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0 If you, like me have a thing for nostalgia and having your PC peripherals oooze it. Then Epomaker might be your new favourite company. They specialise in releasing keyboards with a retro aesthetic. So when we reached out and they responded we were over the moon. They offered us two keyboards to get our hands on, the Epomaker TH87 and RT82, and we duly obliged. Having tested these keyboards for around a month, I thought it best that I bring my thoughts to the screen.
Retro Aesthetic With Modern Features
Both of these keyboards won’t break the bank, the TH87 is £86 and the RT82 is £65. So lets dive in and see what they are both all about shall we?
Epomaker TH87
This keyboard was a joy to use, it’s become my every day keyboard now and with it being a tenkeyless it doesn’t take up too much desk space. Coming with a huge battery, 10000mAh you will enjoy many hours of use with one charge. Personally I have it plugged into my PC using the wire, but I connect it via bluetooth to my work laptop. So it’s getting heavy usage every day.
With sound-dampening quiet switches, the Epomaker TH87 is delightfully quiet. It did take me a little while to hear the thock of the keys, but after a while I don’t think I could go back to other switch types. They are also hot-swappable, so if you don’t want the quiet switches, you can swap in any 3 or 5-pin mechanical switches quickly and easily.
The RGB on show is spot on as well, with under key illumination as well as a dynamic light bar under each end of the keyboard you can get it to look just how you want to. Everything can be customised in the software that can be downloaded from the Epomaker website.
Epomaker RT82
Moving onto the second keyboard we received, the Epomaker RT82. This one is a 75% keyboard, making it nice and small. With the same sound dampening as the TH87, the keys have that “thocky” sound to them. Although it is also hot-swappable so you can customise this keyboard to your liking. Running with a slightly smaller battery, but with the keyboard being smaller, you’ll still get similar performance out of the 4000mAh battery.
A neat little addition to the RT82 is a small detachable LCD Screen. This gives you a number of screens with different information, all fully customisable in the Epomaker software for the keyboard. Personally, this could be seen as a bit of a gimmick, but some people do like this level of customisation, and Epomaker have thought of everyone.
The annoyance is that I love these Epomaker keyboards; they are stylish, and there is nothing that stands out. Which in my opinion is a good thing. I want my keyboards to be functional and quite often without all the extra fluff. I’ve played a large number of games with both these Epomaker keyboards, and I have to say I don’t think i’ll go back to another brand any time soon.
Final Thoughts
Both of these Epomaker keyboards have been great to use, they’ve handled all the games i’ve thrown at them. The features are enough for the price and alongside the retro aesthetic tick all the boxes if you are looking for an upgrade.
My favourite of the two keyboards is the Epomaker TH87, quickly becoming one of my favourite keyboards to review. Don’t get me wrong, the RT82 was a great keyboard, however, with the extra size of the TH87 it works better for my productivity.
Both these Epomaker Keyboards receive the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
Disclaimer: Samples were received in order to write this review.
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