Closer Examination

Once we have the plastic wrap removed, we see that the Excalibur SE Spectrum is fairly clean-looking and with smaller-than-average bezels on all sides. This keyboard employs an ABS plastic top and bottom panel case with a matte finish, and the two pieces of branding are the Tesoro print in the top-right corner and the awkward, out of place "Break the Rules" tagline above the arrow key cluster. To be fair to Tesoro, the latter is not very visible straight on and easy enough to ignore, but its reception appears to be universally negative so far wherever I have seen it mentioned, and so, I would like to encourage them to refrain from doing so again.

Given the nature of onboard controls here, as this is a driver-less keyboard, we have a lot of secondary legends on the keycaps wherever they are applicable. These are in some cases well thought out and implemented; there are the number keys as part of the alphanumeric key cluster, for example, where the secondary legends are in line with the primary legends and also doubleshot injected, like the primary ones. But others, especially the Tesoso-specific ones, are pad-printed on and below or above the primary ones. Then there's the font used on the legends, which is going to be divisive again. Sure, the use of seamed doubleshot injection does mean that looped characters will come off incomplete, but the font used exaggerates this further and detracts from the keyboard's otherwise clean nature. To me, it is more aggressive than I personally prefer, but of course, I acknowledge that this is a subjective matter of preference.


Not a whole lot going on at the back here - no cable-routing options and just a sticker on the back with this unit's specific serial number. There are four rubber pads on the corners to help keep the keyboard in place, and there are also two small feet to elevate the keyboard. The feet have rubber pads on the bottom as well; however, they are so small that the elevation is lower than on average, and the feet collapse back inward with minimal force on top of the keyboard from the front, which makes for a poor execution that needs to be improved in order to be listed as a properly working feature. The keyboard's cable is non-detachable, 6' long, black, non-braided, and terminates in a standard male USB Type-A connector. The keyboard requires just 500 mA of current draw at most, as rated on the back, meaning USB 2.0 will suffice. This also means that there is likely no full 16.8 M RGB color backlighting on this keyboard, and they do indeed call it "multicolor" instead.


The keycaps have an OEM profile with the usual sculpted, curved keycap top surface as per the various rows on the keyboard. In fact, despite this not really being a mechanical switch, the keycaps are still Cherry MX-stem compatible, as we see above. ABS plastic is used to make the keycaps, which, as we saw earlier, are fairly thick at 1.18 mm on average and have doubleshot primary legends with doubleshot/pad-printed secondary legends. As such, these will last longer than average for stock keycaps, although the Tesoro-specific secondary functions printed onto the keyboard will wear off sooner. Good thing that cheat sheet is included then, but it is still another example of a good concept let down by an imperfect execution. The larger keycaps are held in place by costar-style stabilizers with a wire on a pivot providing stability without the mushy feeling of the Cherry stabilizers. Indeed, even the space bar felt nice and crisp to type on, so there are no complaints here. The bottom row is non-standard, so this is technically not a true ANSI in layout, which in practice also means that you will have a harder time getting replacement keycap sets to match.


The switches here are Tesoro/Gateron infrared optical Blue switches with a transparent housing to better let the LED under the switch shine through, and these work with both tactile and clicky feedback despite the actuation itself merely being linear. Tesoro also offers this in an optical Red switch version that is just linear throughout. The most interesting thing here, however, is that the switches can be completely removed since they are not soldered in place. This is where that accessory from before comes in, and you can hook on to the top and bottom, as seen from the front, to clip into levers that then help you get the entire switch out. The PCB has the LED soldered in, as seen above, as well as the actual IR light source that passes through a section of the switch housing such that the stem when depressed interrupts it - more on this later.