Software

Software support for the XVX M84 is device-specific, and the installer can be found on the downloads page of the XVX website—simply navigate to the keyboard icon and click on it to access both a firmware updater and the installer for the drivers. The former is simply an executable that has a large start button which doesn't even check for the firmware version and will happily keep updating the same firmware version over and over. As for the software program, the version at the time of testing was V1.01.1, which downloads as a compressed archive with the installer executable ~3.3 MB. Installation is straightforward, but there is no option to have a start menu item or even agree to any terms and conditions. Both of these are preemptively selected for you. The final installation takes a little over 10 MB, which is not too surprising since the software is only for this product, and it is light on system resources when running.


With the keyboard connected to my PC, the software drivers recognized it immediately. Opening the software for the first time was enough for me to tell this is a common OEM software solution with a different skin. On the plus side, these are the right kind of common drivers as they scale decently with high DPI displays and have a logical, well-laid-out user interface. There is no maximize option, but the window was 2700x1620 on my 16:9 4K display, so I can't complain. I don't know why these drivers show a large thumbnail of the product that has to be clicked to be taken to the device-specific program options, though!

Seen above is a walkthrough of customizing the XVX M84 keyboard with its dedicated software tool, which includes the option to easily create, remove, and select software profiles, which are called configurations here. The settings tab is sparse, mostly used to change the language, in addition to a keyboard reset. The default tab covers key mapping, and you can choose from among the vast majority of functions on a typical full-size keyboard. Interestingly, there are no extra functions, such as media keys, OS shortcuts, or even profile and application switchers. The lighting section is part self-explanatory, part frustrating. There are plenty of static, dynamic, and reactive lighting effects, all with sub-options pertaining to color, speed, direction, and brightness as applicable. Even a virtual keyboard lights up to show what these effects do, but it's quite hard to see some of these on the black model keyboard. There is also slight lag to anything since the software drivers automatically apply these changes as there is no apply button. Per-key lighting gets a tab of its own, which is fine, although I am unsure about the music/audio visualizer having its own since it is a novelty that will soon run its course. Macro recording works well, and you can get around the absence of mouse functions in the key-mapping stage by assigning them as macros.