Tesoro Excalibur review: An RGB-enabled keyboard for the budget-conscious - shortfarsitrand00

So you want to bargain an RGB-backlit keyboard without going over-budget, and you can't stand the look of Tesoro's faux-industrial Lobera mannikin. Graspable. That's where the Tesoro Excalibur Spectrum comes in: This bare-finger cymbals RGB keyboard lists for $120 and in general sells for even out less on Amazon.

Swell.

Note: This follow-up is part of our best gaming keyboards roundup. Go there for details about competing products and how we proved them.

Business casual

Count me among the Lobera detractors. I'm not totally averse to keyboards that direct for the middle-2000s "uttermost" gaming look, all weird edges and fake uncovered rivets and like—but in general it's non something I want sitting on my desk.

The Tesoro Excalibur, though? Yeah, I could use this in the office. It's a simple matte-negroid rectangle, that most nonproprietary of keyboard designs. Thus far, so secure.

Okay, there are quiet some issues. Namely, the typeface Tesoro uses on both the Lobera and Excalibur keys, which is a pseudo-Consolas bolded until its intimately foul. It wouldn't have looked proscribed of place 10 years ago, just with even Razer abandoning this type of "game-y" typeface for lightweight sans-serifs, the Excalibur's stigmatisation doesn't quite a match its office-amicable shape.

Two strange complaints: For some reason the human body is emblazoned with the words "Break the Rules" under the Home block, like a awful tattoo someone received on spring break through. And the Escape of import is replaced with the Tesoro logotype (I'm bad for sure IT's a mask).

The Excalibur still looks a bedamn sight less conspicuous than the massive trapezoid that is the Lobera, just there's room for aesthetic improvement.

Non so opulent

The Excalibur model also ditches a number of the Lobera's high-end features, which is a shame considering the ii are priced about equal on Amazon (though the Lobera's list price was initially $20 high).

You'll find no USB extend-through Here, nor heaphones/microphone choke-through. Bottom of all, you'll be taunted by this fact when you view the back of the keyboard—on that point are understandably designated areas where those features could've been machined into the plastic but were non.

Oh well.

You besides lose dedicated Halt Mode and Macro-Memorialise keys, which are relegated to secondary functions on the Pause and Home keys, respectively.

Five keys for happening-the-fly visibility swapping make it onto the Excalibur though (mapped F1 – F5) and all button on the keyboard is programmable, with settings stored in onboard memory. Not too dishonourable.

And like the Lobera, the Excalibur's backlighting is fairly impressive. Tesoro's exploitation the same lighting method as Razer—an LED crystalline lens enclosed preceding the switch. Lighting is bright, color accuracy is solid, transitions are smooth, and the keyboard's a sight to lay eyes on in spectrum-cycling mode.

Another nice concern: You can change between some basic lighting modes on the board itself, without installment Tesoro's software. That's excellent, since doctors have yet to study the psychedelic nightmares that none doubtfulness ensue from using a keyboard in spectrum mode long-run.

Jokes aside, it's as wel a nice gesture because Tesoro's software is abysmal. Like the Lobera, Excalibur's software looks the like a shareware medicine player or EQ plugin from 15 eld agone, and it's about as functional.

Setting a coloring for the whole board is fairly easy, as is setting a global effect, but information technology takes a hell of a lot of dig to name out how to set per-key lighting. For the record: You need to go into Lighting Effects, click on the Spectrum Colours setting, and then click on apiece key individually and set a colourize. There's no way to set colors across common zones (say, the Procedure row) nor can you click and drop behind or Chemise-click multiple keys at one time.

Just to rub salt in the spit: I couldn't find a way to set a new nonremittal color, so if you want a weird shade of green or any you'll need to enter the precise RGB coordinates for every single key. More chivvy than it's worth.

Relieve, store the time and you have access to nearly of the comparable functionality you'd find on a Logitech or Corsair or Razer board, with lighting that's on par with the latter's a lot-more-overpriced models.

A Cherry by another name

Be sure you're comfortable with Kailh switches, though. That's an important part of this tarradiddle. While much of Tesoro's not-RGB boards use Cherry MX keys, the Spectrum line uses Kailh switches—and thus the similarity to Razer's RGB-enabled line.

Wherefore is that a crucial preeminence? Substantially, for some of you IT probably isn't. Kailh switches are pretty expert Ruby-red knock-offs, even adoption the same Red/Black/Brown/Low-spirited categorizations. Information technology's a wholesale clone.

But Kailh is generally less reliable than Cherry, with broader manufacturing standards. Problems appear to crop up more often with Kailh boards, be it unreal keystrokes or unresponsive keys surgery what have you. It's unlikely you'll get a bad Kailh product, but information technology's more unlikely you'll convey a bad Cherry intersection, if that makes sense.

Still, if you're upgrading from a damaged ol' rubber dome keyboard or a scissor replacement-equipped laptop? Anything's leaving to seem like a huge upgrade.

Bottom line

Information technology may not have as many top-tier features as the Lobera, only the Excalibur packs the unvaried RGB inflammation into a more palatable anatomy. No fake rivets! Zero fake metal! Just a simple black rectangle with rainbow lights.

And at half the damage of Corsair operating theater Razer's RGB boards, even Kailh switches seem like a decent compromise. If you've got $110 and time to kill off messing with the undiscerning software, then the Excalibur's probably the best altogether-more or less budget RGB keyboard you can patronize the moment.