Advertisement

Vava Mechanical Keyboard Specs

What’s Great About It

It Works Just Fine: I have to admit I was a little worried that a keyboard from a less established brand would somehow be inferior. I’ve been using the Vava for a week now, and I’ve not run into a single major issue with its performance. Some of the materials used in its construction aren’t the greatest, particularly the keycaps, but it’s performed the tasks I put before it—gaming, writing articles, dodging beverages—admirably.

Advertisement

Pretty Solid: The Vava board features a basic plastic case over metal plate design, and it comes together quite well. The board stays in one spot under the most furious of typing, and I don’t get any rattle or shake. The underside features three different channels to run its braided USB cable through, which is a lovely feature. It’s a well-designed and craftier keyboard.

Advertisement

The Pretty Lights: Not only does the Vava feature bright and colorful RGB lighting, users can modify the lighting on the whole board or a single key on-the-fly with simple keyboard controls—there’s no external software necessary. There is a nice selection of pre-programmed effects, but the real kicker is the ability to program and save five customized lighting profiles directly to the board.

Advertisement

And while I have my reservations about the quality of the included keycaps, they are really great at letting the light shine through.

Advertisement

What’s Not So Great

Not A Fan Of The Caps: Now that I’ve mentioned not liking the keycaps included with the Vava a couple of times, let me tell you about how I don’t like the Vava’s keycaps. As lovely as they are when the light shines through, they’re thin and they feel really cheap.

Advertisement

On the plus side, it’s a great excuse to shop for better keycaps. Vava’s even included a keycap puller in the box, as if they knew.

Advertisement

Stop Calling It Ergonomic: Not a mechanical failure or flaw, but this image Vava is using to promote its mechanical keyboard is rubbing me the wrong way.

Advertisement

The “cascading keyboard design” refers to the way the keys form a sort of curve from row to row. They show an image of “normal” flat keys next to Vava’s curved profile keys with a friendly blue check mark indicating that the latter is better. Of course it’s better. The keys are standard OEM profile, a sculpted shape used by most major mechanical keyboard manufacturers.

An ergonomic keyboard design generally involves the keys being arranged in such a way as to reduce wrist and shoulder fatigue. This is just a standard keyboard layout.

Advertisement

Customization

Since Vava’s mechanical keyboard features OEM profile keys atop MX compatible Kailh switches, there’s a whole world of keycaps waiting to replace the ones that come with the unit. First let’s swap out the WASD with some textured FPS caps from HyperX, which Kingston’s gaming arm has recently started selling separately.

Advertisement

Nice. Now we’ll add some translucent-topped caps with side-printed legends I picked up off Aliexpress, and turn the lights down low.

Advertisement

Oh yeah. Still pretty cheap, but shiny. You get the idea.

Final Thoughts

No one is going to come into my office, look at my desktop setup and excitedly gasp, “Oh cool, you’ve got a Vava,” and that’s fine. As it turns out, a company doesn’t have to have a huge booth at CES or its logo on the sleeve of a professional esports team to make a perfectly good mechanical keyboard. Vava’s “Mechanical Gaming Keyboard with 16.8 Million RGB Colors & 104 Keys” is glowing, clicking proof. It might not have some of the bells and whistles found on big name boards or a cool model designation, but it delivers a lot of quality and functionality for under $80.

Advertisement

Not too shabby, Vava. Might have to try one of those milk frothers.