TECWAREPhantom 104 Mechanical Keyboard, RGB LED, Outemu Red Switch, Extra Switches Provided, Excellent for Gamers

I bought my keyboard in February of 2019. I had bounced between a couple other mechanical keyboards prior to this, and while being budget constrained I wanted something that would allow me to make changes if I so desired. Suddenly there was a bit of discussion I had found on a random mechanical keyboard with fairly good quality, and so I became the owner of a Tecware Phantom keyboard.4 years in, this thing has had drinks and food spilled on it far too many times, incorrectly cleaned and maintained even more times, and enough typing to fill at least one book's worth of pages. I'm fairly content, the last time I spilled something on it was the worst spill yet, finally killing a few switches and breaking the stem on one of the key caps. But still this thing persists, in no small part thanks to the hot swap switches and included key puller. With the new set of key caps I ordered I won't be using it anymore, but it worked for the set of caps included with the keyboard, and for that I am thankful.That all said though, I want to be perfectly clear on this: This keyboard is C H E A P. Sure, you get a metal plate and hot swap switches with RGB lighting, but the concession has to be made somewhere. The cable is impressively stiff, and will fight with you. The keycaps are... okay? they land at a solid 6 out of 10 I feel. Not great but not egregiously bad. The key stabilizers alongside the keys themselves are super wobbly, the spacebar specifically has a kind of rattle if you tap it at the edges, though I will say the keys don't feel particularly gritty or anything.The software experience is also a little maddening. 1000hz polling rate is easy to enable, but tweaking the lighting profile is a little clunky. Where it gets bad is the fine color changing. Getting colors to be produced as expected is more a matter of experimentation than picking the color you see on the screen. I'm willing to concede this might be more an issue of RGB itself, as I have a light strip that has a similar issue, but I feel like orange certainly can't be that hard of a color to make.All this said, for 40 bucks nowadays? This feels like a no brainer. You're curious about mechanical keyboards and want a cheap in? go ahead! You want a pcb to put nicer switches and keycaps on? this thing's cheaper than any DIY kit I can find. It's cheap, and by no means perfect, but the opportunity this thing provides you is well worth the price.

So I can't say that I am a keyboard aficionado by any means, but had some experience with different types of switches and keyboards to know what I like.Pros:The Outemu switches: in this keyboard are pretty good in feel, and since I got the Red Outemu switches, each key press has a clear linear press, good for a Cherry MX clone. These switches feel pretty responsive even without fully pressing down on the keys which is nice feeling for me since it means I don't have to use much for to actuate key.Construction: the back plate is of a sturdy metal construction with little to no keyboard flex, and keyboard comes with cable routing under the board which adds a little bit of cable management letting you rout the cable left, right or center. The keyboard also comes with legs in the back you can flip out to allow for angled typing.Customization: You can hot-swap the key caps and switches themselves as the keyboard comes with a switch and key-cap puller and four extra switches. This means you can change the switches** and the key caps out if you felt the need to. The custom RGB back lights to the keys are a plus, which can be customized using the pre-installed patterns change the speed, brightness, patterns and colors on the keyboard, or using the free software you can download directly from TECWARE's website which allows you to change the individual colors of different keys.**THIS BOARD IS ONLY COMPATIBLE WITH OUTEMU SWITCHES. If you want to later switch to Cherry switches, you are going to have to get another keyboard.Cons:Exposed switches: there is a noticeable gap between the key cap and the board exposing the switches. This means two things: the switch is exposed to any dirt or liquids that come into contact with the board. This also means that there is a bit of a wobble to the keys, enough to where you can wiggle each key quite noticeably to the left and right. This has led to accidental key presses.Noise:Like all mechanical keyboards there is a bit of noise that comes with each keystroke. If you bottom out the keys on this board (fully pressing down on the keys), there is a distinct "ping" sound as the key comes back up. This creates more noise noise then just the initial keystroke. You can remedy this with rubber o-rings to dampen the sound, but If you are someone who happens to be sharing a space in close proximity with other people, keep this in mind.Simple Software And Limited Macros:While you can change the color, speed, and pattern of the back lights to your keyboard using the programmable macro, making custom macros with the software is a different story. While it is possible to get a macro to work for excel, getting macros to open up different applications on your PC is difficult. There are pre-built macros for opening the browser, calculator, multi-media player, file explorer, volume and Playback buttons but as far as I know you can't change these presets to something else.No independent multi-media keys: you have to use the FN+ F5 to F11 keys to adjust volume and playback.RGB Color: the colors on the keyboard come off as desaturated coming through the key caps. Lighter colors closer to white show through as more muted, and if you are someone who like gradient color schemes, the differentiation between colors can become very muddy or too light.Conclusion:With everything stated, I would gladly recommend this to someone who is looking to get their first mechanical keyboard, or just looking for something on the cheap side. One thing I would highly recommend is to look at the other keyboards on offer from TECWARE, I noticed some new designs bring multi-media keys, and it seems their Spectre series of keyboards don't have as exposed switches (Haven't used one and can't find any retailers that sell them in the US sadly).

