EPOMAKER Tide75 Mechanical Keyboard Review

A keyboard’s material matters when folks are upgrading their keyboards. I don’t see anything wrong with plastic because of its retro-vibe, per se. It has its economic and aesthetic value, sure. When keyboard manufacturers incorporate alternative materials, it tells me that they’re willing to expand their form factor catalog to appeal to a greater audience. For instance, I loved the KiiBOOM Phantom 81’s transparent build thanks to its acrylic body. Chilkey’s ND75 boasted an aluminum construction, boosting its weight and premium-feel. Heck, I’m now using Cerakey’s ceramic keycaps on my daily driver keyboard because of how natural they feel despite their weight and hardness.

I digress – I love seeing different materials being used in keyboards.

Over the past few months, I’ve tested several of EPOMAKER’s mechanical keyboards, all of which had one thing in common (for the most part): the materials that were used in their construction. The keyboards I have tested from EPOMAKER so far have all been made from plastic. Again, nothing wrong with that, but I’ve been hoping to see a keyboard of a different material.

Then, I was sent the Tide75. My hopes and prayers have been answered!

Epomaker’s Tide series is their first official foray into a lineup of affordable aluminum keyboards. Boasting an all-aluminum case, it both looks and feels like a massive step above plastic keyboards. Its edges shimmer and glimmer, showing an air of premium construction. It comes in several colors – the black, purple, and pink finish are anodized while the blue color utilizes an electrophoretic process. I was sent the black unit to review, and boy – it’s a stunner in person.

The moment I took the Tide75 out of the box, I marveled at its heftiness and how the keyboard shimmered under the lights. The black model has copper accents around the keyboard as well as the glittery sheen the complements the black aluminum color. Its knob matched the keycaps. I wasn’t surprised by its heft seeing as it is made of aluminum. On the backside of the keyboard is a shimmery Mirror PVD backpiece, further enhancing the premium look of this keyboard. When I finally put it on my desk for testing, I was pleased to see how it fit my desk given its color scheme and construction.

The Tide75’s side-printed keycaps helped support the keyboard’s uniform aesthetic. In my previous review of keyboards with side-printed keycaps, I loved how they looked but found issue with their legends being crowded on the side of the keycaps. Here, the legends are a smidgen cramped, but they’re still readable. The one thing I found issue with these side-printed keycaps is that they didn’t properly shine the lights from the keyboard through the keycaps. These side-printed keycaps feature transparent legends allowing for some light to pass through the legends when the keyboard’s lights are active. They’re far too dim. At the keyboard’s brightest light setting, it’s difficult for me to see the lights shining through the legends.

The dimness of the lights through the keycaps is the biggest miss for me. If the keycaps are to be transparent, I want to see the lights clearly shining through the keycaps for the purposes of clarity and aesthetics. If it’s too dim (like it currently is on the Tide75), the transparency becomes a wash. I hope that, should Epomaker return to using side-printed keycaps, they ensure that the legends have a decent passthrough brightness. Luckily, keycaps can be easily replaced, so if you don’t like the current brightness the keycaps you can easily swap them out with your keycaps of choice.

Before moving onto the switches, I want to commend Epomaker for utilizing an OEM profile on these double-shot PBT keycaps. Most of the keyboards that I have reviewed from Epomaker have had cherry-profile keycaps. Cherry-profile keycaps have a sculpted shape between rows for the purposes of ergonomics while OEM-profile keycaps are uniform across the board while also being slightly taller on the keyboard. On the Tide75, the OEM keycaps were of the perfect height and did not lead to any strain when using the keyboard for long bouts. If you’re the type of typist who prefers a uniform feel with keycaps that comfortably rise above the board, then OEM-profile keycaps are for you. The Tide75’s keycaps would make an excellent recommendation for your needs.

Let’s move to the switches. This keyboard comes with one type of switch: the Epomaker Lemon switch. This switch is not sold separately nor does it come with any other of Epomaker’s keyboards, making it a unique addition to Epomaker’s lineup of switches. This switch is a linear 5-pin switch with a medium-low degree of actuation travel of 1.6mm. In theory, this would be great for gaming because of how some players want to partially press down on a key to peek (such as in VALORANT) before switching to another key. The switch’s 40g actuation force helps keep things light, too, but in my experience the switch seemed to have a lighter actuation force closer to 35g.

I don’t have a problem with sensitive and/or lighter switches, nor should you. Not everyone types with a heavy hand like me and needs a switch with a higher actuation force and/or longer actuation travel. If anything, these switches’ stats should offer relief if you’re into gaming of higher intensities (meaning: competitive titles and/or FPS games). You want switches that can quickly register inputs without needing to press too firmly and/or all the way into the keyboard. I’ll cover the gaming potential of the Tide75 later in this review, but do know that from these specifications alone, you should not be concerned about the Tide75’s potential as a gaming keyboard.

