Introduction

Earlier this year, we took a look at the smallest keyboard reviewed on TechPowerUp, the Vortex CORE, a 40% form factor keyboard. The size meant that a lot of keys were not present, and this was to many simply not practical enough to justify the space savings. These people were also those who felt a larger 60% keyboard is too small for them, including Vortexgear's own Poker line of keyboards, since they at the very least didn't want to compromise on the functionality offered by a TKL keyboard. A 75% keyboard is thus something that should interest them and possibly many others who were until now unaware of such options, and today, we take a look at the latest keyboard from Vortexgear, whom we will henceforth only refer to as Vortex in this review, the Vortex Race 3. Thanks to Vortex for providing us with a review sample.


The Race 3 is, as the name would suggest, the third iteration in their Race line of keyboards - all of which are 75% keyboards. This form factor can fit in everything a TKL keyboard can, and this particular version from Vortex has slightly longer Esc and Del keys at the expense of a dedicated Ins key and the Print Screen key cluster. However, you do get a full space bar, full set of modifier keys, the function key row, and arrow keys, all in a really small package. Let us see how this keyboard and its layout end up in practice, beginning with a look at the specifications below.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

Vortex has used luxurious looking and feeling packaging here, with a similar-looking box as with the CORE. It is black everywhere and has the name and logo on the front and back and textures everywhere else. Unlike the Core, which had a magnetic side to reveal the keyboard inside, this one simply has an inner box that slides out.


The inner box has the keyboard immediately visible and held in place on a cardboard shelf with thick, soft foam on all four sides surrounding it. There is a cutout at the top to help remove the keyboard, and another in the middle to remove the cardboard piece itself, which reveals the included accessories underneath. Three plastic ziplock pouches contain everything, and the largest of these cotains several replacement keycaps - 18 to be exact. Included here are some MacOS exclusive keycaps (Command and Alt/Option in two different sizes) as well as some RGB-colored keycaps, as seen above. One of the complaints I had about the CORE was that the non-standard form factor resulted in replacement keycaps being hard to find, and Vortex has decided to help with that issue by providing some non-standard replacement keycaps with which you can to some extent personalize the keyboard to your liking. We will examine these keycaps in more detail on the next page.


The other two pouches contain the keyboard cable, which is a detachable male micro-USB to male Type-A USB cable that is the usual 1.8 m long, and some case feet. The feet included also address another of my complaints with the CORE wherein there was no option to elevate the keyboard at all, and the feet here are metal and match the case of the keyboard and have rubber pieces to stick to the bottom for grip, which also minimizes scratching. So far, so good!