

So is this a keyboard for hobbyists or for someone who just wants a decent keyboard? Arguably, neither. And definitely not when they’ve paid $349. And while I think it’s reasonable to ask someone who’s built their own keyboard to run a terminal command to flash a custom layout, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the same thing of someone who’s bought something off the shelf. It has a price tag that only really makes sense in the context of what its premium components cost individually. Clearly, this is meant for someone who wants a keyboard that works out of the box, without any need for fiddly self-assembly.īut it’s also a keyboard that carries some of the downsides of expensive custom keyboards. The Mythic Journey sits in kind of a weird place. RGB lighting shines out the sides of the keyboard. It’s a traditional keyboard overall, without the gaskets or customizable knobs that are becoming increasingly common on modern boards. The six-degree angle the case sits at is a little shallow, but I got used to it after a couple of weeks of use. Underneath, you get a pair of metal feet to attach and prop the keyboard up at an angle. It happily charged a phone I plugged in, and when I attached a second keyboard in a fit of madness, I was able to use it to type. You can use either one to connect the keyboard to your PC, leaving the other to act as an extra USB port for your computer. Around the top, you’ll find not one but two USB-C ports.

What your $349 gets you is a tenkeyless keyboard, which means the Mythic Journey omits the numpad for a slightly more compact layout. This is a review of the Mythic Journey, a keyboard that costs $349 as an off-the-shelf product and which therefore carries very different expectations about how functional and usable it should be. Its individual components total $360 when bought separatelyīut this isn’t a review of the Mythic Journey’s components.

Throw in a set of $25 Everglide stabilizers, and you’re looking at a combined cost of around $360 to buy the Mythic Journey’s components individually, and that’s not including the fact that Drop is hand-assembling these keyboards in the USA and sells them with a 3-year warranty. For switches, it’s using Drop’s Holy Pandas ($105 for a pack of 90), and its keycaps are DCP Pegaso ($80).

The Mythic Journey is built around Drop’s CTRL keyboard, which is available as a barebones board for $150.
DROP KEYBOARD MOD
You could buy a keyboard and mod it with these aftermarket parts over time or buy everything upfront in one go. Even by the pricey standards of mechanical keyboards, $349 is a lot, and for many people, it’ll simply be out of their price range.īut the Mythic Journey’s price starts to make sense when you look at its individual components, many of which are available individually from Drop with their own premium price tags. You can’t talk about the Mythic Journey without first addressing the elephant in the room: its price. But I don’t think it’s nice enough to justify its $349 price tag. It’s programmable and comes with nicer switches than the Expression that are also hot-swappable, but it doesn’t have some of the higher-end features of the Paragon. The Mythic Journey keyboard is from the $349 middle tier, the Signature series.
DROP KEYBOARD SERIES
It’s split into three price tiers, which range from the relatively accessible $150 Expression series to the truly wallet-busting $499 Paragon keyboards. The Icon collection is the retailer’s latest pre-built keyboard range. These are made of similar components but come in a fully assembled and more approachable package. Traditionally, it’s focused on individual components like custom keycaps or high-end switches, but in recent years, the retailer, which was formerly known as Massdrop, has begun selling fully assembled keyboards. Drop is a retailer best known for making the often-perplexing world of custom mechanical keyboards approachable to a far wider audience.
