Regardless of if you’re using the RT100 for gaming or for office work, it’s an excellent addition to your workspace. I absolutely love the miniature television screen; I just wish that I could customize it to a better degree. The keyboard is an all-around solid mechanical keyboard for multiple uses, just be mindful of the switches that you choose!
As I’ve reviewed mechanical keyboards, I’ve come to appreciate big swings on the form factor front. By big swings, I mean adding things like volume knobs, screens, and other things that can transform a mechanical keyboard into a unique centerpiece to one’s office and/or gaming space. As someone who loves all things classic tech, I want a combination of new-school LED-fueled accoutrements with traditional, old-school trinkets that remind me of the days of clunkier computing. Okay, not so much clunky, but you know what I mean.
Epomaker’s RT100 mechanical keyboard is not a brand-new keyboard. It’s been out for several months now, but it’s a keeb that caught my eye from the moment I took it out of the box. It has a detachable monitor! Woah!
Before I get ahead of myself on talking about the monitor, let’s talk about the rest of the keyboard. In my prior experience reviewing some of Epomaker’s keyboards, I’ve seen cool things added to change up the traditional keyboard design. Their DynaTab 75X has a gigantic dot matrix screen at the top of the keyboard (that’s also quite hefty). Their Shadow-S has a small LED-screen at the top right-hand side of the keyboard next to the volume knob so you can keep track of your computer’s vitals or add some cute images for the purposes of uniqueness. These additions are nice touches and break up the monotony of keyboard design toward a less utilitarian form factor, and I love how Epomaker is taking steps to making keyboards look cool.
Turning to the RT100, this is a 95% keyboard with 97 keys, a volume knob (that also has an embedded button), and a detachable monitor. In my experience, full keyboards and 95%-ers are few and far between. Due to the cost of materials and switches, it’s cost- and space-efficient to have a 75% TKL (ten-keyless) keyboard without the number pad. It also makes practical sense to omit the number pad. In the gaming space, many games avoid utilizing the number pad and restrict inputs to the typical number row (for MMOs/shooters) and WASD for movement. If anything, numpads are used by office workers (like me!) for faster data entry and Excel-skills.
Here’s the thing, though: Number pads are fantastic for casual gaming. I use a number pad for things like Teamfight Tactics (for quickly scouting players’ boards) and in Civilization for my favorite hotkeys to quickly cycle through actions. Sure, you could assign the usual suspect keys for that level of efficiency, but it’s right next to the mouse! It’s efficient!
Spoiler alert: Any keyboard with a full number pad, the RT100 included, is a fantastic choice for casual gamers.
The RT100 comes in several color variants, Retro White, Pink, Deep Grey (which looks closer to charcoal), Green, and Purple. I was sent the Retro White model to review, which would have been my color scheme of choice if I was in the market for a new keyboard. It’s not white like an Apple product, but when you think of the color schemes of the 90s, the creamy beige was the classic “white” scheme of products like the Macintosh 128K (which was an 80s computer, sure) and the original NES. This model uses brown and grey accents to complement the retro vibe, making my desk look (and feel) like the office space I wish I had.
The legends on the keycaps are quite large, nearly filling up the keycap’s face and making it hard to miss. The spacebar and other modifier keys feature small elements that skew modern. I’m usually fine with legends that are printed in gigantic fonts, but the number row’s keys look visually busy because of how the numbers and symbols are competing for space. I would have preferred the numbers to be slightly larger while the symbols could have been smaller (which is something most keyboards utilize). That said, if these keycaps don’t meet your standards, you should be pleased to know that both the keycaps and switches are hot-swappable. These keycaps were easy to remove with a keycap puller, too.
When ordering your RT100, you have several switches to choose room – Wisteria Linear (which I reviewed with the DynaTab 75X), Wisteria Tactile (which I have not yet reviewed), Flamingo (which I reviewed with Shadow-S), Gateron Pro Yellows, and Sea Salts. My review unit came with the Sea Salt switches.
The Epomaker Sea Salts are 5-pin linear switches with a unique feature: They’re silent switches. This means that typing with the Sea Salts is quite unique. Most mechanical keyboard users, myself included, expect a degree of audible thockiness or clackiness when typing. When you’re in a bad mood or flying through typing a gigantic email, hearing and feeling the keyboard react to your inputs with a thock or clack is satisfying. Heck, part of what got me into mechanical keyboards is their unique sounds! I’m sure others are into the thocky sounds, too. That said, the Sea Salts emit the most muted taps, almost similar to raindrops on a roof. If you share an office space with someone else or plan on taking a mechanical keyboard around to school or work, then you should consider silent switches so that you don’t bother other people. They feel pretty sturdy, too.
I didn’t like typing on the Sea Salts at all when I first got into using the keyboard. They felt…spongy. Weird. It didn’t feel like anything I’ve used before. I usually expect linear switches to feel smooth with a hardened bottom out response. Instead, the Sea Salt switches felt like I was pushing the RT100’s keycaps into a plushy headboard. Because of the different feeling, my WPM took a massive hit into the sub-70wpm territory. Usually, I tend to type anywhere between 86 and 97wpm (at least according to Monkeytype). However, extended use forced me to train myself to be more deliberate with my typing rather than rushing through rapid-fire inputs.
On top of that, it felt like the Sea Salts were far more sensitive than any of the other Epomaker switches I have used before. These switches require around 35gf of operating force with around 2mm of pre-travel. For the sake of comparison, these specs are just about the same as the Epomaker Flamingo linear switches. During my testing, however, the Sea Salts seemed to take less force for me to press into them and a little less pre-travel than the Flamingos in the Shadow-S that I had on hand. This sensitivity also impacted my accuracy, which frustrated me. I’m chalking this up to me being too forceful in my typing, or at least erratic.
