Accessory Drevo's Calibur - 70% Keyboard, 100% Mechanical

[confusis]

Recently, we reviewed the Drevo Tyrfing V2, a US$60 keyboard competing with the big guns. Hot on the heels of this, across the test bench slides in the Drevo Calibur, a Bluetooth 70% tenkeyless board with a similar featureset, but smaller!

At US$55.99 on Drevo's official web store, ArmYourDesk.com, the Calibur is a slightly cheaper keyboard than the aforementioned Tyrfing V2, but it sits in a slightly different product category to compensate. The ultra small 71 key layout, forgoing seperate F-keys, is an interesting take on shrinking one's keyboard, and it's one that I feel has some merit. Let's dive in and click away to a conclusion!

Read more here.

 

[jmarin]

Awesome. How many custom key combos can you do? Is there a limit? I'm in the market for a keyboard and if you can do 10+ then this may be the one. Great job on the review.

 

[loader963]

Great layout , size, and quality in hardware. Had a blue switch calibur and it worked wonderful for me. And the price can’t be beat as I feel it competed with keyboards twice as much. But there are a couple of negs:

1- when wireless, the q,w, or e (depending on which channel you’re on) stays lit white while the rest is in RGB mode. A small pet peeve but still annoying to me.

2- Idk why I had such a hard time getting this thing to pair up with devices. I almost wish it had a dedicated USB adapter like the Logitech’s.

 

[jmarin]

How many custom key combos can you program?

Great layout , size, and quality in hardware. Had a blue switch calibur and it worked wonderful for me. And the price can’t be beat as I feel it competed with keyboards twice as much. But there are a couple of negs:

1- when wireless, the q,w, or e (depending on which channel you’re on) stays lit white while the rest is in RGB mode. A small pet peeve but still annoying to me.

2- Idk why I had such a hard time getting this thing to pair up with devices. I almost wish it had a dedicated USB adapter like the Logitech’s.

 

[Necere]

One suggestion, if I might: on backlit keyboards, it'd be nice to have a shot with the lights dimmed and backlighting turned on (perhaps at min/max brightness as well), to get some idea of how the keycaps are lit and the degree of spill. I know it's near impossible to accurately capture LED lighting with a camera, but I'd still find it useful just to get a sense of what it looks like.

 

[zovc]

Hoo! I love this review, it's really selling me on trying to get one of these. I gotta say, I am not a fan of the keycaps, though. Do the switches have "universal" + stems?

 

[Jonny727272]

So two quick questions and one maybe long one.

First, you mentioned you have to plug it in to use the software to change lighting modes, but if I set them can I then unplug the KB and use BT and keep the lighting settings I had made?

Second, the 20 hours of battery life it claimed, is that with RGB LEDs on or off or at 50% or what?

Lastly, does anyone know if I could just daisy chain batteries to increase its capacity? With the PCB attached to the battery, I'm not sure if that would be possible, but I'd love to throw like 8 more packs in to get that month-long charge and have the extra weight so there won't be any chances of it sliding around.

 

[confusis]

@Jonny727272
-That's correct
-RGBs on full - noting that the lights turn off after 30s of inactivity
-That's a question for someone with more skills in battery tech and use than me The keyboard won't slide around easily regardless - it has rubber feet, even on the legs that angle the board.

@zovc
-Yes, universal + style switch tops

@Necere
-My skillset is not capable of that style of image without uber blurriness which would negate the photo's usefulness. (I'm still learning though) Suffice it to say, the keyboard has a load of bleed,as the keys float quite a bit above the deck.

See here for a somewhat accurate representation that someone with better kit took: https://play3r.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/drevo-calibur-powered-on.jpg

@jmarin Not sure regarding macro count, one would assume one per key - however there is no clear number given by DREVO.

 

[loader963]

@jmarin i never did try any.

 

[ignsvn]

My skillset is not capable of that style of image without uber blurriness which would negate the photo's usefulness. (I'm still learning though) Suffice it to say, the keyboard has a load of bleed,as the keys float quite a bit above the deck.

Send me the keyboard & I'll help to take pictures of the RGB lighting from every angle needed

 

[Jonny727272]

The keyboard won't slide around easily regardless - it has rubber feet, even on the legs that angle the board.

Just wait til I get tilted in Overwatch and then we'll see if the board stays still >

But thank you for the answers. I may have to pick this thing up now.

 

[rfarmer]

I hadn't really been looking for a new keyboard but I have to say this looks very impressive and with the price looks like a win/win.

 

[Nosuchthing]

I've been really tempted by this keyboard, can anyone vouch for it's performance while gaming. I'm a fairly casual gamer, playing mostly single player games. Is there any noticeable delay when using this via bluetooth?

