Epomaker Tide 75 wireless mechanical keyboard hands-on review: Sleek design and great battery life with major weakness
Well-rounded; not perfect.
The Epomaker Tide 75 isn't a revolutionary custom mechanical keyboard by any stretch of the imagination. However, it checks all the boxes, including VIA support, a gasket mount, do-it-all switches, and a well-made aluminium case, making it a solid choice for the price.Julian van der Merwe, 👁 Enrico Frahn Published 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 ...
Verdict - Stunning design and great battery life held back by quality control
As far as mechanical keyboards go, the Epomaker Tide 75 doesn't do anything ground-breaking, and it seems as though Epomaker knows this. The Tide 75 provides solid build quality, great battery life, and versatile connectivity options, especially given the price. The included Epomaker Zebra switches also strike a nice balance between gaming and typing, while the exploded 75% layout of the Tide 75 is comfortable to use, and customisation in VIA is great to have, but not necessary in this form factor.
The Tide 75 provides solid build quality, great battery life, and versatile connectivity options, especially given the price.
Not all is sunshine and roses, though, and the Epomaker Tide 75 has some quality control and firmware issues that hold it back from greatness. However, if you're looking for a well-built mechanical keyboard with an elegant design that's also easy to customise and doesn't break the bank, the Tide 75 is a solid choice.
Pros
Cons
Pricing and availability
The Tide 75 is available via Amazon and Epomaker for between $119.99 and $139.99, depending on the colour way and keycap options you choose. Amazon is also likely a good place to buy the Tide 75, so that you have the easy return option if there are any issues, or if you can't live with the compromises it asks you to make.
Table of Contents
- Verdict - Stunning design and great battery life held back by quality control
- Technical specifications
- Unboxing and accessories
- Design and build quality
- Keycaps - one glaring issue
- Typing experience and Zebra switch impressions
- Connectivity and battery life
- Hardware and software customisation - VIA reigns supreme
Technical specifications
| Epomaker Tide 75 | |
|---|---|
| Form factor and size | 75%, 90 keys, 370 × 143 mm with 11.5 mm front height |
| Case material | Anodised or e-coated (electrophoretic-coated) aluminium |
| Weight | 1.712 kg (1.8 kg claimed) |
| Plate material and mounting style | FR4 plate with flex cuts, gasket mount with polyurethane foam (Poron or Poron-like) gaskets |
| Connectivity | USB type-C, 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth 5.0 |
| PCB and switch style | 1 mm thick hot-swap PCB with support for 3- and 5-pin hot-swap mechanical switches |
| Default switch options | Epomaker Zebra linear 40 gf MX-style switches |
| Layout | Exploded 75% layout with a knob |
| Keycap material and profile | Dye-sublimated, double-shot PBT keycaps in Cherry (front printed) or OEM (side printed) profile |
| Customisation software | VIA browser-based or stand-alone customisation software |
| Backlight | Per-key south-facing RGB backlighting |
| Polling rate | 1,000 Hz over wired and 2.4 GHz, 125 Hz over Bluetooth |
| Price | $119.99 to $139.99, depending on colour |
| Availability | Amazon* or Epomaker |
Unboxing and accessories
The unboxing experience of the Epomaker Tide 75 is something of a mixed bag. All the necessary accessories are included (keycap and switch puller combo, USB Type-C-to-A cable, and an allen key for disassembly), however, the packaging is otherwise rather basic, featuring a printed design and some inexpensive foam padding inside the cardboard box. There are also no added extras, like additional switches or different coloured keycaps, contrasting the Keychron K15 Max we recently took a look at.
The quality of the included accessories also leaves something to be desired. Unlike the other Epomaker keyboard we recently reviewed, the TH40, the Tide 75's USB cable is not braided. It works just fine, but at the price Epomaker charges for the Tide 75, you might expect higher quality accessories and potentially even additional accent keycaps.
Design and build quality
The main goal of the Epomaker Tide 75 appears to have been to just make a solid, no-frills mechanical keyboard at a fairly reasonable price, and the design and build quality are the first examples of this. Both the top and bottom case are made of CNC-machined aluminium, and, while there are no adjustable feet, the small rubber dome feet on the bottom of the Tide 75 are soft and grippy. These feet serve to both keep the keyboard firmly lodged in place on a desk and isolate the keyboard and the desk, resulting in minimal sound propagation through whatever surface the keyboard is on.
Overall, the build quality of the Tide 75 is solid, and the keyboard is heavy, weighing in at 1,712 g, by our measure. The bottom of the keyboard features a shiny accent plate (which is not where the extra weight comes from) with the Epomaker logo laser etched into its surface.
While the black anodising on our review unit is rather nice, the golden chamfered edges show very minor chatter marks. These witness marks are hardly noticeable in daily use, though, only really showing up upon close inspection.
The Tide 75 features a programmable knob in the top right corner of the case, which is set to control system volume by default, and the excellent build quality can be seen here, too. The finish on the knob is consistent, and, although it has no knurling, it's easy enough to use because of its substantial size.
On the back edge of the Tide 75, right next to the USB port, there is a power switch, and on the other end of that same edge is a magnetised slot for the 2.4 GHz receiver. The slot works well enough to hold the USB Type-A receiver in normal use, but the receiver falls out quite easily if you happen to be moving the keyboard around a little too vigorously.