This is my first mech board. And I am beyond happy with it, keys feel great and I got the reds so I don't annoy other people in my house with it, there is a bit of noise still, but that's just the keys bottoming out, though it doesn't sound bad to me. But to others that want a, more or less, completely silent board, pick up a bag of O-rings, super cheap and you get a fair amount of them.For those who're concerned about how sturdy this board is, don't be. It's heavy, really heavy, much more then the flimsy membrane boards I've used til now. This thing could survive a fall that you couldn't I'm sure. I think that's all there is to say about that really.As for colors on this board, it's pretty great, they're all really vivid and with 18 preset modes built in, I don't think I'll get bored with them anytime soon (Though I love the third preset for M6, super hippy). Not only do you get the rainbow light mode, you press FN and the "=+" key, and you get an abundance of color options for EACH mode, there's bound to be a color for everyone on every mode if the rainbow thing is too much for you. The ONLY thing that it could have that it doesn't, is side lighting, but that's a negligible detail to me.And as a little extra, get some pudding keycaps for this board at some point, they're about 20 US on Amazon pending on who you're buying from, but they make the colors pop so much more, it's crazy. (There's been some complaints about some sellers selling aftermarket keycaps being scuffed and such, I bought mine from "Glorious PC Gaming Race" and beyond some excess paint chips needing to be brushed off, they were in excellent condition)As for gaming, it is certainly superior, you KNOW when you're pressing a key, it's a bit hard explaining in greater detail until you feel the difference, but it's certainly there.Another thing, as I said earlier, I got the reds, not only are they quiet, but they don't have much actuation force, so for when you need to press a key for an extended period of time (Like FPSs, holding WASD in a diretion for a while), it's not a bother at all, no "finger fatigue" here. So great for extended playtime for those who may be doing livestreams, or just has a lot of time on their hands.So, for the price point of around 60 US after all is said and done, would I recommend this board? A full-hearted YES, it hasn't been that long since I got the board, but unless something happens, it's getting 5-stars across the board (And if something happens, I'll be sure to put it as an update).To end this, I'll just give my opinion/statement, I LOVE this board, if there is a better keyboard out there, I don't care to know it, especially if it'll cost double this board, that's all I gotta say about that.

This is a very solid keyboard that provides a great value. Depending on when you look, there are very limited offerings for a full-sized keyboard with hot-swappable switches and individually-addressable RGB LEDs. This almost does all of this and at a great price. I ended up buying two of them, one in red and one in blue switches, with mixed results.Pros:- Solid heavy keyboard- Very good priceCons:- The Outemu blue switches are a little annoying, being more scratchy and draggy than the Cherry blues I'm used to (the reds seemed ok to me but I'm not a snob when it comes to quiet keyboards)- Not very hot-swappable: Outemu sockets aren't compatible with most other replacement switches due to the pin size, and large SMD RGB LEDs would prevent using some bands like Cherry anyways. There's a lot of discussion on the internet about Outemu socket compatibility, but the real results seemed very hit and miss, with some Gaterons working and some not. Kaiths don't work and just bend pins.- Lighting is inconsistent: the SMD LEDs on one of my keyboards are less than half as bright as the other, regardless of settings in the software. One keyboard is pretty bright, and the other I wish I could just return as the LEDs aren't very useful.I'd give this keyboard a 3.5 for great value but issues with LEDs and sockets, but at this price I'll round up to 4 for a good budget keyboard even without lighting.

So i had been using a stock keyboard from dell (mechanical I'm pretty sure) and wanted a new keyboard for a good long time to game on. I watch a lot of youtubers reviewing budget or good value RGB keyboards and saw this beauty in one of them.I truly believe this keyboard is well worth more than the money spent!PROS:1. No extra downloads needed! Works straight out of the box and RGB works with ps4 as well! (I use it for FFXlV)2. 18 different lighting effects, transparent letters/characters and meta backplate just adds to the lighting of the keyboard.3. No annoying ugly logos or branding ontop of the keyboard that would disgust ones view of its beauty (like other keyboards). I love the fact they kept it simple and placed it infront with just "Phantom" in white. I love the company for doing this for it!!!4. A giant reason I picked this keyboard was its MODULAR switches!! I figured if I didnt like the feel of the switch (for I have never used a cherry switch, just mechanical so I have no frame of reference) or if one broke, that I could just buy some at a cheap price and just replace it. (also comes with 4 extra switches)5. This keyboard is built like a tank... There is no play or warping with this keyboard unless you really want to try to break it. Its raised keys just allows it to be cleaned easily without any struggles!Cons:1. Its built like a freaking tank for keyboards...... I'm glad it doesnt feel like a cheap keyboard and feels like its already at brand quality already. I was just surprised at how much it weighed but its not like I'm going to take it place to place.2. Kinda sad that I wanted a solid color of a certain purple to compliment my mouse pad and mmo mouse.... but this keyboard offers way more than I anticipated so I can live with it. I'll just stay with the too pink of purple color that it offers.3. This is on me more than this keyboard! I never used switches before but I heard RED switches were good for long gaming sessions..... But I guess a lot of gamers have weak fingers or something..... these switches could never tire my fingers (a good thing for long sessions) and easy to press for each finger. I plan on buying different switches to replace the keys I use and this brings us back to a PRO where this keyboard is modular and interchangeable (I love this fact)!If you're in the market for a really good RBG keyboard, I give this keyboard a high recommendation for all the benefits it provides!