Ozone Strike Battle Tenkeyless Mechanical Keyboard Review

Less is more on this keyboard

Looking for a portable keyboard to destroy the competition wherever you go? Ozone seems to provide the answer with the Strike Battle Tenkeyless Mechanical Keyboard. Time to investigate whether reducing size lessens quality elsewhere.

Prior to even purchasing the item, one can learn a whole lot just by snooping around the informative little box. Whipping open the box reveals the keyboard covered in Styrofoam, awaiting an owner to claim it. A user manual and an Ozone sticker accompany the peripheral. On the whole, the unboxing experience is standard and the box is certainly sturdy enough to reduce shipping fatigue.

Before we can continue the review, we must first establish what the term “tenkeyless” actually means. It’s nothing complicated; a keyboard which chops off the number pad to sport a smaller form factor. That said, the total 87 keys map an area of 351 by 123 mm; a very minimalistic aesthetic. The key font is the standard Ozone font, which rocks capitalisation and non-capitalised. Keyboard layout is available in a couple versions, either American or British, with the shift and enters keys affected. All MX keys, with a selection between red, blue, brown and black are directly planted into the backplate.

This exposes the key cleavage which allows for a thickness of just 35m but makes cleaning a priority.  Regarding the black plate, its high quality brushed aluminium which does a fantastic job of keeping the build sturdy and reflecting the bright colours.  Ozone again adds selectivity with the choice of a red or black backplate. However, the housing below the backplate will always remain a glossy back plastic finish which is punctuated by the company name at the front face of the device. The underside hides the product information and is supported by a total of five rubber feet including a couple of optional legs.

Onto user experience, complaints are minimal. The plastic matte keycaps do attract finger oils, yet nothing too serious. Returning to cleaning the keys, this was a seamless process since the greater exposure makes the keys very easy to remove. An ergonomic design facilitates long sessions at the desk and the 50 million keystroke lifespan grants a heavy reliability with each press. Yet, some people will need a wrist wrest to use due to the wrists having to lean back a bit. Gaming was a joy with this peripheral; you can tell that Ozone has oriented their approach on this peripheral to fast-paced gaming.

From the keyboard itself, one can adjust the polling rate and input delay on the fly. Polling rate varies from 125Hz to 1000Hz and key effective time from 1 to 16 ms. Such a connection is possible with the gold plated USB tailed by 1.5m of braided cable. Yet, there is no internal cable management and no USB pass-through.  Continuing on gaming features, all keys have anti-ghosting and assignment capabilities.  Apart from that come macros, to be discussed soon, and the Game Mode shortcut. The mode shuts down the Windows key and disables WASD or the arrow keys as selected. Also, don’t forget about the full set of media keys above. Thus far, it looks like it has everything going for it, but now there’s still a driver to download and software to check out to unleash the backlighting.

From Ozone’s website, the driver is easily located and downloaded quickly.  The ‘Main Control’ page allows one to switch between profiles and manage Macros. These may be edited and added on the ‘Macro Settings’ page and the Advanced Settings gives control over variables, windows key setting and light intensity.  From the pictures of the device, it’s easy to realise that red is the name of the game. All one can do is change sensitivity or create a pulsating effect, both can be done using the quick function from the keyboard. Here, Ozone could have been slightly more creative with the content; perhaps adding a fire effect or a wave of different brightness. 

Having only one colour, the contrast and brightness was executed excellently, making it an even more attractive keyboard. Lock functions remain red when used and uncoloured when inactive, which may be annoying with just one key without light depending how selective one is. What you really need the software for are the macros. Creating them was extremely easy and nothing too difficult. Six macros over 5 profiles add up to a tally of 30 macros which should be more than enough for gaming. The thing is, you can only really use them for gaming when game mode is activated; so no passwords or emails can be saved since the WASD keys will be disabled which makes the experience awkward. All this customisation is stored on 64kb of internal memory.

Portability is clearly the main theme of this product, and Ozone nearly achieves perfection. One can tell from the onboard storage, small form, light weight of 700g, intense utility and high quality build. The only thing that it needs is a detachable cable.  One thing I forgot to mention is the accessibility to the internals of the keyboard itself, having 4 screws to fix any problems.  The Ozone Strike Battle Tenkeyless keyboard is at the arguably the best keyboard in its category and must be considered for LANs, events or even taking it to a friend’s house. Gamers.com.mt strongly recommends this keyboard for the upcoming Malta Cyber Series #3 coming up this September.  For only €90, it’s a super choice.

Who it’s for;

• Gamers looking for a minimalistic keyboard without numpad
• Gamers with red colour as part of their setup
• Pros who need portability and utility
• Those gaming on the go
• Those looking for their money’s worth

Who it’s not for;

• Those who desperately need RGB
• Those who need a numpad
• Gamers selective about colours in a setup

Want to have the best portable gaming solution right now? Go over to The Gamers Lounge to pick up yours at the following link: http://shop.gamers.com.mt/product/263/ozone-strike-battle-tenkeyless-mechanical-keyboard