Today we’re going to check out another mechanical keyboard from Drevo.
Drevo has honestly been one of my favourite budget brands because they deliver products
that are unique to the budget market.
Opening up the box we have the keyboard itself.
A user manual.
A USB type C cable.
And a Drevo sticker.
But here it is, the Drevo Joyeuse, and well, it is as slim of a mechanical keyboard that
has an actual enclosure as you will see.
It features an all aluminium case construction in this silver finish.
And holding it in the hands, and it does feel pretty good.
There is some flex when you twist it, which is kind of expected.
It’s of course light, but not as light as you would expect, coming in at about 535g.
So about as heavy as a plastic 60% board or the HHKB Pro 2.
The aesthetic is quite minimal and sleek.
This keyboard is all about thinness.
So the front and side bottom edges are rounded to make it appear thinner, which is probably
the reason for the bezel.
And this is also a floating key design, to again accentuate the slimness.
However, like many laptop keyboards, there is an indent in the top plate to sink the
actual keys by about 1mm.
The sides also do light up.
So we have a strip of white lighting on each side.
And then for this section here, the logo lights up.
The white keycaps match the case fine, and the legends are very neat and tidy for a backlit
keyboard with a clean typeface.
I’m also happy that it’s a nice clean white backlight, which complements the rest
of it perfectly.
The keycaps also have this interesting design, where like half of it is that translucent
white plastic that lets light through.
So the sides of the keycaps glow, which then in my eyes, makes them appear flatter, as
it looks like there’s less depth.
And these keys are uniform in profile, so it’s just flat from the side.
Although the keycaps are very slightly scooped, but essentially flat.
Again, very similar to a laptop keyboard.
Looking at the bottom of the keyboard, and it’s also very simplistic, and this is still
aluminium as well.
And we can see that there are no flip up feet, as we only have these 6 rubber feet for non
slip.
So this is the angle that you’re stuck with, which is created by the back section being
slightly thicker, as it also houses the battery.
The cool thing about such a low profile keyboard, is that it is quite comfortable to use while
resting your wrists on the table, since there isn’t much of an angle anymore.
On their website they state that it is a mere 21mm thick.
I measured it to be at about 22-22.5mm, at its thickest point when on the table, which
is very thin for a mechanical keyboard, being about as half as thick as most standard MX
boards.
Now to the layout.
This has 96 keys.
So for reference, a standard full sized ANSI keyboard has 104.
So we get more of the primary functionality of a full sized keyboard, but in a much more
compact form factor.
This is very alike to a more normal 96 key keyboard that is more of an enthusiast type
of layout.
To make this, we essentially remove the section that is normally between the main area, and
the numpad.
So now our numpad is right up next to the main area, and then our arrow keys are squeezed
in over here.
To accommodate the arrow keys, our bottom row has smaller 1 unit keys, and a smaller
spacebar.
And our right shift key is shorter.
However none of these changes has had any real negative impact on me personally.
But what’s great about this layout, is that we get to keep the numpad, which is something
some people can’t go without.
However, this has also been altered.
The main thing being, that it is only 3 columns wide, and therefore does not have the big
+ and enter keys.
The + key has been moved up into the top right, and the other symbols have been shifted 1
key to the left.
I’m not a heavy numpad user, so I can’t really assess the severity of these changes,
but I can imagine that someone who does use the numpad often, will have to change their
habits and muscle memory to adapt to these new positions.
Another quite puzzling choice is the non standard key stagger.
If we look at the Caps Lock key, it is a 2 unit key, rather than the normal 1.75u key.
That means that this row has been moved across to the right by .25 of a unit, where 1 unit
equals 1 alpha key.
That may not seem like much, but it can be a problem, depending on how you type.
And it also did make the enter key smaller, by just that .25, but that wasn’t a problem
at all for me.
And lastly, the keyboard is physically smaller, because the keys are closer together.
So much like many laptops, it is a bit compressed, which again, can get some getting used to.