 

[confusis]

No delay that I can notice playing simulators or Minecraft.

 

[loader963]

I've been really tempted by this keyboard, can anyone vouch for it's performance while gaming. I'm a fairly casual gamer, playing mostly single player games. Is there any noticeable delay when using this via bluetooth?

Worked fine for me. Not a MLG but I take my gaming seriously.

 

[kaffi]

how is this vs the red dragon 30 dollar mechanical keyboard. I think its the k552

 

[confusis]

Hard to tell without personally having tested that keyboard. @kaffi

 

[matt3o]

When we talk about keyboards I feel compelled to add my 2 unsolicited cents.

Full disclosure: I design and build keyboards for a living and for a passion.

Price for basic components is very well known, same as cost of production/assembling in China. There is a minimum price tag for mechanical keyboards that you can't really lower. It's a bit like with speakers. You can't make them indefinitely smaller keeping the same sound quality. It's physics.

So how is it possible to see such feature rich keyboards at such a low price point? Mainly by skimming on

1) QC, this is very important. Quality Control is expensive, you can't just put products out the production lane directly on the shelf. You can get lucky and nothing bad happens to your sample, but on average the fail % of such products will be very high

2) Switch quality. It's not rare to get a faulty Cherry switch, and they are the best on the market. Some clones are getting better nowadays but if they are really really cheap it's very likely that they are second or third choice. And it doesn't make any sense to spend any money on low quality switches if you are in the market for a mechanical keyboard.

3) PCB assembling quality. PCB assembling is incredibly important. I've seen really terrible solder jobs done even on high-end keyboards (corsair, cooler master, ...) and in fact at some point some switches fail. I lost count of the times I had to open a keyboard to just re-solder a couple of switches because of a terrible assembling

4) Firmware. People often underestimate the importance of the software inside their keyboards. Simply put cheap/low quality keyboard won't have a decent code. That is even more true with bluetooth that nobody on Earth actually understands (that is worth a post of its own, maybe another time).

5) "Feel". This is something more for pro-users and possibly very subjective BUT the feel and sound of a keyboard while you type is a very important factor. I played with cheap keyboards and they all have a terrible feedback. They ping, crackle, squeak, they are not just cheap they feel and sound cheap.

I'm not saying that this particular keyboard is bad, just be careful, because when it's too good to be true, usually it isn't.

 

[jmarin]

I'm hoping mine finally comes this week. Ordered in the 9th, finally at customs here stateside. Should've paid the extra $7 on Amazon lol

 

[Thehack]

When we talk about keyboards I feel compelled to add my 2 unsolicited cents.

Full disclosure: I design and build keyboards for a living and for a passion.

Price for basic components is very well known, same as cost of production/assembling in China. There is a minimum price tag for mechanical keyboards that you can't really lower. It's a bit like with speakers. You can't make them indefinitely smaller keeping the same sound quality. It's physics.

So how is it possible to see such feature rich keyboards at such a low price point? Mainly by skimming on

1) QC, this is very important. Quality Control is expensive, you can't just put products out the production lane directly on the shelf. You can get lucky and nothing bad happens to your sample, but on average the fail % of such products will be very high

2) Switch quality. It's not rare to get a faulty Cherry switch, and they are the best on the market. Some clones are getting better nowadays but if they are really really cheap it's very likely that they are second or third choice. And it doesn't make any sense to spend any money on low quality switches if you are in the market for a mechanical keyboard.

3) PCB assembling quality. PCB assembling is incredibly important. I've seen really terrible solder jobs done even on high-end keyboards (corsair, cooler master, ...) and in fact at some point some switches fail. I lost count of the times I had to open a keyboard to just re-solder a couple of switches because of a terrible assembling

4) Firmware. People often underestimate the importance of the software inside their keyboards. Simply put cheap/low quality keyboard won't have a decent code. That is even more true with bluetooth that nobody on Earth actually understands (that is worth a post of its own, maybe another time).

5) "Feel". This is something more for pro-users and possibly very subjective BUT the feel and sound of a keyboard while you type is a very important factor. I played with cheap keyboards and they all have a terrible feedback. They ping, crackle, squeak, they are not just cheap they feel and sound cheap.

I'm not saying that this particular keyboard is bad, just be careful, because when it's too good to be true, usually it isn't.

Yes. Even on "premium" brands like my Corsair K70 the soldering gave out on some LED which led to flickering. I opened it up and resoldered them myself.

I think $100 for a nice mechanical keyboard with plastic body is reasonable. I only buy the cheapos because they are good value and they are a gateway to mechanical keyboard. If they fail and the user feels like he enjoys a quality keyboard then he can choose to replace it with a higher quality one. If he doesn't care about it, then it wasn't worth the value to him. It's also nice because users can decide on which key they like.