Categories: Tech & Review

BEST Prebuilt TKL Keyboard (EPOMAKER x Feker Galaxy80)

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the EPOMaker X Fekker Galaxy 80. Yes, that’s how it’s pronounced. That’s the name.

Now with that said, this is one of the most gorgeous looking mid-range pre-built keyboards I have recently seen, and it really does redefine what you can get in the mid-range mechanical segment altogether.

Like always, we’re going to do an unbiased review to tell you guys what this keyboard is all about and what you can expect were you to dish out your hard-earned money on it.

Like any decent mechanical keyboard, you have a nice looking box here with a celestial theme going on as that’s kinda the vibe of this keyboard. Anyway, once you open up the packaging, behind some more protective packaging, here it is, the keyboard.

I am loving the design, but more on that in a quick minute. Past that, you also have some standard stuff like the charging cable, which is USB-C based, of course, and also the key swapping tool. Let’s be honest, half the fun of a mechanical keyboard is its design. And in that aspect, the Galaxy 80 knocks it out of the park. Whether it’s that high contrast black and blue design, which oddly enough goes together really well. It doesn’t look as nice online, but in person, it looks 10 times better. I really wasn’t expecting this combination to look this good. Now, what really took me away with this keyboard is the fact that you get a fully metallic frame top design. to bottom. This is not a common occurrence with most mid-range keyboards, which usually have a hybrid plastic and metallic finish.

So even if you look at the bottom of this keyboard, again, clean metallic surface finish here, and then you have this really cool celestial graphics kind of to show that this is a space-themed keyboard, and it just kind of looks really nice with the branding in general. Now, this keyboard doesn’t come with built-in hydrators because it already has a natural slant. If you like a more flat-oriented keyboard, You’re not gonna get that here. You have quite a bit of lift going on. With that said, on the backside is where you have the USB-C charging port, as well as the wired connection option, and then two switches, one to conveniently go between Windows and Mac OS mode, and the other switch to turn the keyboard on or off.

Coming back to the top side, let’s talk about these keycaps. So they are double-shot PBT keycaps, and for the most part, I genuinely like them a lot. They have a natural curve for maximum ergonomics. The font here is so crisp and easy to read. Definitely follows closely with EpoMaker fonts. And then I also appreciate the fact that you have rounded edges, which just gives it a more softer appeal overall. Now you do get a little bit of moisture buildup. It’s hard to see on camera, but it is there kind of. It’s not as bad as some other keyboards, but it’s still just kind of prevalent over time. Now this keyboard is a Fully RGB backlit, you have a number of distinct color options and a number of distinct color modes as well, all of which can be changed directly from the keyboard itself.

You also have a built-in indicator light right above the arrow keys, and it’s really cool because it shows you the status but can also be an aesthetic aspect so you can change the colors when you’re using it, and it’s pretty nice overall. Also a quality of life feature right here is this removable magnetic lid behind which you can actually station the USB-A wireless dongle when you’re not using it. This can save you from a world of trouble if you frequently end up losing your USB dongles. The keyboard is fully hot swappable so you can replace the key caps as well as the switches beneath them with any compatible three or five pin switch of your choice. By default, you get the linear marble switches over here and I absolutely love them.

For pre-loop switches, they are super smooth They’re again, super linear, even though they kind of advertise them as semi-tactile switches, that’s not the case. You don’t get a lot of tactility here. And when you combine it with the thick key caps, you get a very marble-like typing experience. And I wasn’t expecting it to be this good for a prebuilt keyboard. This genuinely brings a lot of hollow sounding experience. Thanks to that leaf spring gasket mount, you get a fair bit of flex and bounce, which again, softens the typing experience and prevents finger fatigue. I could talk about this all day long, here’s a quick typing test to show you guys how good this keyboard actually sounds in my honest opinion. You don’t have a built-in QMK or VS support.

However, if you contact EpoMaker support, there is technically a proprietary program for this keyboard. I haven’t used it too much, but it can be used for key binding purposes. In terms of connectivity, you have three options. So you have wired, you have wireless, and then you have three profile Bluetooth, all of which work great. The wireless doesn’t have much latency, so it’s pretty lag free for the most part and can be used for gaming.

Now, as far as the battery life goes, you have 4000 milliamp hours and it’s not great, but it’s decent enough. So with the RGB on, you can expect less than 12 hours on a single charge. However, if you turn off all the RGB settings and have auto sleep enabled, you can get well north of 150 hours on a single charge.

With a price of approximately $105, I gotta tell you this is one of the finest mid-range keyboards I have reviewed in a while. Whether it’s the exceptional looks and the fact that you have multiple color options in case you prefer a slightly different tone for your keyboard, or the fact that you get marble-like typing in a pre-built keyboard, do you know how difficult it is to get a smooth marble typing experience. With something that’s just built out of factory, normally you really have to fine tune a keyboard in a custom setting, but over here you get pretty close to that without having to go through any of that hassle, if you don’t want to of course. Additionally, I also like the fact that you have a vivid RGB palette here, and also a full aluminum build. All of these things are not common with a mid-range keyboard, which is why this is genuinely, again, one of the best keyboards.