My FAVORITE Bluetooth Mechanical Keyboard(s) Yet! - The Drevo Calibur

This Keyboard Rules!

Update - 7/20/2017

I just received my second order today and immediately tested to see if the Bluetooth key problem is gone. Sure enough, it no longer happens! That takes one con off the list and now this keyboard has become my all time favorite! Here is a GIF of the new blue switch version I received.

Original review date(s) - 7/7/2017

The words "wireless mechanical keyboard" are words I never thought could belong in the same sentence together without some kind of major catch.That is... until I heard about the Drevo Calibur. I have a small collection of mechanical keyboards that include, The Logitech G710 (Cherry MX Blue with o-rings), Logitech G710+ (Cherry Mx Brown with OEM o-rings), Logitech G410 (Romer-G), Tt eSPORTS Meka G-Unit Combat White (Cherry Mx Black with o-rings) and finally the Corsair K65 (Cherry Mx Red with o-rings). I had just recently fell in love with the 10-keyless form factor of keyboards and one of my friends had come across this video from TechSource showcasing a cheap Bluetooth wireless mechanical keyboard. So me being the researcher and analyzer that I am decided to start searching all over the web for more opinions on this keyboard.

Here is where the bad news comes in... Almost every YouTube review and even text review that I read complained about the Bluetooth performance of the keyboard which contradicted the first review I saw from TechSource. I happened to be looking at another Bluetooth mechanical keyboard at the same time, the Obins Anne Pro (my overview can be found Here) which didn't seem to have any of the supposed Bluetooth issues that the Calibur was said to have. So I ended up purchasing the Anne Pro and decided last minute to purchase the Calibur keyboard because I figured I needed to test the connectivity for myself. I even paid extra for 1 day shipping via amazon on the Calibur so I could have something to test over the July 4th weekend. 

Well, no spoilers, but I am glad that I decided to try the Calibur for myself.

The first thing I did when I received the keyboard was test the Bluetooth connectivity. I tested it with a Lenovo T550 laptop, a Dell Precision 7510 laptop, a LG Nexus 5X and a home desktop computer with a Broadcom Bluetooth/Wi-Fi card. All devices are running Windows 10, support Bluetooth 4.0 and showcased zero latency whatsoever so I was overjoyed by this. Drevo either "fixed" the issues that other people were referring to or there was maybe just too much distance/interference between their computers and the keyboard. 

For the keyboard hardware itself, the keys have a nice grippy texture to them, however I can see this rubbing off fairly quickly with my past experience with mice that have the same texture. The font is not the greatest but it is not the end of the world. The switches themselves feel very similar to Cherry MX Blue switches. The lighting is nice and I am glad that it comes with some decent effects, can be customized without installing software and can be turned off entirely if that tickles your fancy. The only complaint I have about it is that it is not quite as robust as software based solutions since you can not put in custom values for the colors (such as HEX or RGB values). Otherwise I would classify it as a fairly solid implementation. The auto sleep feature is nice too so that the keyboard doesn't drain so much battery.

My only complaints about the keyboard are minor for the most part. The lack of media key functions is a bummer but can easily be resolved by something like AutoHotKey. When connected via Bluetooth, either the Q, W or E key stays lit in white depending on the profile you're connected to. The weird thing about this is that this is only seen on one model of the Calibur (the black bodied blue switch version) that I have but not the other (black bodied brown switch version). Here are a few GIFs of it in action...

Blue switch version 

Brown switch version

This is a bit of a weird one and I even went to the extent of contacting Drevo.us directly. They ended up suggesting that I return the keyboard so I purchased another blue switch version and will see if it exhibits the same "issue" as my current blue switch version. 

Overall I say that this is a solid mechanical keyboard that is wireless too! The price point is spot on as well as the features it provides for that price. The next cheapest competing mechanical keyboard that I can think of is the Obins Anne Pro. That keyboard is even smaller and almost twice the cost. I appreciate the ability to quickly swap between my devices via bluetooth and type using a far superior keyboard for each of them. I love the small form factor and I love the wireless freedom of the keyboard. I actually liked it so much that I ended up with two of them! I definitely recommend this for others to try and I hope that they have the same good experience that I did with this keyboard.

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