Driver

The ZM-K700M is driverless. While this does have the benefit of you not having to install any software to utilize all the keyboard's functions, the ZM-K700M has so many functions that I would very much welcome an extensive driver suite. I've also had the keyboard fail to recognize any FN shortcuts several times. Luckily, this can be fixed by simply unplugging it and plugging it in again. However, if you have your USB ports in a hard-to-reach location, this issue can become very annoying. The other issue is that you can't manually adjust macro timings. You can speed macro playback up and down by 10% over a shortcut; however, doing so will speed up the entire macro. As such, you're going to have to nail the macro while recording it if you want some very specific timings. A macro's playback speed also applies to every macro at the same time, which makes speeding a macro to the exclusion of others up impossible. The actual macro keys themselves can work in two different modes. Normal mode will run the recorded sequence at a set speed. Z-key mode will run the first three macro keys of the recorded sequence normally, but the fourth key will loop the sequence, including all delays, while the fifth key will loop the sequence ignoring any delays. This is probably the best macro functionality achievable without driver support; however, if you want to launch apps or customize delays between key presses in macros, you will need to get a keyboard with a driver because the ZM-K700M just can't do it.

Performance

Cherry is the creator of the popular mechanical MX keyboard switches in many of today's keyobards, including the ZM-K700M. There are three main types of Cherry MX switches: linear switches, tactile switches, and clicky switches. The linear switches offer a constant amount of resistance as they are pressed and are very smooth. Tactile Cherry MX switches have a point at which they offers more resistance. Once you overcome their point of resistance, they actuate and offer the same amount of resistance as before their actuation point. Clicky Cherry switches sport the same point of increased resistance as tactile switches, but make an audible click when they actuate.

Zalman only offers the ZM-K700M with Cherry MX red switches. These are linear switches with 45g of resistance and no tactile or audible feedback when they actuate. They are also very light to press. All the noise these switches make is from the keycap hitting the switch's body when you press the keys down too hard. I prefer tactile switches for all usage scenarios, but I don't mind using Reds. However, they are easier to make typos with when you accidentally press two keys at the same time because there is no feedback when they actuate. Zalman uses very smooth internal wire stabilizers that lead to the space bar and other stabilized keys being just as quite as the rest. If you master not bottoming these keys out, this keyboard is very quite to use. However, the lack of any feedback makes that harder than such tactile switches as Cherry MX browns.

Lighting Effects

The keyboard's lightning effects are extensive. You have two separate brightness levels for all keyboard effects. There is the "key" brightness and the "back" brightness. Key brightness only affects select keys whereas back brightness affects how heavily all other keys are backlit. This means you can specify a few keys to be backlit at a different brightness than others. This option will, if you have reactive lighting on, make the keys you press glow brighter or dimmer than other keys. There also a variety of lighting effects you can use, bound to the number keys. These effects are:

• Reactive: only lights up the key you press
• Reactive, including nearby keys: lights up the key you press and four adjacent keys
• Reactive wave: sends a wave of light away from the key you press
• Reactive line: lights up a horizontal line of keys at decreasing levels of brightness, originating from the key you press
• Key LED: keys you defined glow at "key" brightness while all other keys glow at "back" brightness
• Mask: same as Key LED, but the keys you didn't define no longer function
• Demo: Demonstrates various effects for a short period of time
• Breath: keyboard cycles from off to full brightness
• EQ: A variety of effects that respond to sounds

The reactive lighting modes are useful to those who can't touch-type, and combined with the two brightness levels, these modes work much better in the dark since you can have all the keys backlit faintly while they aren't in use. The ability to set important keys to glow at their own brightness is useful to those who, like me, just loose track of where certain keys are, whether that be a WASD or any other important key. This mode, like reactive lightning, also benefits from the two brightness levels because they make it much more usable in the dark. Mask mode allows you to disable keys on the keyboard and is only supposed to keep the keys you need enabled active; however, it doesn't really make much sense because most games will ignore keys you press that are not bound to a function, and the same goes for most applications that rely on hotkeys. I only used mask mode to disable the caps lock key because I tend to press it accidentally; other than that, mask mode doesn't seem all that useful. It is still well implemented, so if you can see a use for it, it won't let you down. The other "novelty" modes, like wave and EQ, aren't as useful. Wave is just a fancier reactive mode, and all the extra keys it lights up make it more confusing than useful. EQ mode, though, is not an EQ mode at all. It relies on a microphone built into the keyboard and, as such, does not respond to frequency but volume changes. It also flickers horribly. Finally, there is Demo mode. It runs a short Demo of a series of effects programmed into the keyboard's memory. You unfortunately can't get any of its effects to run permanently, so the Demo button might as well just be a "tease" button instead.