Tecware Spectre Pro Review: A Hot-Swappable Full-Size Keyboard for Under $100
Retail Price: $59.99
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees and support our channel by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
When it comes to mechanical keyboards, there are options from $30 all the way to $250+. Budget keyboards typically don’t include a lot of bells and whistles (like RGB) even if they are mechanical. While a lot of those $30 keyboards are junk, if you’re willing to spend a bit more, you can get a decent keyboard for under $100. Today, we’re looking at the Tecware Spectre Pro Backlit Mechanical Keyboard. This board retails for about $60, and, spoiler alert, seems to be a pretty decent option for the money.
A Sleek Design
I’ll start off by saying that this is a beautiful keyboard. It has an RGB strip around the base of the actual board as well as around the volume wheel, so it’s not just the keys themselves that enjoy customizable RGB lights. The light strip around the base, especially, is something I have not seen on keyboards from top brands like Razer or Corsair. Of course, the RGB customization of this board is not as intensive as Razer’s or Corsair’s, but more on that later.
Since we’re talking about looks, let’s take a moment to talk about the key legend. Honestly, it could be better. The letters are legible, but they almost look as though they have partially worn away already. The effect is worst on keys with small lettering, like the number row, Function keys, and home, delete, insert, etc. keys. I am reviewing a brand new keyboard so of course, the legend isn’t actually worn; rather, that’s just the way the font of these keys is stylized. Perhaps it was supposed to look cool or unique, but Tecware missed the mark on this one. Luckily, the RGB colors shine through bright and beautiful, so it’s still a nice-looking keyboard overall.
Customizable Keys
The keycaps on this board feel pretty nice. They’re made of ABS plastic but still have a pleasant texture to them. What’s better is that they’re double-shot. This means that they’ll be a bit more durable and it’ll take longer to wear the key legend away even with heavy use.
Another nice design element is that the switches on this board are customizable. This particular model comes with Outemu blue switches, but you can remove them and add in any color Outemu switch of your choice. This isn’t a feature I would currently see myself using simply because I love the clickiness of blue switches and I tend to switch keyboards relatively often for The Sypnotix reviews.
However, if this was the only board I owned, I would potentially buy other sets of switches just for the fun of it. For me, part of the experience of a keyboard is the aesthetic of how it feels and sounds, so being able to experience a different sound and feel just by changing switches is something I could find joy in. Once again, I think this is a great feature for a board at this price range. It really makes me feel like you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck. The only downside here is that you’re limited to using Outemu switches and couldn’t substitute something like a Cherry MX switch.
RGB Customization
Are you even a gamer if your keyboard doesn’t have any RGB lights? Personally, I’m not going to spend my hard-earned cash on a mechanical keyboard if I can’t make it rainbow. Having tested a few different keyboards now, I can tell you that all RGB is not equal. I would still consider this keyboard true RGB because you can go in and customize each specific key to be whatever color you like, but the customization is nowhere near as detailed as what you would get with a Razer or Corsair product. I’m on the fence about whether or not I should consider that a fault. This keyboard is only $60, but there are some low-end Razers around the same price that have access to Razer’s amazing Synapse customization. It’s also worth noting that the software used to customize this keyboard is only available for Windows.
So what can you do with this board in terms of RGB? This keyboard comes with 12 preset effects. You can either choose a single color for those effects or you can choose the preset multicolor (aka rainbow). There is a 13th option which is custom. With this option, you can set each key to whatever color you would like. However, the custom option only gives you static lighting and no fun effects. You can also choose effects for the lighting strip and volume wheel; once again the choice is either a preset movement effect with a single color or multicolor option or a single static color of your choice.
As you can see, the RGB here is somewhat limited. Unlike with Razer or Corsair boards, you cannot layer effects nor can you set one section of the board to have a different lighting effect than another. I also dislike the way the software for this works because there is no easy way to select multiple keys to color when under the custom setting. You just have to click them one by one, which is annoying and slow. Still, the lighting on this keyboard is better than some other boards in the same price range, like the HyperX Alloy FPS Pro.
Sticky Keys
One issue I’ve run into while using this board is sticky keys, and I don’t mean the sticky keys you get when you press shift five times. Instead, I literally mean keys sticking. I saw some reviews on Amazon mentioning this, but at first, I thought they were outliers. However, after having this board for two-ish months, I have experienced some key sticking. Specifically, the control key has stuck. Now, the keycap itself does come all the way back up, so it’s not immediately obvious that the key is still being read as pressed.
What happens is that I’ll press control while typing and then later go to scroll down a webpage and instead of scrolling, I end up lowering the font size of the page. Essentially, my PC is being told the equivalent of the ctrl - or ctrl + shortcuts. If I press control again, this stops. This has only happened to me twice so far, but it is still a bit concerning and is something that shouldn’t be happening at all.
Gaming
Finally, let’s take a moment to talk about gaming. This keyboard has the tech you’d expect from any gaming keyboard: mechanical switches, N-key rollover, anti-ghosting, macro recording. However, it does not have any onboard memory. The keys are responsive and fire immediately without any input lag.
When it comes to my personal gaming experience, I did have some trouble using this to play Genshin Impact, but I’m not sure I should blame the keyboard. My issue was that I found myself pressing the wrong buttons all the time, like 3 instead of E (which in Genshin means swapping characters instead of using a skill, sigh). Weirdly enough, I was already pretty used to the keyboard at this point. I’ve always really liked when keyboards have textured keycaps you can place on the WASD keys, like the Corsair MK.2 did. Though Tecware does sell keycaps separately, they don’t sell any that are textured, which is a bummer.
You may be wondering if the sticky keys issue I mentioned impacted my gaming at all. The answer is not yet. Since the only key getting stuck was control, it hasn’t mattered for me. This is because I have a hotkey set on my mouse to press the control button, so I am not pressing control on the keyboard at all during gaming. If I were, then I imagine it would be a problem, since a number of my skills in FFXIV are assigned to a ctrl + number combo. Were the control key to stick, I would end up using the wrong skills and wasting both resources and cooldowns. I’m glad this hasn’t been a problem for me due to the use of my mouse’s hotkeys, but I do worry about what would happen if any other keys started sticking.
Final Thoughts
The Tecware Spectre Pro has a sleek design that will look great with any RGB setup. It comes with swappable Oetemu switches and has double-shot ABS keycaps. These features give you a lot of bang for your buck as swappable switches make the board customizable and double-shot keycaps can stand up to heavy use. The RGB customization is decent but limited when compared to brands like Razer or Corsair. While the board performs well for gaming, I did have some trouble with the ctrl key sticking, which could potentially be an issue. All in all, this is a solid keyboard at a $60 price tag that I think most people would be happy with.
Related
Seri
A writer by day and gamer by night, Seri’s most prized possession is her computer. In fact, she built her desktop PC herself and repaired her college laptop with nothing but Google, Reddit, and determination to guide her. This do-it-yourself attitude was born from frugalness, so if you see Seri raving about something, it’s probably worth the price.