Zoom65 Essential Edition
Figure 1. Pictures online of people's Zoom65 show no love to the split spacebar.
Zoom 65 Specs:
Round 1
Dark green aluminum case
PVD Mirror Silver weight and knob
Keycaps: a mix of Geekark BoW alphas, Geekark 9009 Reverse Cangjie modifiers, and a single 1.25u space bar from CannonCaps 9009 Dark
TX stabilizers, lubed
Switches: Techno Violets, lubed
Plate: polycarbonate
Mods: kit provided foam
The colors I chose were totally inspired by Attack on Titan. When the group buy went out in April 2022, I was obsessing over AoT and how amazingly dark it got (like what is free will anyways?). I think the white and beige combo of the keycaps contributes to the theme (if you look up AoT's classic uniforms).
Geekark BoW keycaps, by the way, are extremely smooth and I like it, but they're also brittle and break so easily. Unfortunately, I don't think there's ever going to be a set like this in the future because not many people like to work with Geekark as a manufacturer and their molds have been updated anyways, so the BoW sets on the market are probably the last of them.
Figure 2. The bottom weight, which is a big feature of custom keyboards but is never seen.
I didn't really expect to like this board so much because I was pretty satisfied with my Gingko65 and how that felt, sounded, and looked. The Zoom65 in comparison is kind of bland and generic in appearance. Sure there's the weight (Figure 2), but like it's not really noticeable.
However, I'm a fan of the sound on this Zoom65 as it is a little deeper and an even bigger fan of the customizable layout. I don't think I can come back from the split spacebar configuration.
As for the bluetooth, I would recommend ignoring it all together. It takes some time for it to turn on when activated, and I'm never entirely sure if it ever turns off even when I tap the combo for USB mode. I also thought that the BT was messing with the functionality of my board, but I think it must be a firmware issue specific to this board.Â