IQUNIX Little Prince ZX75 review – pretty as a picture

There may be an plain attraction that radiates from the IQUNIX Little Prince ZX75, and this shine doesn’t put on too shortly, however it does function a distraction for a number of the shortcomings of the keyboard if you wish to use it as a gaming peripheral.

With some changes, the IQUNIX Little Prince ZX75 may very well be among the many finest gaming keyboards because of its unbelievable visible design, however the reality you would wish to tear it aside and spend additional money on new switches is considerably disappointing. That being mentioned, in case you have an attachment to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, and are in want of a keyboard with a improbable typing really feel, IQUNIX has created the right product for you.

Specs

Options

The IQUNIX Little Prince ZX75 is a wi-fi keyboard that may use each Bluetooth and a couple of.4GHz wi-fi connections whereas additionally supporting wired use. Its measurement or type issue is 75%, therefore the ZX75 identify and it is just accessible in an ANSI key structure. Which means consumers in Europe who use the ISO structure with the bigger Enter key should get used to a barely completely different structure.

The keys are comprised of PBT plastic, which is mostly extra immune to put on than conventional ABS plastic, plus the legends (writing and logos) is printed utilizing a dye-sublimation approach. This melts the picture into the floor of the important thing, once more making it arduous to put on and eliminating the slight bump you get if simply display printing a design onto a keycap.
A close to 2KG weight is sort of noticeable when making an attempt to reposition this keyboard in your desk, and an enormous contributor to this weight is the 6000mAh battery, able to operating the keyboard through wi-fi connection for properly over 100 hours (with backlights disabled).

The keyswitches are hot-swappable and appropriate with any 5-pin switches. The ZX75 Skybound mannequin we reviewed got here with the corporate’s personal Little Prince Swap That is certainly one of simply two choices accessible for this keyboard at checkout, with the Little Prince focused in the direction of gaming and typing and having a barely larger 42g actuation drive than the choice Silent Rose change. The latter is rated to 40g with an motion that’s described as ‘mild’ though there’s no point out of precise sound dampening.

A further aluminum, gold-colored keycap can also be included and may change the escape key or sit as a show piece.

A multimedia knob sits within the high right-hand nook, which is a standard addition for 75% keyboards. It’s not, nonetheless, doable to reassign its use through the IQUNIX software program, which have to be manually downloaded from its web site, and it’s sadly fairly fundamental in comparison with the likes of iCue and Razer Synapse.

You may mess around with the backlighting, arrange a number of layers of key features, and create macros, however the course of is sort of laborious and there aren’t any tutorials to indicate you thru the method when you occur to have by no means completed it earlier than.

The Little Prince ZX75 is available in a shocking reward field, which is fantastically laid out and contains extra nods to the supply materials all through. You’ll additionally obtain further printed keycaps, a keycap and change puller, a 2.4GHz wi-fi receiver, a USB cable, a mud cowl, 4 memento playing cards, and the related manuals and paperwork.

Design

I’ve to first applaud the visible design of every Little Prince keyboard that IQUNIX has produced, however it was the ZX75 Sky Encounter design that jumped out essentially the most to me and is the one I’m reviewing.

Visually, I’ve by no means used a keyboard that has come wherever near matching the cohesion and degree of element of the IQUNIX Little Prince ZX75. Lavishly designed keyboards are commonplace now, with fans like myself at all times chasing that subsequent beautiful design to make our desktops extra distinctive. What makes this extra particular is its attachment to beloved revealed works from 1943. It’s not just a few random design. You may actually really feel a love and connection between the guide and the keyboard and it’s unattainable to not get caught up in its attraction.

Nevertheless, some design selections do have me scratching my head. Particularly the way in which the ft are laid out. Slightly than fold-out adjustable ft, as an alternative, IQUNIX opted for detachable magnetic ones that you need to awkwardly flip round and join, all for the sake of solely elevating the keyboard a couple of millimeters.

A significant unfavourable influence of utilizing these magnetic ft is that if you attempt to alter the place of the keyboard, they detach very simply, and it’s a relentless frustration having to realign them.

My different massive gripe is the translucent casing that enables the LED backlighting to bleed out and cheapen the look of the ZX75. I see no cause why the case needed to be translucent when the remainder of the design makes use of opaque plastics with a spotlight as an alternative on the printed designs moderately than RGB. It doesn’t matter whether or not you employ the multicolored or block coloration backlighting, both. Both approach, there’s a bleeding impact that may look low cost and counter the in any other case lovely design of the case and keycaps.

