[Teardown evaluation] Daryou A81 elastic arm gasket structure mechanical keyboard with soft elastic feel

Hello everyone, this year's mechanical keyboards are really hot, and major manufacturers are launching these types of mechanical keyboards with gasket structure hot-swappable. And when it comes to the most innovative mechanical keyboards, Dareu is the one. From the earliest mechanical keyboards that have matured and mass-produced gaskets, to the rapid launch of fence-style gaskets, and now to the innovative elastic arm gasket structure, all optimizations have been made. The innovations were all completed in less than a year, and it has to be said that Dareu really has something on the mechanical keyboard.

Today, let’s take a look at how soft and elastic the Dareu A81 mechanical keyboard with elastic arm gasket structure has been implemented to the end.

Bright silver box with Elastic Gasket printed on the box. A simple understanding is the elastic gasket structure. That is the official elastic arm gasket structure.

The accessories are relatively simple. A-series mechanical keyboards come standard with a transparent dust cover and manual, and the accessory box contains a key puller and a Type-C cable.

The upper and lower covers and keycaps of the black transparent version are made of semi-transparent PC material. The orange-yellow color of the keycap is the color of the shaft core (unfortunately, it is not hot-swappable, otherwise the shaft body with different colors should have a different look and feel. ), while the transparent base reveals the white color of the bottom layer of the inner silicone, and the base also has the pattern of words and logos, which looks good.

Because the gasket structure of Dareu A81 is also designed with no screw fixing and rigid structure, the upper and lower covers are very airtight.

The edges of the upper and lower covers are fixed by buckles, and the buckles are very tight. You need to lift a little space from the position of the space bar, and then lift up the buckles one by one in order to remove the upper cover.

Different from our common mechanical keyboard with gasket structure, the A81 launched by Dareu this time adopts a "steel-free" design, that is, the keyboard inner tank does not have a positioning plate, and the shaft body is directly welded to the PCB.

We can see that the PCB of the A81 is different from the common ones. There are four extended levers on the upper and lower edges of the PCB. This is the elastic arm in the Dareu A81 elastic arm gasket structure mechanical keyboard.

There are silicone gaskets in the two sections of each elastic arm. In addition to supporting the PCB, it can also play the performance of the elastic arm. During the pressing process of the button, there is a certain degree of bending between the elastic arm and the PCB to achieve "soft" and "Bouncy" feel.

Under the PCB is a silicone layer that basically fills the lower cover, and there is a piece of poron cotton on the silicone layer to enhance the sound-absorbing and shock-absorbing effect. The silicone layer reserves two battery positions, which is expected to lay the groundwork for the next three templates.

The A81 mechanical keyboard does not have a foot support design. The entire keyboard arc is completed by the base and the silicone layer. The size and thickness of the silicone layer fit the bottom cover very well, making the inside of the A81 very thick.

Some hollow mechanical keyboards supported by poron cotton on the market are actually similar to this principle, but the rigidity and consistency of poron cotton are not as good as the elastic arms of A81, and the hollow structure also makes the feel of different parts deviate. The cavity and the elastic arm can solve the problem of the consistency of the feel.

Dareu A81 is equipped with the Zijin Axis Pro, which is the third version of the Zijin Axis. The axis core has been upgraded to a fence structure, and the color has also changed to yellow. The feel has also been greatly adjusted, from the large paragraph design in advance to the centered paragraph feeling closer to the tea shaft today.

And for use with welding, the Zijin Switch Pro on the A81 is different from other hot-swappable versions. The Zijin Switch Pro on the A81 uses a five-pin design, which can better fix the switch body and improve stability.

The satellite switch of the large key position has also been greatly improved, using the PCB satellite switch design, the satellite switch is fixed by screws, and the new satellite switch has indeed reduced the fleshy feel, and the overall consistency of the feel has been improved.

The black transparent keycap made of PC has a good texture, but after all, it is easy to be stained with paper dust and fingerprints, but fortunately, it is easier to clean, and it will not have irreversible oiling problems like ABS.

The lighting is a bit of a fly in the ointment, monochromatic white light, although there are multiple active lighting modes, but as a domestic lighting factory, I have to say that I am a little disappointed that I didn't play with lighting this time.

The south-facing lamp position design, the direction of the lamp beads on the shaft body is close to the user's side, the lighting effect is still good, but with the strength of Dareu's lamp factory, it is recommended to use the entire RGB, and then use a semi-transparent cover to make the light uniform The material is really cool.

In general, Dareu mechanical keyboards can always bring us a lot of surprises. This time, the A81 also shows us a mechanical keyboard with a different gasket structure from the inside to the outside, and it also has a beautiful design. A lot of improvements. This 400 or so mechanical keyboard does have many attractive points, and the price/performance ratio is also full. However, I personally think that in terms of lighting blending and software performance, it can still be improved, so that it may really become "top".