The Sea Salt switches are interesting switches to consider for day-to-day use, let alone gaming. Their muted sounds are a welcome addition when having to use a mechanical keyboard in a shared or public space, but the sponginess of the switches along with their potential sensitivity is offputting. Those quirks aside, I ended up liking these switches quite a bit. They warm on you if you stick to them and look past the sponginess.
If you’re on the fence about which switches to use, you honestly can’t go wrong with the Wisteria linears. They’re an all-around satisfying switch that most will enjoy. As I mentioned in my Shadow-S review, the flamingos are quite loud. If you want something that is audibly satisfying, then look no further than the flamingo switches. If you want something quiet, then the Sea Salts should be considered.
All right, let’s now talk about the RT100’s miniature detachable monitor. I have never seen a keyboard with a detachable monitor, so seeing this little triangular monitor in the box was new. Upon popping off a little door, I could slot in the monitor to the upper left hand corner to give my keyboard a new look. This screen shows the time (in 24h format, only), date (YYYY/MM/DD, only), battery life, the temperature and the CPU percentage. I could also display an animation in the larger box.
To customize the screen, I had to use the Epomaker driver that I had to use with the DynaTab 75X. I was familiar with this software suite to begin with, as it gave me the opportunity to set up macros and customize the keyboard’s south-facing RGBs. In one of the tabs, I could browse animations that other users have created and uploaded to Epomaker’s servers. When I found something I liked, I clicked the download button; within 30 seconds, the gif popped up on my keyboard’s little monitor and off I went!
Just about every single keyboard I’ve reviewed with a screen has not given me the degree of customization that I want. Unfortunately, the RT100’s miniature tv is included in that list of keyboard screens that have fallen short. I wasn’t able to change the time format, date format, or even remove elements altogether. For instance, I have no reason to need the CPU % on my screen, but I couldn’t find a way to remove it. I wanted my chosen animation to fill the entire screen rather than have it surrounded by metrics that I did not want. I’m hoping that future iterations of the RT100 (should Epomaker decide to make a new version of this keyboard) give the user more freedom to customize their miniature tv as they see fit. It’s an incredibly cool feature that I’ve yet to see on any other keyboard.
The rest of the RT100’s features are pretty standard for the price point and compared to other keyboards in Epomaker’s library. It has multiconnectivity meaning you can swap between 2.4GHz, Bluetooth, and wired. During most gaming keyboard reviews, I often defer to using the Wired mode given the lowest latency. However, it was easy to pair directly to my computers via Bluetooth, and the 2.4GHz dongle could be hidden in the television’s USB port if I opted to remove the miniature television. This keyboard has a 4000mAh battery, so with the lights on I was able to get around a day and a half of full use. However, your mileage may vary when using the keyboard in a wireless mode. I prefer wired keyboards, anyway, and the USB-C cable that came with the keyboard felt high-quality. If you have the space to plug it into your laptop or computer, then I recommend plugging it in.
Before I pivot to the RT100’s potential as a gaming keyboard, I’ll conclude with a note on its build quality. The RT100 is made of solid plastic and is gasket-mounted. I love gasket-mounted keyboards (compared to top-mounted) because of their overall cushiness when pressing firmly into multiple keys. The cushiness of the Sea Salt switches along with the gasket mount may explain why this keyboard felt spongier than anything I’ve used, but it also means that it makes far less noise than other keyboards. No complaints on build quality from me, but I wouldn’t mind if the knob was made of a metal rather than plastic.
When assessing keyboards for their gaming fit, I subject keyboards to a battery of games spanning high-intensity, medium-intensity, and low-intensity. As I mentioned at the top of this review, just about any keyboard with a number pad makes it a great candidate for casual gaming, but what about medium- and higher-intensity games? (Click here or here for examples on how we review games of varying intensity.)
Starting with higher-intensity games like first-person shooters, this was a difficult keyboard to use thanks to the Sea Salt switches. The layout and keycaps were fine, but the sponginess felt really strange and led to quite a few false inputs. In VALORANT, for instance, I made several mistakes because of accidentally strafing or peeking when I meant to stop moving. My path to retrain myself forced me to be more intentional with my key presses, meaning that rapid trigger inputs were off the table. I don’t think that rapid triggers are impossible with the Sea Salts, but I would recommend avoiding the heavier games unless you’re willing to make some compromises.
On the medium-intensity front, the RT100 was solid. I tested this keyboard using League of Legends, Abiotic Factor, Quest Master, and Wizordum. For the most part, I wasn’t making as many false inputs as I was in higher-intensity games, but I occasionally made some false inputs that made the experience slightly less-than-optimal. That said, given these games’ medium intensity, a degree of inaccuracy won’t make or break the gameplay experience, so I don’t consider the Sea Salt switches to really impact these types of games.
If you’ve gotten this far in the review, you’ve probably arrived at the conclusion that the Sea Salts are not the most optimal switches for gaming. I’ve spent several paragraphs complaining about their sponginess and sensitivity, but what about the RT100? Look, the keys are spaced appropriately and they feel good when used. That’s what ultimately matters when selecting a gaming keyboard. The next step is to figure out which switches to use. From my experience, the Sea Salt switches may prove to be a barrier for some players, at least compared to the Wisterias or other 3- or 5-pin switches of your choice. Switches are just as important as the keyboard itself, so you need to be mindful when selecting a keyboard that best suits your needs.
Regardless of if you’re using the RT100 for gaming or for office work, it’s an excellent addition to your workspace. I absolutely love the miniature television screen; I just wish that I could customize it to a better degree. The keyboard is an all-around solid mechanical keyboard for multiple uses, just be mindful of the switches that you choose!
