Introduction

EVGA is perhaps best known for their graphics cards and a reputation for excellent customer service that sets a standard for others to follow. As NVIDIA's primary partner, the company made a strong headway into the PC DIY market with GPUs and expanded to have other product segments covered, including power supplies, motherboards, and peripherals. When they first announced they would get into the keyboard market, people were excited to say the least. This increased when they began hinting towards an integrated display, potential integration also of an EVBot for manual overclocking of their GPUs, and more. Things did not go as planned with EVBot, unfortunately, but the Z10 did come out. Earlier this year, EVGA decided it was time to update their keyboard with RGB backlighting and introduced the world to the Z10 RGB. Today, we take a fairly overdue look at EVGA's keyboard offerings with this very keyboard, and thanks again to them for sending along a sample!


Carving out a name in the incredibly competitive PC keyboard market is a feat not for the faint of heart, and doing so with a design that is different enough from the norm is even more so. So I will already give EVGA some props for trying a combination of things not usually found on keyboards the Z10 RGB is directly competing against. There are few keyboards out there with integrated displays for functionality, and I just happened to examine one very recently in the UHK. The obvious comparison would be with the relatively older Logitech G15/19 series, which are not manufactured anymore, and there are so many things that open up with this that I am extremely excited to see what EVGA has come up with. We will take a look at this and the rest of the keyboard in this review beginning with a look at the specifications in the table below.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

My own previous experience with retail EVGA products has me expecting more than the usual here, and packaging for the Z10 RGB keyboard follows that trend with a fairly big and heavy box that comes inside a plastic wrap. The front is adorned with a full-sized look at the keyboard lit up, and the company and product name along with the switch type are the only other things here. It is on the back and sides where we see more technical and marketing features listed in multiple languages, along with other renders of the keyboard itself. There is a seal on either side of the box to help keep the contents inside in place during transit.


Removing one of the seals and the flap there reveals the box is in two pieces, with an outer sleeve and an inner, plain cardboard box. There is a double flap in the middle here, which when opened helps show the keyboard immediately displayed prominently inside. The keyboard is encased inside a plastic inlay shaped to fit it, held in place within thick foam pieces on either side as well. The keyboard cable is attached, but in a compartment to the top inside another cardboard piece. The accessories that come with the keyboard are all found underneath, including a quick guide with more information on the pre-programmed functions and a visual reminder about what the various things on the keyboard do.


In addition to the quick guide, EVGA includes a set of replacement keycaps in a plastic zip lock bag. These are thin ABS plastic keycaps with laser etched legends for the Q/W/E/R and A/S/D/F keys. There is not much to see here that we also won't see on the keyboard itself, with fairly small legends that are backlit compatible. EVGA provides a plastic ring-style keycap puller to help remove keycaps from the keyboard, which has the potential to scratch the sides of the keycaps when used but is of course better than nothing at all and still appreciated.


Directly underneath the keyboard and also enclosed in the foam pieces is the included wrist rest, which is fairly large to match the rest of the keyboard. There are two jutting lips off the side that presumably mate with the case, with magnets on the inner side to help with this. The top has a dimpled surface with the EVGA logo, and the bottom has a lot of rubber pads to prevent scratches and add friction against the desk surface.