Keycaps - one glaring issue
The Cherry profile double-shot PBT keycaps on the Tide 75 are quite nice overall, with clear, centred legends in a nice gold colour to match the rest of the accents on the keyboard's case. The keycap walls are thick, and they all sit at the correct height on the board.
That said, there is one glaring issue with the keycaps, and that's the Caps Lock keycap, where the keycap looks like it was made during the last shift on a Friday afternoon. The letters are inconsistent thicknesses, and they aren't all on the same level, which breaks the clean aesthetic dramatically. This doesn't appear to be an issue isolated to our review unit, either, as the same wonky Caps Lock type can even be seen on Epomaker's own product imagery of the Tide 75.
Typing experience and Zebra switch impressions
Our Tide 75 review sample features the Epomaker Zebra switches, which are a pre-lubricated linear switch with a box-style stem and a 40 gf actuation force. The switches feel and sound consistent, and none of them exhibit that squelching sound typical of over-lubricated switches. As far as sound profile, the POM stem, nylon bottom housing, and PC top housing result in a crisp bottom-out sound.
The keyboard's ample case foams and polyurethane foam gaskets mute the typing sound somewhat and eliminate any unpleasant echoes or pinging sounds. The flex-cut FR4 plate also contributes to the bright sound profile. Although there is some flex to the Tide 75, it's almost imperceptible in general use, which is a shame, because a non-flex-cut plate might have provided a fuller sound profile with about the same amount of flex.
The exploded 75% layout of the Tide 75 is comfortable to use, and the spacing between the right navigation column helps prevent mis-presses. It would have been nice if Epomaker included a few extra keycaps in the box for things like Print Screen, but assigning Print Screen to the knob's press function worked as a substitute.
Epomaker Tide 75 typing sound
The Tide 75's typing sound and feel are satisfying enough and generally inoffensive, although it leans towards the "clacky" end of the sound spectrum, and there is significant Space Bar echo, which can be resolved by adding some foam to the inside of the keycap. Epomaker's design decisions with the Tide 75 have all resulted in a pretty middle-of-the-road typing experience, which might not be too desirable but leaves a lot of room for modifications to improve the experience, regardless of what personal preferences are.
Connectivity and battery life
The Epomaker Tide 75 has a 4,000 mAh battery, which isn't particularly large, but it has proven satisfactory, especially given the Tide 75's weight, which makes it extremely impractical as a portable keyboard. As was the case with both the Epomaker TH40 and Keychron TH40 we reviewed recently, the per-key RGB backlighting was the biggest drain on battery life for the Tide 75.
When connected to a power source, the Tide 75 confirms that it is charging by illuminating the Fn key in red. When the Fn key is no longer red, that means charging is complete. Curiously, when the Tide 75 is charging, it reports the battery life as 100%, both via Bluetooth and with the built-in Fn + Enter chord that shows charge level with the number row RGB backlighting.
Weird charging quirks aside, the Epomaker Tide 75 has more than enough batter capacity to last through a whole work week, even with the backlighting set to its maximum brightness and connected to the more responsive 2.4 GHz mode. On Bluetooth with backlighting disabled, it might need charging once a month or so.
| Connection and state | Battery drain (percentage per hour) | Estimated battery life (hours) |
|---|---|---|
| Bluetooth, no RGB | 0.5 | 200 |
| 2,4 GHz, max RGB | 2 | 50 |
Hardware and software customisation - VIA reigns supreme
The Tide 75 has a hot-swap PCB with support for three- and five-pin mechanical switches. The PCB has support for split spaces, but the included FR4 plate does not, which is a bit disappointing, since the default .JSON file for VIA customisation includes the split space layout option, too. Epomaker offers a split spaces module for some of its other keyboards, and it would have been nice to see the same flexibility here.
In terms of software customisation, the Tide 75 uses VIA, the open-source, web-based customisation tool. VIA allows for remapping every key on the keyboard as well as remapping the knob's rotation and press function. In our testing, the remapping worked well, although you do need to use the design tab to manually load the .JSON file from Epomaker's website for VIA to recognise and connect to the Tide 75.
The Tide 75 has 16 macro slots, which should be plenty for all but the most productivity focussed users, and the 2.4 KB on-board memory should also be plenty, with enough space for around 150 character per macro. Likewise, the five customisable layers that the Tide 75 can store in its firmware should be more than enough for even very demanding productivity users or gamers.
Remapping keys, assigning macros, and changing the knob's functionality worked flawlessly over USB type-C and 2.4 GHz, but the Tide 75 had some issues with special characters. Namely, shifted symbols (@, ?, $, etc. without needing to hold Shift), did not work when connected wirelessly. When connected via USB, these keys assigned and worked correctly, but the non-shifted keystroke (2, /, 3, in the previous example) would appear when connected wirelessly.
You can work around this flaw by assigning Shift+(symbol) to a macro slot, but that should not be necessary when the dedicated shifted symbols are present in VIA.
Transparency
The selection of devices to be reviewed is made by our editorial team. The test sample was given to the author by the manufacturer free of charge for the purposes of review. There was no third-party influence on this review, nor did the manufacturer receive a copy of this review before publication. There was no obligation to publish this review. We never accept compensation or payment in return for our reviews. As an independent media company, Notebookcheck is not subjected to the authority of manufacturers, retailers or publishers.
