Introduction

It feels like OLED displays are the new volume knob trend when it comes to mechanical keyboards in 2023. I’ve covered several keyboards already that do this, including Epomaker’s own RT100 that does a twist on this formula by making it a detachable “TV” accessory, and we’ve seen these on keyboards that come at the $100 price point, if not higher. Then you add in more features such as a gasket mount, hybrid wireless connectivity etc and now we are looking at something that typically costs closer to $120-125. Go further with a less-standard layout and the manufacturing costs are even higher. So imagine my surprise when Epomaker launched the new Shadow-X and it costs far less than you’d think.

The Shadow-X is certainly an interesting take on keyboards. It claims to use an unprecedented 70% form factor, which means you have more keys than the usual 65% keyboards but not the Fn key row from a 75% keyboard. Also, the keys are arranged closer to how a TKL (tenkeyless) keyboard is, which automatically makes this more approachable for those who can’t get over the single bank of keys seen in the 65/75% keyboards released in the last few years. Add to this the OLED display neatly taking up space above the arrow key cluster as well as a rotary knob in the Ins-Pg Dn cluster, and this is a novel keyboard design that I have certainly never seen before. We’ll put it to the test in our review today which begins with a look at the product specifications in the table below. Thanks again to Epomaker for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp!

Specifications