All of these changes would be terrible for keycap compatibility, as there’s a bunch
of non standard keys, but since aftermarket keycaps aren’t a thing for low profile switches
yet, this isn’t a real issue in my opinion.
To take off the keycaps it’s better to use a wire keycap puller.
Since there’s no real gaps between the keycaps, the plastic ring pullers don’t work too
well.
Looking at the keycaps, and they’re made from ABS plastic, and are double shot, which
is clearly shown by the 2 pieces of plastic, so the legends will never fade away.
Looking at the stem, and it’s of course only suitable for the Kailh type of low profile
switches.
Cherry will soon have their own low pro switches with their cross stems, but those are completely
different.
And that reveals the main feature of the keyboard, which gives it that super slim look.
The low profile keyswitches.
Drevo used to offer this in their own Drevo branded switches, which I have in my
sample board, with some Blacks.
However those were pretty bad.
So they made the move to just use the normal Kailh low profile switches.
These are semi based on the old Cherry ML switches.
However they have a slightly different design, and are not compatible with their keycaps.
The switches have a height of 11.5mm, which is quite a bit shorter than the standard MX
keyswitch which is around 18.5mm tall.
What may surprise you though, is that it still manages to have a total travel distance of
3mm, which is 75% of the standard 4mm.
And it has a pre-travel of 1.5mm, rather than the normal 2mm, which again is 75%.
So you’re not missing out on too much in regards to travel, but you save a lot of space.
And this creates a very interesting experience.
Even though it is 75% of the travel, it feels very very short.
You could easily think that this is half the travel, as it feels so shallow.
I have the Kailh Red low pro switches which have an operating force of 50g.
And I’m really glad I got this retail version as the Drevo Blacks which are also linear,
just felt terrible.
They have an unsatisfying spring which made them feel too heavy and mushy for the short
throw distance.
The Kailh Reds however feel a lot better in my opinion.
They’re not particularly smooth, but they’re smooth enough for the amount of travel you
experience, and the lighter spring helps in making them feel a touch sharper.
I also have a clicky low profile board, and I must say that these Kailh linears feel somewhat
unimpressive in my personal opinion.
The travel is just too short to appreciate the linear nature, with the bottom out being
quite abrupt, but also quite soft.
I do think that the clickies are a different story, and provide a unique and satisfying
experience.
But with these, I honestly much prefer typing on my Thinkpad keyboard.
However for laptops, those are great keyboards.
I still prefer using this Drevo board over many other shorter travel laptop keyboards,
such as this Macbook with scissor switches.
I haven’t been able to try the tactiles, but I would think they probably would be better.
It’s quite a harsh evaluation, but again, this is my personal opinion, and everyone
is different, you might even like it.
So that’s how it feels, but in regards to performance, this is a very similar situation
to keyswitches like the Cherry MX Speed Silvers.
I do feel that the decreased travel allowed me to have quicker repetition.
Whether this will help in game, I’m not so sure.
Now to it’s other big feature, the wireless Bluetooth capabilities.
This keyboard does not come with a wireless dongle of any sort, so you will be relying
on your device having Bluetooth.
Unfortunately, I don’t have that on my desktop PC, so I did most of the wireless testing
on my brothers Macbook, and my Android tablet.
First of all, there are 2 modes, being the wired, and wireless modes.
And to switch between them, we have to press FN + Tab.
So to connect to a device, we hold the FN key and the B key for a few seconds, and the
B key will start rapidly blinking, and you just find the keyboard in your Bluetooth settings.
These 2 modes are independent, meaning that if you plug it in while in wireless mode,
it will charge the keyboard, but it will not be in wired mode.
Therefore we can use this on 2 devices, one being wired, and the other wireless, and pressnig
FN + tab to switch between them.
This is using Bluetooth 3.0, whereas their Drevo Calibur is using 4.0, and with normal
use, such as surfing the web and writing this script, it worked absolutely fine.
There wasn’t really any noticeable latency or lag issues, at least that’s how I felt.
