Drevo have grown into one of the bigger budget brands in the mechanical keyboard market,
and a big part of that was them releasing their Calibur keyboard like 2 years ago.
Which kind of opened up budget mechs to the more exotic layouts, rather than cycling full
sized and tenkeyless boards.
Fast forward to now, we finally have the V2.
Inside the box we have the keyboard itself.
Some paperwork.
A Drevo sticker.
A wire keycap puller.
USB type C cable.
And 2 keyboard feet.
And it’s always nice when they include a dust cover.
So first things first.
It is not the same layout, but it is still pretty much the same functionally, as it has
the same amount of keys, at 71.
They’ve gone for a more compact layout, which gets rid of that wasted space between
the arrow keys and nav cluster, being much like a typical 65% with the addition of another
column.
To do this, they got rid of the menu key, squeezed the arrow keys in a bit.
And then arrange the nav keys in a vertical manner, and finally they added a pause key
to fill in the space.
So now it’s essentially a tenkeyless keyboard in regards to primary functionality, but without
the top row.
They’ve also kept it very standard for keycap sizes.
Normally when compressing a keyboard, you change it up a bit.
But we have standard sizes for the bottom row, and even the right shift.
And that leaves this tiny gap between the control and left arrow key, which for me looks
absolutely fine, and even gives it a bit of character.
But yeh, I personally love the layout.
At Computex I did see 2 boards like this, with the extra 2 columns on the right, so
we may see more of them soon.
On the box it does say it will come in a range of layouts, just like the V1 Calibur.
But I don’t think those had an ISO enter.
Which the website says for the V2.
This does support both Mac and Windows, and you can switch between the 2 systems with
FN and tab.
And it does show some of the Mac legends on the keycaps.
In the hands it feels decent, with minimal flex.
And it’s packing some recent weight, at just over 600g, being pretty much the same
as its predecessor.
They’ve gone for a more aggressive aesthetic this time round.
From the top down view, it’s very simplistic, with minimal bezels.
But then everywhere else is quite angular, sharp, and yeh, just more aggressive, but
not overly.
On both sides we get some RGB lighting which does angle down and shines on the surface
it’s on.
On the rear there’s just the USB type C port, so that’s great to see.
And on the bottom there’s a couple of flat rubber feet, and more importantly, no flip
up feet.
So the feet that were included in the box, they’re just plastic pieces with rubber
on one side, and magnets on the inside.
And because of magic, they stick to the case.
The only thing that really holds it in place; besides the magnets; are the existing rubber
feet.
So while they don’t like slide off or anything, they’re not the most secure.
Honestly just for convenience, and for a board like this, flip up feet are fine.
Another change are the keycaps.
Unfortunately they have gone backwards in this department.
They’re thin 1mm ABS keycaps that are coated in black and then laser etched.
So they don’t feel great, the keys don’t sound as good, they will shine overtime, and
the legends will fade away.
So that’s pretty disappointing, because before they had doubleshot ABS or PBT keycaps,
which have a different piece of plastic for the legends.
The advantage of this though, is that we have a cleaner typeface or font to let that RGB
lighting come through.
But because of this kind of matte finish that the keycaps have, there’s not as much contrast
between the keycap and the lighting.
The lighting is all controlled on board, and there’s a bunch of effects and patterns
available, in which you can also customise colours with.
Underneath the keycaps we have Outemu keyswitches.
So just Cherry MX clones.
I have the Blue’s in mine, which are clicky switches.
There’s some rattle with the stabilised keys, which is pretty normal for budget mechs.
Even though, I can see some lube in there.
If they just lubed them properly, it could have been better.
But yeh, a pretty hollowy sounding keyboard, with these keycaps, and I guess a somewhat
roomy enclosure.
But thin keycaps can be good for clickies, if you’re into that.
And yet another difference from the previous Calibur.
This is not wireless.
So no Bluetooth on this guy at the moment, but there’s always a chance that they’ll
release a wireless version in the future.
Opening the keyboard is super easy, with a couple of Phillips head screws under some
keycaps.
Here’s the plastic enclosure.
Not much here, but it’s pretty sturdy because of its angular design, and it does have a
bit of ribbing on the bottom surface.
The standoffs are just tapped plastic.
And we also have the translucent plastic on the inside.
We have a pretty thin steel plate, which gives the keyboard most of its weight and rigidity.
And the PCB looks clean, with nice solder joints.
We have SMD RGB LEDs just like most other RGB keyboards.
And here’s our little side RGB LEDs for that sideglow.
Alrighty, so overall, it’s a mixed bag.
This is also taking into consideration that this is the V2 of the Calibur, so usually,
it should be better.
So what I think is better is the layout.
It’s one column shorter than the V1, while still keeping the same amount of keys, making
it more space efficient.
And I just like the look of this layout, as an extended 65%, making it a 70% I guess.
Which makes it look cool because it’s not so common.
It now natively supports both Windows and Mac.
The sideglow, while may be a bit aggressive, still is a plus in my opinion.
And the USB type C connectivity is a nice upgrade.
But then, there’s no wireless.
Which of course isn’t a necessity, and they may have a wireless version in the future.
The keycaps are now laser etched ABS, instead of doubleshot, so they took a backward step
there, because that also impacts on how the keyboard feels when typing, being just cheaper
feeling and hollowy.
I’m on the fence for the feet.
They look nicer than flip up, but they’re not as convenient, and can get lost.
So overall, I think it looks nicer.
But it loses some of the features that the previous gen had.
Disregarding the previous gen though, it is quite a nice keyboard, just minus the keycaps.
Awesome layout, customisable RGB backlighting, USB type C, sideglow, but really, it’s the
compact layout that makes it.
Oh and yeh, it’s 50 bucks for all of that, which is the best part.