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The Thermaltake Poseidon Z Touch has a touch-sensitive spacebar for macros and gestures

By Koh Wanzi - on 28 Mar 2016, 11:10am

The Thermaltake Poseidon Z Touch has a touch-sensitive spacebar for macros and gestures

Thermaltake Poseidon Z Touch

Thermaltake is no stranger to mechanical gaming keyboards, but its products pretty much blended into the background with keyboards from other manufacturers like Razer, Roccat, and SteelSeries. However, that might have just changed with the announcement of the Poseidon Z Touch, a full-sized keyboard with, get this, a programmable touch-sensitive spacebar.

The new feature is powered by Synaptics’ SmartBar technology – which was first announced at Computex 2015 – and is actually remarkably simple, elegant even. It adds a touch input area onto the spacebar of the keyboard, which can then be tapped, swiped, and programmed.

Thermaltake says that the touch-capable spacebar can even allow you to perform certain tasks without having to reach out for your mouse, which sounds like it might be a boon to avid typists who spend their days tapping out documents. For instance, you can scroll vertically by holding a finger to the left of the spacebar while swiping across the rightmost areas. Horizontal scrolling is also possible with a reverse of the gestures required for vertical scrolling. The video below will give a clearer picture of how this works in practice.

The SmartBar technology essentially divides the spacebar into five different touch-sensitive zones that can be configured to perform horizontal or vertical scrolling, page zooms, and even to bring up things like right-click menus and the text editor. Alternatively, each zone can be programmed with a specific macro 'key', effectively eliminating the need for dedicated, physical macro keys.

The Poseidon Z Touch is equipped with mechanical switches that simulate the feel of Cherry MX Blue switches with tactile and click feedback. Thermaltake didn’t specify the exact switch type, but if past experience is anything to go by, these are probably Kailh switches.

Other features include a plate-mounted design, blue backlighting with seven levels of brightness, and a dedicated key for switching the Ctrl and Windows keys to prevent accidental presses of the Windows key while in game.

Source: Thermaltake

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