Even when typing fast, letters didn’t get mixed up, which can happen with slower keyboards.
For games, I’m not 100% sure.
Since I wasn’t able to use this on my desktop PC, I was limited in what games I could play.
However again, I found no real issues.
I’m not a pro gamer or anything but this seemed fine to me.
Unfortunately I don’t really have a quantitative measurement to give, so this may be much more
noticeable to someone else, but I can imagine there will be some sort of delay, obviously
in comparison to the wired mode.
And with wireless capability, we do have a 1000mAh battery to power this guy.
On Drevo’s product page, they state that it will last for 50 hours without the LEDs
on, and 5.9 hours with the LEDs on.
And to help save power, the keyboard goes to sleep after 60 seconds of inactivity.
In my testing, which was loosely tracked, I managed to easily get more than the claimed
6 hours of proper lights on use per charge, with maximum brightness.
I would say I normally got over 10 hours of active use, and maybe even more.
That is excluding sleep time, so I tried to keep the keyboard from sleeping due to inactivity,
and minused the downtime.
So with these times considered, it would basically require 1 charge per day, with heavy use.
So like at an office or something where you’re constantly using it.
Or about 1 charge per 3 days with moderate usage, which would be a few hours a day.
So that’s more of a home usage scenario.
Or even longer, with light usage, with maybe a week or 2, although I can’t back that
up as I never tried keeping it on for that long without plugging it in.
These times can also be slightly extended if you were to lower the brightness of the
backlighting.
I couldn’t find much out there on other people’s experiences with battery life,
so these numbers are based purely on my experiences, and are kind of ballpark figures.
Taking the keyboard apart is simple with just a couple of Philips head screws.
And it comes apart in 2 main pieces.
Here’s the bottom piece which is made from 1.2mm thick aluminium.
As with many similar cases that aren’t milled, it has a plastic piece which provides the
standoffs.
To keep the thickness down, the plastic has cutouts for each keyswitch.
We have the USB C port.
And also our 1000mAh battery, which is shielded by a piece of plastic to prevent punctures
from the pins.
Here’s the other piece, and it’s again using 1.2mm thick aluminium.
The PCB looks clean with clean solder joints.
These particular switches are PCB mount with the extra prongs, but the pins have a different
orientation compared to a standard MX switch.
We have some small SMD LEDs on the sides for that side glow.
And we also have some good access to the bottom of the stabilisers, to maybe get more lube
in.
Overall, it’s another fine addition to the Drevo lineup.
Drevo have delivered more exotic layouts and products to the budget market.
What’s also impressive is seeing Drevo branch away from the gaming tag and market, and provide
a keyboard more oriented for office and work use.
And it’s proven to be quite popular, as it’s out of stock nearly everywhere.
I think that this is a very flexible and accessible layout that many people will be able to use.
It still has the dedicated arrow keys, and even the numpad, but in that very compact
form factor that is even smaller than a regular tenkeyless mechanical keyboard.
In fact it is about the size of this 65% keyboard.
This makes it extremely portable.
I think slimness is more important than the actual footprint when putting it into a bag,
so it’s just like slipping in another book.
I tried it on Windows, Mac OS, and Android, and had no issues.
Although when using it with a Mac, you will be missing the Mac specific legends.
The other big feature of course is the low profile keyswitches.
I’m happy they made the move the Kailh low profile switches.
I feel that the linear Red’s will be the weakest of the three.
I think the clickies are a wonderful switch, and I hope to try the tactiles one day.
On the other hand, they are reasonably quiet, being quite similar to laptop keyboards.
And that may be the reason to avoid the blues, because they are clicky, but they are good
with that click bar mechanism creating that crisp clicky sound and feeling.
The build is quite nice with the aluminium enclosure.
And I personally think it is quite a pretty looking keyboard, with it’s very slim silver
case, white side lighting, keycaps, and backlighting.
With all these features in quite a stylish keyboard, I definitely think it’s one to
consider, if it ticks all the boxes for you.