Ideazon Zboard Gaming Keyboard - Bundle of Joy and More!

In The Box:

The Zboard includes a couple of keysets to get you going, and in all reality, these should be pretty much everything you need for daily and more intensive gaming.  The Zboard comes with a generic gaming keyset, a standard QWERTY keyset, a wrist rest, and software on a CD.  As I mentioned previously, the Zboard support Vista in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.  Ideazon also supports everything from Windows 2000 and up in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.  This is a nice plus if you rely on Vista 64-bit of Windows XP 64-bit to address more that 4GB of memory.

Zboard Bundle

Up Close:

Below are some up close pictures of the Zboard.

Z-Board Clip

Adjustable Feet

USB Ports

The Zboard keysets are installed from the left to the right, and held securely by tabs on the left side and the clip on the right side.  The feet are adjustable, but even when they are lowered, the board has a much taller stance than many other keyboards.  Finally, in the picture above on the right, you see a pair of USB ports.  This is handy for those of us who are always running out of ports.  Unfortunately, these are not USB2.0 ports, but instead are the older USB 1.1.  The ports will then server more for joysticks, mice and other low-bandwidth devices.  I don't recommend plugging in a Seagate Freeagent Pro 750GB HDD to the port for sharing your HD-DVD movie collection.

If you've ever wondered how the Zboard knows what keyset is plugged in, it has to do with the handy dandy interface shown below.

Keyset Interface

Keyboard Interface

There are contacts on both the keyboard base and each keyset.  Each keyset has an different identity that is detected when you drop it in the base.  This allows the Z-Engine software to know if you have the standard keyset installed or the gaming keyset installed.  The beauty of this is that you can swap keysets without rebooting your computer.  When you swap out the standard QWERTY keyset for the default gaming keyset, the Z-Engine software remaps the keys so that you can use the default gaming keys on the left, and still have access to a full QWERTY layout keyboard farther right.

Keyset Interface

Pseudo QWERTY Keys

Pseudo YUIOP Keys

While the QWERTY and UIOP keys are not spaced in a standard layout, it does give you the ability to type chat messages without having to swap out your keyset mid-game.  The hardest part of this is the right hand side.  The keys are stacked vertically, and are not staggered as in a traditional layout.  This makes fast typing very difficult.  SMS becomes more of an inviting option in game.

On the next page we'll look at the Z-Engine software and proceed with our thoughts on testing.