Efficiency

As a 75% keyboard, the ZX75 instantly has its limitations for sure duties in comparison with full-size boards. For those who’re repeatedly coming into a number of numbers into spreadsheets you’ll little doubt miss having a numpad. Nevertheless, there’s a cause these boards are so well-liked as, for essentially the most half, they supply a super stability, and that’s true right here.

The ZX75 is compact sufficient to look neat and liberate desk house in your mouse however nonetheless has sufficient keys that you just’re not having to be taught dozens of complicated key mixtures simply to carry out fundamental features, as is the case with even smaller 65% and 60% board such because the Endgame Gear KB65HE or Logitech G Professional X 60 Lightspeed.

As for the core typing really feel of this keyboard, with its Little Prince switches, it’s first rate however not excellent. For a begin, solely providing two change sorts, each of that are linear, will not be going to go well with these individuals who favor a tactile or clicky change, and you may’t purchase this board in a barebones configuration to simply add your personal alternative of change.

Nevertheless, whereas the texture of the Little Prince switches labored properly sufficient for typing, throughout gaming I didn’t get on with them. The actuation drive felt too heavy, changing into an obstacle to the lighting fast and unplanned reactions required for aggressive or esports-style video games. I repeatedly missed keypresses that will’ve not been an issue on lighter, smoother feeling switches.

The opposite concern in the case of gaming, is the IQUNIX Little Prince ZX75 keyswitches are simply commonplace steel contact switches with not one of the fancy ultrafast response or analog actuation adjustment of optical or magnetic switches. These options are removed from important for all avid gamers however we’ve come to worth the positive adjustment on supply with analog switches in the case of fine-tuning our gaming inputs.

It also needs to be famous that the Little Prince switches are marketed as having a quiet sound profile, and that is removed from the reality. Whereas not obnoxiously loud, I wouldn’t class the Little Prince switches as quiet. They’ve a hole sound upon finishing a keypress and quick contact typing creates fairly an overstimulating wave of sound that I discovered might change into grating over time.

When registering the sound coming from the keyboard whereas typing, it maxed out at 74.5dB with a mean degree of 62.6 dB. For the sake of comparability, the Cherry XTRFY K5V2 which I’m additionally testing on the similar time had a max of 63.2dB and a mean of 59.1dB, so noticeably decrease on each counts.

For all its gaming faults, the IQUNIX Little Prince ZX75 remains to be a improbable keyboard for typing accuracy. In my typing pace and accuracy checks I achieved a 69 WPM high pace with 100% accuracy. That’s not blazing quick however the stability of pace and accuracy was spot on for my wants. Benchmarking typing is, after all, simply as a lot a check for the consumer as it’s for the product, however I nonetheless discover it a helpful option to choose how properly a keyboard is laid out and to verify there aren’t any dropped inputs.

Worth

The IQUNIX Little Prince ZX75 is obtainable for $199.99 (£158.23). In pure worth phrases, for gaming, this isn’t supreme given all of the shortcomings we’ve already talked about. It’s not that main merchandise from Razer and Logitech are less expensive however that right here the main focus undoubtedly feels extra on design over gaming. What’s extra, you will have to purchase a set of latest switches to get actual gaming efficiency on the board. In case you are solely all for typing really feel and your gaming wants are informal e.g. cozy and simulation video games, then you may get by fairly simply, and the visible design does make up plenty of that worth.

Conclusion

The IQUNIX Little Prince ZX75 is a good typing keyboard that finally lives and dies on whether or not you’ll be able to recognize its very area of interest design. I personally grew fairly connected to having it on my desktop, and recognize the supply materials sufficient to contemplate it a worthwhile buy.

That being mentioned, its gaming switches are poor in comparison with different main merchandise just like the SteelSeries Apex Professional Mini and Razer Huntsman V3. For those who’re into aggressive gaming, both put money into some new switches or have one other keyboard on standby as a result of this one’s missing in the case of uncooked gaming response.

Options

Corsair K65 Plus Wi-fi

Sure, it’s smaller, however the stability of gaming and typing efficiency on the Corsair K65 Plus Wi-fi is much better and for a decrease value. Its switches are additionally hot-swappable that means the board can simply be personalized to your wants.

Akko MOD 007B Tokyo

One other design-focused keyboard we’ve checked out is the Akko MOD 007B. This keyboard takes gaming efficiency severely with adjustable actuation and fast set off, a function usually solely seen in high-end optical and mechanical keyboards that float round and above the $200 mark. As a substitute, you get all of them on this beautiful keyboard for $150.