Epomaker TH80 Pro Review: An Art Themed Mechanical Keyboard?
Retail Price: $65.99
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Disclaimer: Epomaker sent us a unit of the TH80 Pro free of charge to review, but all thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are our own and were not discussed with the company prior to publishing. Click here to learn more about Epomaker.
Sometimes I review mechanical keyboards that are absolutely not my style. The Epomaker TH80 Pro fits that mold as the keyboard maker sent us a Monet color variant of the board that has a fascinating, yet oddly out of place multifunction knob that I can’t stop staring at. While I may not love the design of the board, there is little doubt in my mind that the TH80 Pro is a valuable offering at this price range. After typing on it daily, I’ve come to appreciate the idea that it’s not what things look like that matter, but what things do for you that count.
An Artistic Approach
Let me preface this by saying I don’t think the TH80 Pro is an ugly board at all. While I may not love the look, I do think it is a subtle design that can fit with many different types of desk setups. The body is a white plastic that feels solidly put together. I can’t hear any creaking while fiddling with the keyboard. As the name suggests, Epomaker provides us with 80 hot swappable keys that equates to a 75% mechanical keyboard layout. It’s also fully wireless that supports Bluetooth 5.0, a 2.4 Ghz receiver, as well as directly plugging into a computer through USB. The connectivity is reliable on this board as it’s instantly recognized on my devices without issue. It is a little slow to wake from sleep and the board is quite aggressive in going to sleep (we’ll talk about this later), but at least everything works as designed.
Pastel Monet Art Themed
I assume Epomaker was theming this color scheme after the famous works of French painter, Claude Monet. It’s a very loose tribute that I only associated through the name of the model, but someone out there may appreciate this more than I do.
Epomaker Budgerigar Switches
I will praise Epomaker for keeping the frame of the TH80 Pro super clean. There’s a single USB-C port at the top left for charging and connecting, and nothing else. If you appreciate clean and minimalist approaches in design, you’ll like what we have here. Instead of placing everything where the user can see it, Epomaker has lodged all the storage and switches on the underside of the mechanical keyboard. There’s a slot for the USB receiver to house inside of the body between the two adjustable feet. There’s also a toggle switch to turn the receiver connection on and off. The feet configure into two additional angles on top of the flat position. Since the board builds up towards the back, at the highest elevated angle, the TH80 Pro tilts quite high up off the surface. All in all, the keyboard is extremely clean looking thanks to this placement choice.
Our PBT keycaps on the Monet scheme are on the pastel color spectrum with four different shades of colors occupying the board. I don’t love the look as there is a lot of color everywhere, especially when the RGB lights kick in. It certainly is unique in that the color layout slants left in an uneven distribution. The lighter shade of blue occupies a majority of the keys near the center of the board, while the green shade only covers 12 keys. I’m not certain about the design language as I don’t see any marketing material touching on this, but I assume Epomaker was theming this color scheme after the famous works of French painter, Claude Monet. It’s a very loose tribute that I only associated through the name of the model, but someone out there may appreciate this more than I do. I do look forward to seeing different things in a sea of repetitive products, so I guess I should give Epomaker props for trying something unique. Art history is a dwindling knowledge, so any type of tribute is beneficial in my book.
Dark Shiny Orb
The volume knob is a shiny dark orb
The uniqueness doesn’t end with the Monet tribute as the volume knob is shaped like a round marble thing. I honestly was baffled at how strange this looked when I first slid the keyboard onto my desk. It clicks for play/pause and rotates for volume control like any other multifunctional knob would. It just looks like a shiny dark orb. Other than a few art history courses in university, I don’t have much knowledge about painting palettes or other artistry tools so this design choice might be flying over my head, but I have no idea how this correlates with the rest of the board design.
Now for the actual typing experience, the TH80 Pro model we have comes with the Epomaker Budgerigar switches. The board is of course, hotswappable with other 3 and 5-pin switches. These switches are very muted and don’t emit that much of a sound pattern, at least on my tolerance scale. I found this keyboard to actually be quite comfortable to type on due to a mixture of reasons. There isn’t much resistance upon input and the keys don’t really spring back up as sharply as I’m normally accustomed to using. That has allowed me to type a bit faster than I normally do because my fingers fly through the board without making errors I normally make. That second reason has to do with the comfortable spacing of the layout. For a 75% board, I certainly felt like the keyboard was larger than the size would suggest. It might be perception, but the keycaps look and feel puffier and easier to strike. I didn’t love gaming with this board as I prefer a clicky recoil for those needs, but I certainly enjoyed typing on the TH80 Pro.
Standard RGBs
There’s not a whole lot of spacing between the rows of keycaps. Epomaker utilizes south-facing RGB’s here like they do on a lot of their other products. I think that was a wise choice as the combination of a marshmallow-looking keycaps with a thickly slanted board would have made the RGB effects rather difficult to admire if it wasn’t facing directly at the user. The RGB’s are a standard affair here with the same variations of patterns and colors we’re used to seeing on other keyboards. Like other Epomaker products, you can also remap or customize keys and record macro commands through software. I wouldn’t consider the RGB to be a highlight of the TH80 Pro Monet variant as they’re not too prominently exposed as the light doesn’t pass through the keycap letters. They do a basic job of accenting the board and that’s acceptable enough for a board like this.
Battery life
As for the battery life out of this 4,000 mAh battery, I’ve been using this as my office keyboard for a couple months now and I’ve plugged it in maybe three times. I would say the TH80 Pro dies once every two to three work weeks. That’s about 10-15 days of periodic use through 8 hour shifts. That’s quite good by my standards. The keyboard accomplishes these numbers by having an extremely aggressive sleep pattern. It tries to conserve battery as quickly as possible. This by itself is a good thing, but I found myself getting a bit annoyed waiting for the TH80 Pro to wake back up from its slumber. You’re looking at about 3-5 seconds before you can continue typing whatever it is you were working on. Sometimes I would come back to my desk in need of a quick search on the web and I would begin typing only to realize the first few words didn’t register because the board was asleep. I got used to it and changed my flow to accommodate the board, but if I had one wishlist, it would be to quicken the time it takes to wake the keyboard up.
final thoughts
Otherwise, there’s not a lot to dislike about the TH80 Pro. While its artistic charm may not be on the top of my curated tastes, I can still recognize that there is a lot of value offered with this product. This particular mechanical keyboard’s looks may not be for everyone, but I’m sure someone out there will appreciate the pastel palette. The bigger question is will Claude Monet fans want a keyboard themed after his work?
Alex
Caught in between the conundrum of his fascination with retro and the future, Alex has a very unique taste in technology. Never one to follow trends like his millennial peers yet constantly desiring to get ahead of the curve, he sees technology like he does his other love: comic books. Always looking for the best value or a hidden gem, his collector mindset reflects on some of his favorite gadgets: the Moto X (2015), HTC U11 and the Google Pixelbook. If there’s a good tech deal out there, Alex is on the hunt!