TH80 Pro V2 VIA

The keyboard has a great construction, perfect aesthetics and a wonderful sound

I love that it has VIA support! Also my unit has Sea Salt Silent Switches and it is so quiet

Very quiet switch and easy to push
I like the ability to display the clock and battery level on the upper right monitor.

First, I want to make known that Epomaker sent me this keyboard for use and review with no cost, which I appreciate and wish to thank very much. Also, that this fact doesn’t change my review and opinion. This review is being written after two weeks of use.

This review is from a user point of view, I’m not a mechanical keyboard expert.

Construction:
The keyboard is really beautiful and high quality, the sound is very pleasant. Construction is great, it feels like premium product, it’s firm and steady on the desk and have good weight. Sound signature and typing feel will vary on the choices you make on switches and keycaps, of course. Mine is the Black version with the Flamingo switches.

Screen:
The screen is a nice addiction, but not very useful. It is too deep in the case and depending on the angle it is with the height your desk, the bottom information cannot be seen. Still, provides some information you can check when needed, like battery status and caps and mode. If it was designed with an angle or within the case but not so deep it would be more visible. I have to lift my keyboard to see all the info.
It can be customized with Image Custom Tool program, but you can only change images and it sets date and time. Cannot control brightness, but I haven’t felt the need to. Can be made black with Fn+X, but doesn’t turn backlit off, so, battery may still being drained.

Connectivity:
Very flexible , it can connect via cable, 2.4g and up to three Bluetooth devices.
Switching devices is not so practical like on other keyboards, to switch to 2.4g to Bluetooth there is a physical switch. I have seen other models that have a physical switch to set wireless mode and cable/off mode, so when you are wireless, you can easily alternate 4 devices. With this one, you are on BT (can alternate fast 3 devices), or you are in 2.4g, or you are in cable mode.
Bluetooth switching is very fast and pairing is fast and without issues, so is 2.4g connection. No issues with cable connection also.

Software: Here is where you get disappointed.
It has VIA compatibility, but is clear to me that is not finished. To be recognized, it uses deprecated V2 definitions and uses a specific WestBerry VIA version.

So, it does not have a “driver”, or control software, it has the possibility to be programmed with VIA. I mean, you have no control over the keyboard with software, no notification on low battery, no LEDs setting, no settings for auto-turn off. Note that with Bluetooth connection, windows 11 can give you battery status and notifications.

VIA is not very user friendly, took me a week to learn and understand how it works and the way I have to do the programming.

It takes some tries to get the keyboard recognized. With VIA, it can be programmed with several layers and almost any way you want it, so this is very good. As I’m used to 98% and 100% keyboards, I missed some keys that I usually need, and solved all the missing functions with programming keys and macros and layers.

Lightning:
Now, about the illumination. If you don’t care about it, skip to Overall.
With VIA, on the actual state, custom colors in RGB format and effects cannot be adjusted. So, although it has 16 million color backlit LEDs and several effects, is a hard pain to control only with the keyboard. For the colors, there’s a learning curve and you have to keep typing the configuration keys until find the color you want and is not a good experience. To find “green” for example, is a struggle. Understand that I’m used to Logitech GHub and OpenRGB to control my LEDs, so my setup illumination is all synched and event-controlled.

The good news is that it can be done. The definitions can be finished, I changed one line on the JSON file ("lighting": "qmk_rgblight",) and could get VIA to recognize that it has lightning control.
Effects and colors none of them matched. Brightness and effect speed worked. I guess the QMK lightning matrix has to be done accordingly to what the keyboard can do, or a different firmware has to be flashed, or something like that, I don’t know, I didn’t have much time to research it and I don’t know QMK concepts and programming. Maybe I just set the lightning definition wrong.

Overall:
I have used the keyboard with some programming done with VIA, with all the connectivity options and I have not felt any delay or input problem. Even gaming on Bluetooth connection felt fast and responsive, the hardware is great. Besides the software lack of capabilities, for daily use and productivity, is a great keyboard, nice to type, works well, has no lag at all, flexible connectivity, good battery.
But I have to say, in this price point, there are other options that have similar built quality, same of best functionalities and better polished software, compatibility and control options.
So, if you really want a keyboard with this layout, be aware that is not a complete finished product. Yet.

After 2 months of use, 15 switches began to get sandy, 3 of them creaked. You can hear the work of springs. The VIA configuration program does not really work; there is no fine-tuning there. The keycaps are good, the build quality is also good, but the software, switches and presentation are ****.