Overall and Final Verdict
With the Poseidon Z Forged Thermaltake went a little bit of a different direction than they have been with their mechanical keyboards. For the most part they have done a great job recently by bringing out good quality backlight mechanical keyboards at a good price. For this keyboard they styled things up a little with the addition of a metal finish and with that they raised the price a little. In my testing the Poseidon Z Forged performed well. Just like any mechanical keyboard you get good tactile responses when you type or game. Thermaltake put together a simple software program that allows you to take advantage of the two rows of macro keys and if you want you can even program any of the standard keys as well. You get profiles to flip through if you need multiple configurations and a few lighting options.
While I personally didn’t really like the extra row of macro keys over on the right side of the keyboard, I have a feeling that those are what is going to set this keyboard apart. No one else puts them over there, I’m sure there are a few left handed gamers who will put them to good use. You don’t get a standard key layout so replacing all of the keys with a new set will be hard, but even so the use of cherry style stabilizers should make it much easier to pull the keys off and clean up your keyboard in the future. Then there is the backlighting. The bright blue backlighting when paired up with the blue backplate really makes for bright lighting, I had to turn it down a little and I almost never do that.
On the downside I would have preferred to see Cherry switches, even though I understand why they don’t use them. Especially at the Poseidon Z Forged’s price point. In fact I think that is the biggest downside to the keyboard. You see at this price you can pick up one of the Corsair keyboards with a similar feature set. The corsairs have a FULL metal design that actually integrates the backplate into the whole keyboard and they use Cherry switches. It’s not that I think the Poseidon Z Forged is a bad keyboard, I just think they are going to have to drop the price a little to something that matches the feature set a little better. With a better price this could be a nice little keyboard for someone who wants something nice, but can’t afford one of the more expensive keyboards!
Amazon Link: HERE
