Tesoro Excalibur V2 Gaming Keyboard Review

Peter Donnell / 9 years ago

Final Thoughts

Price

The Tesoro Excalibur V2 comes in at a very affordable $89.99 USD directly from Tesoro, this is a pretty great deal for a well equipped mechanical keyboard, and it’s certainly a lot cheaper than their RGB model, the Spectrum, which comes in at $119.99. If you’re looking for all the premium thrills without a triple figure price tag, this would be a great keyboard for work and gaming alike. Stock in the UK seems a little limited at the moment, at least at our preferred retailers, but a quick Google should find you one through various eBay stores or Amazon for around £65-70.

Overview

While it may not have all the crazy high-end features of some of the mechanical keyboards we’ve seen hit the market this year, it also doesn’t come with the $150-200 price tag to match. What you do get, are all the features you’re likely to need, nothing more, nothing less. Equipped with a good macro recording engine, onboard memory for up to five profiles and per-key LED lighting and effects, this is a nicely focused mechanical keyboard that’s going to be great for day-to-day use in the office, especially for those looking for a mid-budget mechanical solution. When it comes to gaming, those blue switches are an absolute blast to use and are a very noticeable quality improvement for those switching up from a membrane switch keyboard. I know the enthusiast keyboard user may turn their nose up at switches that aren’t produced by Cherry, but Kailh are doing great work and their blue switches perform fantastically, while not coming with the branding price premium.

The LED lighting may not have all those RGB thrills people seem to love, but the lighting engine on the V2 is still packed with features to give you plenty of customisation options. Per key lighting is a big step up from the usual all on or all off modes, as it allows you to create more defined gaming setups that add a welcome level of visual flair to your desktop that provides tangible benefits to your gaming.

The build quality is pretty tough overall. There’s nothing especially fancy about the design, but that’s fine by me. A durable frame, that’s not too thick and is strong enough to survive a good few knocks and bumps and the mechanical switches are sure to last millions of keystrokes without failure. The hard-wired cable is nice and strong, but a detachable one would have been even better. Overall, the whole thing should be good enough to put in your backpack and be carried along to gaming events, not just for stay-at-home gamers. There’s really little to criticise here, at this price, the V2 is ticking all the right boxes and would make a great addition to anyone’s desktop setup.

Pros

Durable build quality
Simple yet stylish design
Bright blue LED lighting
Per-key lighting engine with good effects
On-the-fly macro recording
Onboard memory with up to five profiles
Fully programmable keys
Easy to use software
Competitive price

Cons

Limited availability in the UK at time of writing
Hard-wired cable (detachable USB preferred)

“Tesoro may not be the biggest name in gaming yet, but the Excalibur V2 is a great mid-budget mechanical gaming keyboard. It’s packed full of all the right features, has a cool lighting engine, easy to use software and rock solid build quality, giving you everything you need for lost long days of work and longer nights of gaming.”