Disassembly

Given the metal on both sides, disassembly of the Ajazz Zinc was expected to be easy and turned out to be even easier. There are all of six screws, flat Phillips head screws at that, which are accessed after removing the keycaps as seen above. Four of the six screws showed signs of rusting, however. At this point, the top piece can be lifted upwards enough to access the internal cable going from the battery in the lower piece to the PCB. Dislodge the cable and both pieces can be fully separated for a closer examination.


Ajazz managed to fit a relatively massive 3000 mAh battery, which is actually two combined batteries. There is also a plastic sheet on the Zinc alloy case to prevent the PCB from electrical shorting. Unfortunately, at this point I noticed that a sliver of aluminium had broken off the aluminium alloy plate. Compounding the misery is that the connector for the battery on the PCB was not soldered on very well; it was loose enough to where a quick tug would have likely broken it off.

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The rest of the disassembly thankfully transpired without any other such incidents, with a black matte PCB greeting us on the underside of the top piece. The switches are soldered through the aluminium plate and onto the PCB, with the plate adding structural integrity to the keyboard. Aside from that one connector, soldering quality is also very good. Powering the keyboard is a USB microcontroller that is not readily identifiable, but there isn't a lot to do here, so the keyboard does not need the latest and greatest by any means. The wireless operation is taken care of by a Cypress CYW20730 Bluetooth 5.1 transceiver. The Ajazz Zinc keyboard actually supports Bluetooth 5.1 rather than the Bluetooth 3.0 mentioned in the specifications. I don't know if this is an actual change implemented in the firmware yet since the company and Epomaker both still claim Bluetooth 3.0, and I do not have a protocol sniffer, such as Wireshark, to verify. All the components, including the switches, LEDs, and capacitors, are soldered to a multi-layered PCB.


Ajazz was understandably surprised by the quality control issues on my original sample, and it turned out to be a lemon in more ways than one, but nothing that affects functionality. This is probably why it passed quality assurance—the keyboard worked fine and none of the issues could have been spotted without disassembly. As it turns out, a replacement unit that was also sent directly from a retailer was in perfect shape in and out. Interestingly, there was no leftover aluminium piece on the Zinc alloy case of the second unit at all. So I am not sure what happened with the original sample, but it was a mess.

Before we move on, be advised that disassembly may void the warranty and that TechPowerUp is not liable for any damages incurred if you decide to go ahead and do so anyway.