people at Epomaker have sent me one of their brand-new TH80-X keyboards to try out.
The TH80-X is a 79 key / 75% keyboard. It has a condensed ANSI layout and is compatible with Win/macOS/Linux/Android/iOS. The TH80-X connects via Bluetooth (up to 5.0), 2.4GHz wireless, or wired via USB C, so that connections for up to 5 devices can be switched between easily. It also has a rotary knob to control audio volume (push/click to mute/unmute) and more. Perhaps most excitingly, it also has a mini screen. More about that later on.
The TH80-X comes in a choice of Blue/Pink or Grey/Green colourways. I got Grey/Green, which gives the board a lovely calming, naturalistic aesthetic, a little reminiscent of Mintlodica’s Magical Girl range. Keycaps are double shot ABS material, NAE profile (a custom profile, which is not a million miles away from that of the classic C64’s keys), with clean, black characters in a nice oversized, round-edged futuristic font. The overall look of the TH80-X is somewhere between a more refined, “grown-up” B21 and a more organic, less overtly sci-fi TH96. It’s a lovely-looking keyboard, striking a perfect balance between sleek and modern, and cute and calming.
The TH80-X comes with a choice of Gateron Black, Gateron Yellow, or Epomaker Flamingo switches. I got the Flamingos, which I’d previously tried and liked on the MC66. If anything I think these feel better with the TH80-X’s keycap profile. The switches are hot-swappable, meaning that they can be easily swapped out for other 3 or 5-pin switches with no need for soldering or unnecessary messing about.
The body of the TH80-X is off-white ABS, the plate is iron. It’s gasket-mounted with a silicon sandwich layer and bottom pad to (in Epomaker’s own words) “achieve an ultimate soft and smooth typing experience”. And indeed it does.
The TH80-X comes equipped with RGB backlights with all the usual options, effects, bells and whistles. Yes, I set them to a solid colour (a nice bright turquoise, which is actually “White” according to the mini screen) because I always do, and I think it really suits the overall aesthetic of the board.
The TH80-X has an impressively huge 8000mAh of in-built battery (actually two 4000mAh batteries), which means that, even with the RGB lights on, we’re talking weeks, rather than days or hours, of wireless use from a full charge. Weight-wise, the TH80-X is around 1.2 kg, so it’s just a little bit lighter than the TH96.
A pair of sturdy flip-down ABS feet at the rear of the TH80-X provide a bit of angle adjustment and, as it’s a pretty flat keyboard without, I’ve been making good use of them.
Now then, about that screen. The 1.3 X 2.3 cm full-colour LCD screen sits between the TH80-X’s control knob and Page Up key at the top right of the board. You need to download the free driver software to make proper use of the screen, and to set the time and date, etc. Once that’s sorted you’ve got yourself a neat little on-board display showing date, day, time, battery status, Win/Mac, layer, and connectivity mode.
Press Fn and the control knob together and you can switch between this screen and a static image or animated gif of your choosing. More about that in a moment. Once you’ve selected which of these you’d like as your main screen, you can use the knob to scroll through other menu options: photo/gif, lights, RGB colour, (RGB) brightness, (RGB effect) speed, OS mode, and layer (for Macros, which I don’t use or fully understand, sorry). All of these can then be easily adjusted and tweaked accordingly using the control knob, with the screen displaying the values.
So, how do you get your images onto the TH80-X’s screen? Opening the software, the quickest and easiest way to find and get images is to click on Share Pictures. There you can scroll through a huge library of gifs which other users have created and shared. These aren’t searchable using search terms, however, and they are not categorised nor filtered for adult or NSFW content, so that’s something to be aware of. Yes, you can definitely find that cute Pokemon or Studio Ghibli gif you’re looking for (if you look through enough pages), but you’re also going to see some much less family-friendly stuff in the process.
Another option is to upload your own images or gifs to Sketchpad in the software. You can even edit or create new gifs a frame at a time. If you’re feeling especially pleased with your creation and want to share it with the world, you can upload it to the library for other TH80-X users to enjoy.
Ultimately, the TH80-X’s screen adds a nice little extra bit of customisation to an already impressive keyboard, Even without the option to display your own choice of image, it’s a functional, and genuinely useful addition.
The TH80-X really is what you make it: It can be the sleek, sophisticated office keyboard that blends in with a chilled modern muted pastel aesthetic, it can be the swirling rainbow RGB gaming board with a stroboscopic gif blinking away on its screen, and it can be pretty much everything in between. The choice is yours.
The TH80-X is available for pre-order from Epomaker for $99.99 USD.