Thermaltake Tt Esports Challenger Prime Keyboard Review

Oct 20, 2015

[section_title title=Closer Look]
Closer Look

The front of the box is a fairly simple affair with a well-proportioned image of the keyboard displaying the blue LED and not a lot else. It does highlight the 3 colour backlighting as well as the polling rate and macro keys.

As we might expect, there’s a lot more information on the back of the box, all of the features are mentioned from the function keys through to the display of lighting options., you also find the contents and requirements listed among other information.

Here you can see the function keys explained in detail.

Inside the box with the small amount of protective packaging removed we see the contents: the Tt Esports Challenger Prime keyboard itself of course along with an information leaflet and warranty card.

The body of the Tt Esports Challenger Prime consists of a combination of textured and glossy black plastic. The cable is not removable but is nicely braided which adds a premium feel to what is a budget product.

The back of the Tt Esports Challenger Prime it pretty bland with only the flip-up legs, rubberised pads and drainage holes of interest. It would have been nice to see cable management options here, but they’re not an essential component so I can see why it was omitted to keep manufacturing costs down.

Even without the backlighting it good to see that the keys are easily identifiable. This should increase its appeal for those who want to see what they are typing but don’t want the backlighting distracting them as they play.

Here we see the dial used to control the brightness of the backlighting; it has a very nice textured feel and smooth turning which gives absolute control.

The six macro keys are in a column along the left of the keyboard, with the three ‘M’ profile keys being along the row of media shortcut keys.

You can see that most of the F1-F12 keys have some alternative functions bound to them; these cover lighting controls, browser shortcuts and polling rate among other features.

The row of media keys on the other other side of the keyboard are set aside entirely to control the track that is playing whether to start, pause or skip forward and back or to adjust the master volume. The rest of the function shortcut keys that don’t quite fit on the standard ‘F1 – F12’ row are bound to the PrtScr, Scroll Lock and Pause Break keys.