Tracer Gamezone EVO3 Hotswap 63 – Can cheap be good?

Could a product from a brand like Tracer even be worth looking at? That’s a good question, the brand is not particularly well associated among most. The product I took today – Traver Gamezone EVO3 Hotswap 63

To begin with.

At first glance, the keyboard resembles a typical sixty. However, these are only appearances, because the number of keys is exactly 63. The manufacturer managed to squeeze in here the keys responsible for the arrows. Of course, this makes the keyboard require some getting used to, as the up arrow is located between the right shift and the question mark/hash mark. Anyway, an interesting solution. But the fun doesn’t stop there, full RGB with side lighting, hotswap (and it’s Kailh!) and Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz are also present on board. At the time of writing the review, the model can be bought for about 180 zlotys and on our home market, needless to say, the price is very attractive.

A little about the workmanship and design

The build quality is exactly as the price indicates. A lot of play the whole thing bends easily and the plastic it is made of is of poor quality. In some places you can also see lint in the material. The mount plate is plastic, no soundproofing is present inside. The manufacturer has clearly focused on capabilities at the expense of build quality. Of course, one of the consequences of such measures is that the keyboard is simply lightweight. The overlays are made of ABS double-shot, are of correct quality and are not objectionable. Interestingly, feet are present on the bottom for adjusting the tilt angle, and in two levels.

The switches are TNT, well I don’t know if the manufacturer wanted to suggest here that they are bombproof or that they will burst your fingers from typing on them. In any case, they are linear switches, they work properly. You can feel the roughness when writing, but the spring does not make a characteristic sound, which is something. Overall, I could compare their characteristics here to the basic Outemu Red. The stabilizers are quite good which surprised me positively, they hold quite stiffly with no noticeable play. However, they are dry as pepper (something for something, as usual), it gives you a feeling during use. Below, of course, sound test.

Oh, and since I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t experiment a bit, I decided to do a little test. To the hero of today’s review I threw in lubricated stabilizers and Kailh Box Black switches. You can hear the effect below.

Backlighting and capabilities of the Tracer Gamzeone EVO3

The backlighting that the keyboard has is located under the switches, on the back and on the sides. Quite a lot of lights for such a small piece of hardware. The illumination itself is decent, quite bright and the colors are clear. However, the white falls relatively heavily into the glow of the pink color. So this is not a recommended piece of equipment for those who want to use white backlighting.

The Tracer Gamezone EVO3 also legitimizes wireless connectivity. Bluetooth works properly, it connects to the phone and there are no particular malfunctions from it. However, with 2.4 GHz it happens that sometimes the keyboard breaks the connection, only to connect again after a while. I’m not sure if this is a problem with my piece or if it’s just the way it is, but it’s worth mentioning. The manufacturer has not provided software for its product, so the control is done using keyboard shortcuts.