DROP Expression Series Togekey keyboard review – Gotta catch them all?

REVIEW – If you’re into mechanical keyboards, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the website DROP and know of their great CTRL, ALT, and ENTR keyboards.  If you’ve been above ground for the past 20-30 years, you’ll have heard of Pokemon. Now what if I told you Drop teamed up with an artist, Sakshi Mangal, to create a Pokemon mechanical keyboard? If you feel the need to catch them all, you might want to continue reading.

What is it?

The Drop Expression Series Togekey keyboard is a mechanical keyboard using their ENTR keyboard with an aluminum case and design cues from the Tokepi Pokemon.

What’s in the box?

• Togekey keyboard
• USB A to USB C cable
• Keycap puller

Hardware specs

• 87 keys
• Silver ENTR anodized aluminum case
• Pad-printed case artwork
• Gateron Milky Yellow KS3 linear switches
• Drop Phantom stabilizers
• White LED backlighting

Design and features

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Nowhere on the keyboard or on Drop’s page for this keyboard do they say Pokemon. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s not an officially licensed product, so if you’re expecting lots of Pokemon extras or wanted wild styling cues, you’re going to be disappointed. Now, if you’re a Poke-fan and want something a little more subtle that only those in the know can see it for what it is, then this may be the keyboard for you. The simple red and blue shapes are really understated when compared to a lot of others out there. My kids knew immediately that this is a Tokepi-inspired keyboard. My daughter told me before I even got it, it was hers after my review is done.

If you wanted a little splash of color on your desk at work, this is nice, right? And, you can secretly nerd out over Pokemon at the same time.

The aluminum case gives the Togekey a sturdy build and the anodization has a bead-blasted or matte finish. Classy!

As you can see, it does have folding feet so you have at least two different angles to find your comfy spot.

Drop is using their in-house White Skylight keycap set on the Togekey and they look and feel great.  They’re double-shot PBT, white and clear, so you get the white backlight shining through the legends. And since they are PBT, you won’t get that other kind of shine on the keycaps as you do on ABS ones.

They’ve used Gateron milky yellow linear switches which feel and sound pretty good. I’m not a big fan of linear switches I prefer tactile and if you are too then you need to know the Togekey keyboard isn’t hot-swappable. If you want to swap switches, then you’ll be doing a lot of desoldering and re-soldering.

As I said earlier, the Togekey keyboard does have LED backlighting, but it’s white ONLY and there aren’t any modes to cycle through. You can dim and brighten them and that’s it. Me? I’m fine with that. The simple white backlighting keeps the design of the board clean.

The Togekey keyboard sounds good too, though I will say the spacebar is much louder than the other keys. Here’s a sound test if you’re interested. The included Phantom stabilizers didn’t have any rattle that I could hear. So other than the spacebar, it’s a fairly quiet keyboard.

Setup

There’s no setup for the Togekey keyboard. It’s simply plug-and-play. This seems like an odd choice when everyone else either has their own software or makes their keyboards VIA-compatible so we can make macros and the like.

Performance

I can’t say anything bad about the Togekey keyboard’s performance. I mean, it works fine. It looks, feels, and sounds good.  I wouldn’t call it my end-game keyboard but I do like using it.

What I like

• Double-shot shine through PBT keycaps
• Clean design
• Aluminum case
• Simple, single color backlighting

What I’d change

• Not hot-swappable
• No software to set up macros

Final thoughts

All in all the Drop Expression Series Togekey keyboard is a good keyboard. It’s just not great in my opinion.  There are plenty of other good keyboards out there that are hot-swappable and VIA-compatible in the same price range. But, for my daughter, who loves Pokemon, this is her perfect mechanical keyboard. I’ve been trying to convince her for a while to toss that old membrane keyboard and the Togekey keyboard has done that. So if the Togepi accents excite you and you like linear switches, then I think you’ll like it.

Price: $129
Where to buy: Drop
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Drop.