rToday we’re gonna finish up with the new Tecware boards, which I’ve really enjoyed
for the budget end.
I thought the Spectre Pro was and is one of the best looking budget mechs, and the Phantom
L was something different with the Outemu low profile switches.
And again, they’ve gone with something a bit different here with the Phantom 96.
And I’ll say it now, this is primarily available for the South East Asian market at the time
of this video, and that doesn’t include the Philippines, so availability isn’t great.
So to make up for it a little bit, I’ll give it away at the end of the video.
First impressions, it’s a relatively light keyboard for its size coming in at about 750
grams.
And it does have a touch more flex than usual, but this is me going pretty hard at it, it’s
really fine.
And as you may have presumed, this has 96 keys, but in a form factor that’s only a
column longer than a standard tenkeyless board.
And they’ve done with by basically combining the right side keys together, which includes
the nav keys, arrow keys, and the numpad.
We’ve seen other boards do this.
Probably the most well known one is the old Cooler Master Pro M.
I’m a true believer in trying to reduce the lateral length of a keyboard, as it allows
more space for your mouse, and brings it closer to your body for a more natural and ergonomic
experience.
And it’s always nice to have more space on your desk for whatever.
So how this works is that there’s 2 modes which are activated by this dedicated key
here, which for some reason is a tiny bit shorter than the other keys which bothers
me.
So we have just the normal numpad, only difference is that the zero key is split into two.
And then you press it again, and you have the normal nav and arrow keys.
I don’t use the numpad often, and love dedicated arrow keys, so I left it like so.
And just a tiny inconvenience for me, when you turn your PC back on, it resets to the
numpad mode.
For me, I like having the option to switch, essentially being a tenkeyless board, with
an optional numpad.
Obviously the main drawback is that you can’t use the numpad and arrow keys simultaneously.
And that can be a problem for people.
It really depends on you.
And that’s pretty much the main drawpoint of this keyboard, this layout.
Here’s a typical 96% keyboard, which is nearly the same size, just slightly smaller.
And it solves the issue by squeezing in the arrow keys here.
Even though it’s not my favourite layout, as I do like gaps between clusters of keys,
maybe it is a more logical approach to this sort of layout.
Although if you can afford it, I highly highly recommend the Leopold FC980M, which is like
a combination of these two boards, but in my opinion, is the best in terms of usability
and aesthetics, and also quality.
We can do some customising in the software that we can download from their website, and
it’s exactly the same as the Phantom L, so here’s some mad copy paste.
So we have 3 customisable profiles.
And it’s super self explanatory, we can select a key, and change it to whatever.
And that includes macros.
So in this section we can create macros with delays and such, and then you can go back
and assign them to a key.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to change profiles on the board itself.
You have to change via the software, so you can’t really quickly access the other functions
you assign to another profile.
Especially since you won’t be changing too many keys on your default, because you actually
need to use them as intended.
Then we have the lighting section, again self explanatory.
And finally the gaming mode section where you can disable some keys that may put you
in a spot of bother.
Overall, just a nice simple piece of software that works.
I still would like to be able to switch profiles on board to quickly access other functions,
because they are profiles, instead of layers.
Alrighty, back to the keyboard.
As said, this is a relatively light keyboard for its size, as it has its 1.5mm aluminium
plate, and that’s it for the top.
So it has a floating key design, with the switches exposed from the sides.
Something you may or may not like, that’s up to you.
And yeh, it’s super basic as you can see, with minor folds at the front and back.
And the bottom piece is of course plastic, and has a bit more going on.
We have our rubber feet, as well as two flip up feet that are also nicely rubber tipped.
There looks to be holes for water to pass through.
Not going to test that, but they’re there.
Then there’s our plastic ring keycap puller with inbuilt storage which is pretty neat
and handy.
And finally this extra bottom row keycap, which you have to pull out with the keycap
puller, is well, it’s there.
Supposedly they may change the design of the metal plate in the future, so there’s that.
Personally I think that it’s not the most refined design at the moment, and they definitely
can do better, especially after seeing how beautiful their Spectre Pro was.
The keycaps are made from about 1.1mm thick ABS plastic, and are doubleshot, so the legend
is another piece of plastic and won’t fade away.
They look alright actually, for backlit caps anyway.
It does have a standard ANSI layout, so the keycaps are easily replaceable as well.
As with many budget mechs, this has Outemu switches, the ones I have here are Outemu
Reds, which are a light linear switch, meaning that it has no bump or click.
It is also available in Blues and Browns.
And as usual, these are hotswappable, meaning that we can pull out the keyswitches without
desoldering.
However, these are super tight as always.
And I’ve never liked the keyswitch pullers that come with these boards, and yeh, you
can see for yourself.
Because they’re so tight, pretty much they’re compatible with just Outemu switches.
So that means, Cherry MX, Gateron, Kailh, Durock, whatever keyswitch, are not fully
compatible.
Basically the pins just don’t fit properly.
Apparently you can file down the pins, but I’ve never bothered.
And you can make them work if there is enough contact, even though the pins will be bent.
But really just for simplicity, it’s just Outemu that will fit properly.
With all that being said though, it’s better than not having hotswap at all.
So it’s still easy to replace your keyswitch for whatever reason.
But with Outemu only.
Anyway, here’s how it sounds.
The typing experience is actually pretty good.
The bottom out surprisingly feels quite nice and solid, being quite full and not hollow
feeling at all.
The sound also has that sort of solid-ish feel, but unfortunately, like their Spectre
Pro, it is quite pingy.
You probably need to wear headphones to hear that metallic ping.
Definitely in real life it’s very noticeable, especially without clicky switches to cover
that sound.
But if you have stuff coming out of your speakers anyway, you’ll be fine.
Also, the stabilisers for the longer keys aren’t great, and do have some rattle.
To open up the board, there’s a couple of Philips head screws under some caps.
And we have some foam in here.
Pretty thin, and very airy, so I don’t think it makes much of a difference in regards to
feel and sound in particular, as we do get a lot of ping.
The bottom plastic shell is super simple as well, with no real reinforcement and such
on the bottom surface.
I should also add that this was quite an early unit, and I’ve had this for a while, so
I don’t know if the PCB is the same now.
But as we can see, we have our Outemu hotswap sockets soldered it, and yeh, not much else
to say.
And that’s the Tecware Phantom 96.
So this comes in at a recommended retail price of 59USD, so definitely towards the budget
end.
And again, just something different, with the main feature being this kind of hybrid
layout.
I definitely believe in compact form factors, and it is a space saving solution for people
who want a numpad.
For me personally, I usually kept it with the arrow keys out.
But yeh the main use case issue would be that you can’t use the two modes simultaneously
of course, and that’s up to the user in whether that’s fine.
Alright, like I said at the start, this has pretty limited availability, being primarily
in South East Asia for now.
So I’ll give this away.
Umm, let’s do Instagram for this one, sorry for those who don’t have it.
Don’t worry, I’ll have other giveaways very soon.
I’ll chuck post up on Insta about this keyboard.
And just follow whatever I chuck in the description.