Tesoro Excalibur Spectrum Ships First Kailh Black Keyboards in US
Posted on March 6, 2015
As we have previously discussed, since Cherry’s patent expired, the North American market has been seeing the introduction of traditionally Asian brands using Kailh switches. One of the most prominent Asian brands, and one that is pushing into the North American market quite aggressively, is Tesoro.
Tesoro recently emailed us about their new keyboard, the Excalibur Spectrum, being officially released in North America.
For those who haven’t previously read our coverage of Tesoro’s Excalibur Spectrum, it’s a fully customizable RGB backlit keyboard with 16.8 million available colors. To add to this, the Spectrum has 7 different LED modes (trigger, ripple, firework, radiation, breathing, wave marquee, and spectrum/full board mode, which allows for per-key programmable designs), 5 different levels of brightness control, and 5 different lighting profiles for the spectrum/full board mode.
Of course, being a gaming keyboard, the Spectrum supports N-key rollover, with optional 6-key rollover (due to certain motherboards having issues with N-key rollover) and 1000Hz polling rate. To further its gaming appeal, the Spectrum has 512Kb of memory capable of storing up to 200 macros or 2000 keystrokes in five gaming profiles. Despite only being moderately useful in real life, the Spectrum supports “Gaming Mode” which disables the Windows key.
More interestingly, the Tesoro Excalibur Spectrum will be available in Kailh blue, brown, red, and black switches. This is the one of the first, if not the first, keyboard sold in North America to include Kailh black switches (which are heavier version of the linear red switch).
Overall, the Tesoro Excalibur Spectrum looks to be a promising RGB gaming keyboard with a reserved style, one which will bring Kailh black switches to the North American market for $140. The Tesoro Excalibur Spectrum is currently only available with black switches on Amazon, but brown, red, and blue switches should be coming by mid-october to Amazon, and other retailers
Stay tuned for our review of Tesoro’s first programmable RGB keyboard.
- Michael "The Bear" Kerns.