Review: Das Keyboard DeltaForce 65

When I last reviewed a mechanical keyboard from Das Keyboard—the 5QS Mark II—I was not favorable. I felt the storied keyboard company was stuck in the past, focusing on features that didn’t create any real improvements in usability and failing to innovate on its core typing experience, which was nearly identical to keyboards from almost two decades ago.

Its latest release, the DeltaForce 65, seems to be a direct response to these kinds of criticisms—Das Keyboard has seemingly abandoned the gimmicks of its past designs, instead focusing on building a modern keyboard from the ground up. While this $200 keyboard stands out from its other offerings, it hardly manages to sit at the same level of its contemporaries. There aren’t any cut corners in this keyboard’s physical design and assembly, but strange software and layout choices make the entire user experience feel disjointed.

Competent Typing

Photograph: Henri Robbins

The typing experience with this keyboard is … alright. It’s nothing special, not worth writing home about, but it’s not bad. The switches are light to type on, being tried-and-true Gateron Red switches with a 45-gram actuation weight. These are a proven design that feels smooth and has been used for years without issue, but they won’t blow you away, especially if you’re somewhat familiar with modern mechanical switches. They feel a bit wobbly, and when combined with the flex-cut printed circuit board (PCB), they produce a fairly thin and plasticky sound when typing, which is only partially mitigated by the keyboard’s sound-dampening foam.

The gasket mount system is simple, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There is some flex, and it has a relaxed, comfortable typing feel, but it doesn’t compete with the “bouncy” typing of a board like the Mchose GX87. It’s fairly muted, without the distinct high-pitched “clacky” sound, or deep “thocky” sound, of a more acoustically-tuned keyboard. The DeltaForce sits in a middle ground that’s neutral and tame, without much extraneous noise or depth.

The stabilizers rattle a bit. They’ve been lubricated from the factory, and for the most part this lubing is well done, but the left side of the space bar still rattles. This is an easy fix to make (you don’t even have to open up the keyboard), and the stabilizers themselves—plate-mounted, screw-in stabilizers—are a relatively premium option that should stay rattle-free after being properly lubricated and tuned.

The case is made of a relatively lightweight aluminum. This doesn’t have the same heft as some premium metal cases, but still feels more solid than most plastic cases. Inside, there are three PCBs connected together by ribbon cables: The main board with all of the switches, a daughterboard that holds the USB-C port, and an additional board that houses the knob. This means the USB-C port is able to sit closer to the desk, and that neither the port or the knob will be subject to the flexing of the main PCB during typing, a small detail I worry about with nearly every gasket-mount keyboard I test. As far as internal assembly goes, this keyboard gets full marks.

Photograph: Henri Robbins

A series of shallow grooves line either side of the case’s bottom half. These seem to mimic the side sculpts of some limited-run custom keyboards, and they have a functional purpose, making it easier to lift the keyboard. The design is mirrored in the aluminum knob in the top right corner, which has a similar motif. I really like that these designs are not only ornamental but actually have a functional purpose during regular use.

Going further into the aesthetic choices of this keyboard, it loses me a bit with the keycaps. I’m not a big fan of the camouflage design. The shapes don’t always line up across keycaps, and it overall seems tacky. However, the print quality is top-notch, with no fuzziness or discoloration, consistent even along the keycaps’ sides. Because the keycaps are white with multicolored printing on top, the RGB lighting is able to bounce between the white plastic plate and the white undersides of the keycaps, appearing brighter and diffusing more evenly across the keyboard.

With a polling rate of 1,000 Hz (meaning the keyboard sends 1,000 messages to the computer every second), the DeltaForce 65 feels snappy and responsive. This combines with the relatively light Gateron Red switches to make a keyboard that’s effective for gaming while still being comfortable to type on. It doesn’t compare to high-end gaming keyboards with Hall effect switches and 8,000-Hz polling rates, which are going to be faster and more customizable, but for casual gaming, it’s more than enough.

The compact size of the keyboard is ideal for gaming, saving a significant amount of space compared to a full-size keyboard. This allows for more mouse space and lets your hands sit closer together for more rapid movement between the mouse and keyboard. To make up for the loss of the function row up top, you can hold the FN key and press the corresponding number key (i.e., FN+1 = F1), and the FN key can be used with some other keys for the Home, Pause, Print Screen, and other removed keys. The knob in the top right is easy to reach and has a satisfying notchiness to it. It’s programmed to adjust volume by default, but can be remapped to nearly anything else.

Software Quirks

Photograph: Henri Robbins

As far as programmability, VIA is the star of the show here. The DeltaForce65 uses an open source system known as QMK for its programmability, and VIA is an in-browser interface based on QMK that allows for seamless, rapid customization of the keyboard’s layout. The system is incredibly powerful and intuitive to use, and a common capability of many modern mechanical keyboards.

However, the DeltaForce65 is not officially supported by QMK/VIA, meaning users will have to download the .JSON firmware file from Das Keyboard and manually upload it into VIA to customize the keyboard’s layout, as opposed to being completely plug-and-play like many Keychron keyboards. Because of this, if the Das Keyboard website goes down (or the page hosting the user manual is removed), users will be out of luck for customization unless the .JSON file has been archived elsewhere. The lack of official support also means one of the main benefits of VIA—convenient in-browser operation—is less compelling. Instead of simply entering a URL and being able to customize your keyboard, you will also need to download the .JSON file and insert it into the website.

For the most part, the layout can easily be customized using VIA. Any of the keys can be remapped to produce any input, and the RGB lighting can be tweaked with countless presets built into VIA. There’s a lot of potential for setting up macros, scripts, and other complex key combinations—when it works.

Photograph: Henri Robbins

The main hiccup I ran into was with the shift keys. From what I can tell, it seems the designers of this keyboard’s layout wanted to make it so pressing Shift + Esc would type a tilde (~). However, they seemingly did this by conditionally mapping the shift key to both Shift and Function (FN), with the keyboard recognizing the key as Shift when typing a letter or number, and Function when pressing a modifier key. Along with making it easy to type a tilde, it makes the Backspace key mostly useless when holding down either Shift button: When using the keyboard in some browsers, like Firefox, it registers Shift + Backspace as the Delete key. When using Google Chrome, or Google Docs from any browser, Shift + Backspace does absolutely nothing. I can’t find a way to fix this issue: Any key mapped as Left or Right Shift in QMK will do this.

Beyond this, some of the other key combinations listed by Das Keyboard don’t work either. Win + Esc is supposed to type a backtick, with no success, and Fn + Backspace, which is supposed to register as a Delete key, doesn’t work either. After asking Das Keyboard about this issue, I was told these were problems with the unit I received, so the company sent another keyboard. After some testing, these issues were still present in the second unit.

The DeltaForce 65 represents a modernization of Das Keyboard’s design philosophy. The gasket-mount system feels bouncy and pliable without seeming flimsy, the flex cuts on the PCB are functional, and both the hot-swap sockets and the exposed screws on the underside show an understanding of consumers and a desire to not only allow but endorse end-user customization.

As much as I like this keyboard’s design, the problems with the layout are fairly significant. They prevent the keyboard from being used as intended, and significantly limit its functionality. It’s a frustrating issue, and I can’t foresee an easy solution when neither reflashing the keyboard’s firmware nor editing the layout has any effect. More than anything else, it’s disappointing to see a good keyboard ruined by a few decisions that didn’t pan out.