TECWARE Phantom 87 Key Mechanical Keyboard, RGB led, Typewriter Sound, Outemu Blue Switch

I’ve been using this keyboard for almost 8 months now, and it’s been a great experience. For the price, it really delivers more than expected. The keys are super responsive, comfortable to type on, and the Outemu Brown switches give a nice tactile feel without being too noisy. It’s reliable for both gaming and everyday work.The RGB lighting is bright, smooth, and customizable, which makes it look fantastic on my desk. The overall build is sturdy, and even after months of heavy daily use, everything still feels solid.Pros:• Great price for a mechanical keyboard• Responsive and comfortable keys (perfect balance for typing and gaming)• Attractive and customizable RGB lighting• Solid, durable build qualityCons:• Wired only — a wireless option at this price would make it perfectOverall, this is an excellent keyboard. It’s reliable, comfortable, and has the right features at a price that’s hard to beat. Definitely a 5-star buy.

This is by far the nicest keyboard I have ever used - the feature set and build quality shames comparable Logitech offerings for a fraction of the price. I have now used two of these - the linear red switches at work and the linear pink switches at home. I would characterize the red switches as having a crisper sound profile and a lighter touch, whereas the pinks require a slightly heavier press and therefore seem a little quieter. I think I prefer the pinks, but both are very enjoyable.There are only two things I would criticize about this keyboard, and they are both too minor to warrant losing a star.#1. Fresh out of the box, the spacebar is a little stiff. I speculate that this may have something to do with the lubrication not being fully spread out at first, or maybe the top layer of sound dampening foam is interfering with the key somehow, but the problem fixed itself before I had a chance to go to work with the included keycap puller and find out.#2. When the backlight turns off automatically due to inactivity, it makes it difficult to see the legends on the gray keycaps due to the lower contrast of the different plastics compared to the black keycaps. This is not a major problem - if you type frequently enough to keep the backlight on, it won't affect you at all, and if you're an infrequent typist, it only matters for the first keystroke after a long period of inactivity.Overall, the only way I can imagine a better bargain is if Tecware sold this exact same keyboard as a barebones kit at a lower price, so that enthusiasts could take the price difference and buy their own preferred switches and keycaps. As it stands, I can hardly complain. Even if I wasn't inclined to tinker with it, I'm still very satisfied.

The Tecware Phantom 87 is probably the best budget RGB mechanical keyboard I've found in terms of features and aesthetics. I have been using the Outemu Brown version of this keyboard for about four months now.The keyswitch quality, feel, and sound is very good and consistent across the board, and the extra included keyswitches are an appreciated bonus. I've seen in video reviews a ringing sound when keys are pressed but it must have been in earlier versions because I have not come across this issue.The clean aesthetics of the board set it apart from other boards in this price range. It doesn't scream "gamer" and it doesn't have to.Lighting is uniform and bright enough for my tastes (I've never owned an RGB keyboard before so I'm not exactly sure how bright a more premium board is). It comes with a wide array of backlighting modes and effects with intuitive controls. Very easy to control the lighting with or without the software.Speaking of which, the software is not amazing but it does the job. You can create and save multiple profiles (you cannot create any per-game / per-application profiles) with macro support and customizable per-key lighting. As far as I have figured out you can save 3 separate profiles for macros and can save more lighting profiles than that. Having any software at all is still much better than most boards in this price range however, so I give them a pass on it not being perfect. I don't use macros much so I find myself just using the on-board controls for lighting most of the time anyways.The only minor issue I have with this board is the keycap quality. The typeface is SO much better than other boards in this price range with a pretty minimal aesthetic that doesn't scream "I'm a gaming keyboard, please notice my hideous typeface." However, the printing quality on is not the greatest. I'm not sure if this is intentional but some of the characters have seemingly random lines in them as you can see in the included pictures. The O, 8, Option, and many of the non-single character keys like home, pg up, etc. have this issue. Additionally the black plastic on some keys is not thick enough to block all light so on two or three keys there are small portions where the lighting "leaks" through if you look at it closely. This is even less noticeable than the typeface lines but it's something to note. Some of the keycaps edges could have been smoother with some of them having some extra plastic left on the bottom sides, but again this is very minor. It's still not glaring and you don't notice it unless you're looking closely. I'm not sure if my unit came with a poor batch of keycaps because these issues, especially the lines in the typeface are not present in the promotional material.Overall, don't let my minor gripes with the keycaps fool you, this is a very good budget mechanical keyboard. I will be recommending this product to any of my friends who are looking for a budget mechanical RGB keyboard in the future. The only improvements I would suggest would be 1) Adding per-application profiles to the software and 2) the keycap finish could be just a *little bit* better. Fix the lines in the typeface, it's quite ugly.

I will say first of all that the software for the keyboard is mainly for the lights and customizing that... not sure if its compatible with VIA or anything like that. Overall not the best in software, but the build and size works great for me. I like the look of the floating keys and being able to see through the letters.Its not too heavy but it does have some weight to it for being an extremely budget friendly keyboard, which is always appreciated, especially factoring the metal. Personally i like the sound of the brown switches so it doesnt bother me at all, but consider switching them out for different ones if the clacky sound isnt your style.Overall, great keyboard for the price and the options for response time in the software help a lot since I do play rhythm games.