Onto switch sounds. Those who are into mechanical keyboards often seek out the thock, clack, and/or pop sounds that emerge when typing on the keyboard. The Lemon switches in the Tide75 sound crisp and poppy. I would have assumed that the aluminum construction would have led to a louder-than-expected sound, but I was pleased to note that even when typing furiously, it didn’t get to the loudness comparable to Epomaker’s Mulan switches.

The Tide75’s aluminum construction led to this keyboard to feel unsurprisingly but satisfyingly sturdy. Even when I pressed firmly down onto the keyboard, it didn’t budge. No bending, no sliding, no give. This is one tough keyboard and should stand most users’ stress tests.

Epomaker announced that the Tide75 is VIA compatible. Like its Shadow-S predecessor, the user will have to jump through some small hoops to get the keyboard to be recognized by the VIA platform. I had to import the keyboard’s json file and fiddle with settings before VIA recognized my keyboard  I like that Epomaker is coming around into supporting one of the leading keyboard configuration applications for keyboard fans like myself, but I would greatly prefer them simply using their own in-house keyboard application like the one for the DynaTab75X and RT100. I’m going to be firm here: Their in-house Epomaker Driver should be used for all of their keyboards, even if it’s just for basic macros, keyboard configs, and sharing custom light patterns.

The Tide75 also contains other connectivity and power features that are pretty much standard in the prebuilt space, such as tri-mode connectivity (Bluetooth, 2.4Ghz with dongle, and wired) along with a 4000mAh battery. The battery lasted me for a good two days of use before I needed to recharge, but with all wireless mechanical keyboard batteries, your mileage will vary depending on how much you use it, which light settings you have enabled, and more. Personally, I prefer having my keyboard be connected via the wire so I don’t have to worry about lower-than-normal polling rates and battery life, but my preferences mighty not be the norm.

This keyboard held up very well as a day-to-day keyboard for things like word processing, web browsing, and other average use cases. The sensitivity of the switches led me to make more errors than I usually would make, but that’s because I’ve become accustomed to heavier switches. If you’re looking to spruce up your office space with a gorgeous and sturdy aluminum keyboard, the Tide75 should be your first pick.

All right, now let’s pivot to the Tide75’s gaming potential. I mentioned earlier in this review that this keyboard’s switches are sensitive and hold great potential for higher-intensity gaming. This was the case during my testing. Over the past two weeks I put the Tide75 through its paces across games of multiple intensities, and I’m confident that most players (barring the most-competitive of FPS players) would enjoy and have little issue using the Tide75 for gaming.

When playing higher-intensity games like VALORANT, ANGER FOOT, and Counter-Strike 2, the Tide75’s switches made it so that I could effortlessly peak and make finer adjustments to my movements. It wasn’t as sensitive as keyboards with magnetic switches from my experience, but it was close enough for my purposes that I could excel without making input errors.

Given the Tide75’s prowess in handling higher-intensity games, it should be assumed that medium-intensity and lower-intensity games should be just fine. This is mostly the case. I tested the Tide75 playing League of Legends, Quest Master, Wizordum, and Realm of Ink and it functioned fine under the medium pressure associated with most games in this category. Given the sensitivity of the switches, I had to be mindful of my inputs as to not make too hasty of movements in Realm of Ink and Quest Master, but that was the only drawback.

For games of lower-intensity, the Tide75 functioned just fine, albeit less satisfying than I would prefer. When I play casual games, I often want to hear and feel satisfying responses at any given time, and the lemon switches’ crisp poppiness didn’t hit my personal satisfaction threshold. This is purely an aesthetic quirk for me, as I wasn’t anywhere close to falling short or making mistakes when playing something like Stardew Valley or Athenian Rhapsody.

The Tide75 should hold up well for most games, if not all. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this is a peak performance keyboard for someone looking to rank in the top 100 players of an FPS, but the other top 900 players should be able to get by just fine with this keyboard. The lemon switches were effective in responding to twitchy inputs to the point of me staying alive to the same extent I would using a keyboard with magnetic switches, so that should tell you that average players (myself definitely included in this camp) will succeed when using this keyboard.

Currently, the Tide75 is priced at $139.99 ($119.99 if you opt for the purple or pink variant), which is slightly less than similar aluminum prebuilts from the likes of Keychron, Nuphy, and Glorious. While it doesn’t beat out the Chilkey ND75 at the price point, it features a different uniform aesthetic that others may prefer thanks to its keycaps with side-printed legends. This aluminum keyboard is a great value given the price, so if you’re looking for a new aluminum keyboard for your workspace, look no further than the Tide75!

The Tide75 screams high quality and durability. Epomaker’s decision to opt into an aluminum case and studier materials at a competitive price indicates that they’re wanting to appeal to more consumers. Its Lemon switches were fantastic for even high-intensity gaming, making this an easy recommendation for someone looking to upgrade their workspace with an affordable aluminum keyboard.