Meet the EQII Zboard

Big things come in small packages right? I know I for one like things small. Particularly my computer peripherals. I run 2 full systems, one with a 21" monitor the other with a 19" monitor and a laptop on my desk, so that doesn't leave me a lot of free room to work with, so naturally I like things small. I hate the current trend of keyboards having about 3-5 inches of extra crap around the edges of the keys. For this reason I can say I was more than pleasantly surprised and quite pleased when I opened the box for the Zboard Gaming Keyboard and noticed that on the ends and bottom there was only about 1/4 of an inch between the keys and the edge of the keyboard. On the top side where all the hotkeys are there was still only about an inch of space yet they still manage to incorporate all the nifty little useful hotkeys such as volume control, multimedia controls, email, browser, calculator, etc. And if that weren't enough to make you happy, all those can be remapped to launch any application or program you want them to, simply open up the program and hold down the key you want mapped to it till you hear the beep.

Ok, enough already about my obsession with things being as small as possible, let's move on with the review. I won't go into too many details about the regular keyset and the Generic FPS keyset which comes in the box with the base since Craig McGregor (Admin) already did a review on those which you can find and read here if you missed it. Since he already covered the base unit and the keysets that come with it I'm going to focus primarily with the Everquest 2 keyset.

Naturally one of the first things you notice when you pull the keyset out of its packaging is how it looks and feels so I'll start there. In and of itself the keyset doesn't feel all that substantial, if feels pretty light and well, for lack of a better word, plasticy. However once you snap it into the base any worries you may have had about it being flimsy and not able to take a beating immediately go out the window. Much like any of the other keysets it fits easily and snugly into the base. The keyset and really the entire Zboard system is a very high quality design, the keys feel solid when you press them and have a nice spring back to them. The keyset and base combination have a good weight to them and when combined with the rubber "feet" on the bottom it prevents the keyboard from slipping and sliding around in one of those crucial moments. You know the ones, I'm sure it's happened to most people out there, in the middle of a huge battle, you're all excited and in the heat of the moment and while going to hit the "heal" hotkey you bump the keyboard a little too hard, sliding it a bit and instead hit the "sit" hotkey. Or maybe that's just me who's had that happen… Anyway, back to the quality of the thing at hand. The keyset makes good contact with the matching connections in the base itself, in the MANY hours of playing I never had a key stick or not work or anything like that.

I know what you're thinking; it's a keyboard, who cares what it looks like as long as it does the job it was made to do. Well apparently the fine folks over at Ideazon care about what their products look like. The Everquest 2 keyset is probably by far my favorite of their game-specific keysets. The EQ2 logo on the right side above the image of Lucan D'Lere and Antonia Bayle standing back to back surrounded by other characters is just stunning. The colors used to color code the keys are also nicely done in my opinion. The far right hand panel of the 3 panel setup (common to all Zboard keysets) which on a typical keyboard would be your arrow keys, number pad and the home/delete keys has been replaced by a collection of very useful pre-programmed hotkeys. Three buttons located above the graphics are set to "Emotes", "Chat Page Up" and "Chat Page Down". The Emotes key toggles your F keys to twelve preset emotes which are some of the most commonly used, such as 'Bow', 'Thank', 'Wave' and 'Ready'. The other two scroll up and down in the chat window so you can search for those tells you missed in the midst of combat. To the right of the graphics you have three light indicators for "Caps", "Emotes" and "Enabled". You should all know what a "Caps" indicator light does by now, the "Emotes" one shows if you have the "Emotes" toggle on of off naturally and the "Enabled" one simply shows that the keyset is seated firmly and has a good connection.

Below those lights you have a handy dandy "Screenshot" button. Below the graphics you have two banks of keys, the first of which is three across by four down. The top six keys are your standard Insert/Home/End/Delete/PgUp/PgDwn setup, but have been conveniently labeled to show what they do ingame such as Swim Up, Swim Down, Pitch Up and Pitch Down. The bottom six keys are an "Autorun" toggle key, a key to toggle you between Walking and Running, two keys to zoom the camera in and out, one to center the camera and one to toggle through a batch of preset camera configurations. The other batch of keys is also a set of twelve but this one is four across by three down. These twelve keys are preset to open twelve of the most commonly used windows in the game. You have an Inventory button, Quest Journal, Persona, Knowledge, Skills, Recipe Book, etc. And of course these keys, much like every key on the Zboard, are programmable so if there is a window you'd rather have hotkeyed than one of the presets by all means just switch it out.

As for the other two panels they look much like a typical keyboard except they've been conveniently labeled to show what they do in EQ2. The WASD keys have big arrows on them to indicate movement; the Q and E keys are mapped to Strafe and have arrows on them indicating so. Even the key combinations are very easy to see and read; the Alt key is labeled orange and any key that has a function when combined with the Alt key has what it does written on it in orange. The Shift keys are blue and any key which uses a combination with the Shift key has what it does written on it in blue as well.

I know quite a few of you out there remember WAAAYYY back in the day when any time you bought a new PC game there was this little paper overlay that you laid over your keyboard and it showed what all the keys did. From there they moved on to just providing you with a drawing of the keyboard with all the keys on it labeled as to what they do in the game. And those first couple days of playing the game were always the same thing; lots of looking back and forth between the key map and the keyboard remembering where everything was and usually dieing a lot in the process. Well Ideazon's Zboard is the next step in that evolution and boy is it ever one heck of a step.

The base unit generally runs about $49.99 and it comes with two keysets at that price. That's really not all that much more than your typical "good" keyboard these days. Of course you can get them as cheap as $5-$15 but really, what kind of quality are you getting for that price? A quality keyboard is generally going to run you $20-$50+ depending on how many bells and whistles you want on it, such as it being wireless etc. So really all in all you're not spending MUCH more for the base unit than you would for a decent keyboard anyway, and then usually $19.99 for the game-specific keysets, in my opinion it's a pretty good deal.

My opinion on the EQ2 Keyset in particular you ask? Well, seeing as that's really the point of this review I'm glad you did ask! I'd give it 5 stars out of 5, hands down one of the best ideas to hit the peripheral market and the gaming hardware market in a LONG time. Personally I feel that it is WELL worth the money, particularly if you're new to the game or planning to pick it up soon. Most people who have been playing since release will already have all the keys memorized and more than likely remapped to locations that they find more suited to their play styles. It even took me a bit to get used to the new setup after playing on a standard keyboard for as long as I had; but once I did I loved it. So, in closing, if you play EQ2 and have been tossing around the idea of picking up one of Ideazon's Zboards and the Everquest 2 keyset I would definitely recommend it. I'd even go so far as to recommend the base unit if you're just in the market for a new keyboard period but don't play EQ2. And if the rest of their keysets are anywhere near the quality of the Everquest 2 keyset, and I have no reason to doubt they wouldn't be, I would also definitely recommend picking one up for whatever game you might be playing.

SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time you can get your own EQ2 Zboard keyset at 50% off! To qualify you will need to purchase a Zboard base system and then receive 50% off the EverQuest II keyset! To take advantage of this offer go to the Zboard Store and use the coupon 'mmorpgeq2'!