Usage & Final Thoughts
My initial impression when I started using the ZM-K900M was that the key spacing felt really wide but that otherwise the board has a really nice feel. But what do I mean by feel? For one the stability of the keys mounted to Kailh Blue switches feels better than other boards I’ve used with the same switches. They aren’t sloppy and have zero play. Each key press is short and there is a slight click of feedback about halfway through the full range of travel. This let’s you hit your key quick and bounce right to the next one. The one exception would be the SPACE bar. And while you don’t feel it much while typing there is a generous amount of play in spite of the extra support Zalman has built in.
As I mentioned earlier the lighting system has a pretty steep learning curve. To figure out how to control it you basically have to watch Zalman’s how to videos. Once you do it’s not so difficult, but I would still have much prefered Zalman to write some companion software to set up my lights. The other controls on the board such as shortcuts and macros work flawlessly. I’m not a big user of shortcuts but have found a few of them useful like My Computer and Google Search.
In game the ZM-K900M never left me wanting more or missing a command. I would love to blame my mediocre skills on the keyboard but in this instance I’ll just have to step up my game.
A lot of how you feel about the ZM-K900M is going to come down to whether you like the key spacing. I have a feeling that some users could sit down at this deck and never even notice a thing while others with smaller hands are going to find that they are making more typos than usual which is very frustrating. Thankfully Zalman priced this board low enough that you can afford to try it out without breaking the bank. Currently on sale for only $77.99 USD on Amazon this board ends up being quite the bargain. It’s hard to find a decent mechanical keyboard in the sub $100 range even if it is equipped with the lower priced Kailh switches.
Overall ThinkComputers would like to award the ZM-K900M with a 9 out of 10 score!
Pros:
– Good Key Feel
– Solidly Built
– Good Shape
– Extensive RGB LED Lighting
– On the Fly Macro Recording
– No Key Ghosting
– Very Fast Key Polling
– Price
Cons:
– No Software
– Space Bar is a Bit Sloppy
– Cluttered Layout
