Introduction

July 2021 saw an interest check thread in r/MK, as well as a few other enthusiast keyboard communities that I was not expecting to see. Everyone’s favorite beige and brown cooling brand Noctua was partnering with Drop to bring out a custom keycap set or two. Indeed, custom keycap designer MiTO had a few ideas in mind including the traditional Noctua colors as well as a more subtle Chromax Black colorway and it was no surprise to see enough interest to green light the project. I had also not had any personal experience with the Drop-exclusive MT3 keycap profile at the time and decided to reach out to Noctua about this. It took longer than I’d have wanted to, so much so that I just covered a whole keyboardwith another set of keycaps employing the MT3 profile too, but today we finally take a closer look at the Drop + MiTo MT3 Noctua custom keycap set!

Noctua’s done itsfair share of publicizing the collaboration too, although I dare say this article will still have a lot of people surprised to even know this is a thing. For those who clicked on this only due to the Noctua name, custom keycap sets are a great way of personalizing mechanical keyboards to your aesthetic preferences. I’ve covered multiple such products already including artisan keycaps from Jelly Key as well custom keyboards from Drop, Akko, Varmilo, XVX, and many others. Drop itself was in a dedicated custom keycap set feature article involving the Blue Samurai set, and thanks again to both Drop and Noctua for arranging a sample of this new collaboration for us to examine in more detail!

Packaging

Drop sent over two kits including the primary base kit itself that no doubt most people will be going for. This ships in a two-piece product box using a black inner cardboard box that simply has the Drop branding on it, then comes the outer sleeve that makes the box look like a Noctua product complete with the same brown color most of us are familiar with. The product name and involved parties are identified on the front with a small blurb on the back, along with a sticker confirming the exact product SKU. There are two seals on the sides helping keep the contents inside in place during transit. Open the box to find three plastic clamshell layers each with keycaps, using a thin sheet of bubble wrap over the keycaps for further protection.

The three layers you see here allow for the various keycaps in the base kit to be separated by functionality. The top layer in beige would be the majority of keycaps used in the alphanumeric section on most keyboards and then we find the modifiers as well as other keycaps in brown subsequently. I also liked that the keycaps are arranged not only in order of where they would appear on a keyboard, but also in order of the keycap profile row too. This especially helps with those keycaps that are found multiple times here, be it for different lengths or the specific sculpting employed. Seen above is also the add-on ISO UK keycaps kit because Drop just assumed that I use ISO keyboards based on my UK address and it was too late for my reply to correct them otherwise. It comes with seven keycaps including support for the ISO short shift and ISO big enter keys, as well as legend-correct keys for the ISO UK layout.

Closer Examination

Given that ISO UK kit is mostly useless for me and I only have the base kit here, let’s go through the first-party photos/renders to better understand the various options. As typical with such custom keycap sets, the Drop + Noctua keycaps have a base kit and various add-on kits depending on your specific needs. The base kit features beige alphas and brown modifiers and offers support for 60%, 65%, 75%, TKL, HHKB-style, and Winkeyless layouts. Those having a dedicated number pad will then need to purchase the numpad kit. This is also the case with the ISO UK kit as well as the COLEVRAK—Colemak, Colemak Mod DH, Dvorak, Programmer’s Dvorak, Norman, and Workman keyboard layout support—and the Ortholinear kit for those using the likes of Planck and Preonic style keyboards, possibly a few other ergonomic keyboards too. The spacebar kit is also self-explanatory although these days CORSAIR and Razer have adopted the standard keycap spacing thankfully, and then we have the Hobbyist kit allowing more brown keycaps on the base kit in addition to support for 1800/96% layouts and providing a few novelty keycaps too. Finally, those who are ardent fans of the Noctua brand would find a whole kit dedicated to novelty designs interesting, despite the base kit also sporting these. Note that all these are based off the Noctua beige-and-brown color scheme and the planned Chromax editions haven’t come out yet as of the date of this article.

But wait, there’s more! If the keycaps were not enough, you can also opt to go with a themed coiled/split cable that costs all of $75. The Drop + Noctua coiled aviator cable uses the same two colors with beige cabling and brown connector metal housings. The cable is manufactured by Cablemod using its Modmesh and Modflex sleeving, and uses aviator-style connections in the middle between the coiled and the straight sections. There are two desk pad designs that each run $35 and use a high-density, low-friction mercerized fabric topper paired with an eco-friendly rubber base and stitching on the sides. These definitely don’t cost as much to make based on similar desk pad offerings from others, so I would personally shy away from all these accessories unless you absolutely want to have a Noctua-themed build.

We now get to the keycaps on hand here, and I will point out that the colors are spot on to those Noctua uses! Getting this right is easier said than done when you consider the keycaps are composed of thick ABS plastic (average wall thickness 1.42 mm) and the molds necessary would make or break the product. The use of ABS plastic here over PBT can be divisive, but good quality ABS can come off more premium looking and not faded out. The light glossy finish these will develop over time will also play well with the colorway employed here in my opinion. The legends/designs are double-shot injected for longevity owing to the legends not wearing out anytime soon, albeit still opaque as a deliberate design choice. The mold injection marks are also present on the underside of the keycaps to where these look flawless, with excellent alignment throughout.

To demonstrate how the base kit looks installed on a keyboard, I chose the Drop ALT for two reasons. The first is quite obvious as I wanted to use a first-party product if at all possible. The second reason is that this 65% form-factor keyboard is more demanding than the Drop CTRL, a TKL unit that is the only other Drop keyboard I have here. There is a shorter right Shift on the Drop ALT, which the Drop + MiTo MT3 Noctua base kit handles easily, but then we get to the four keys at the right—Del, Home, Pg Up, and Pg Dn—in row profiles different from the usual. This is where I was glad to see the various offerings sorted by row profile too, making it easy to get the exact versions of these keycaps to be in line with the rest of the keyboard. I also decided to throw in a few novelty keycaps here, although you can certainly shy away from them entirely. The rich colors reminded me of some of the chocolate-themed keycap sets from a couple of years ago, especially against the darker keyboard itself. The Drop ALT, as with the vast majority of keyboards today, uses a north-facing PCB with LED placement. This is a non-issue with the tall MT3 profile used here which is popular for its scooped-out top surface that allows users to rest their fingers easily on the keycaps. It’s a touch too tall for me to daily-drive, in being slightly fatiguing although I really liked touch typing on the Drop ALT with this set. The F and J keycaps also are extra scooped for easier identification rather than going with the usual notch.

Above are two recordings of the different keycaps installed on the same keyboard and switch assembly, namely the Drop ALT with the Halo True switches. The first recording uses these MiTo MT3 Noctua keycaps, and the second recording is with the stock doubleshot PBT keycaps that are slightly thinner at ~1.35 mm wall thickness. As such, all other variables are constant—the only difference is the keycaps. I did the recording on the same day and kept external factors as close to the same as possible. What you ultimately notice is that these keycaps sound slightly less high-pitched compared to the stock keycaps—it’s more obvious in person and also when typing faster—to make for an ultimately more pleasant-sounding keyboard build to my ears. The keycap profile is a factor here also, and I also noticed how the taller profile has a side effect whereby I could only remove two keycaps using a keycap puller before placing them down for another round, as opposed to three with the Cherry/OEM profile keycaps. The overall sound and typing experience will differ with different keyboard compositions and switch choices too, but I can’t practically test every single combination out there.

The Drop + MiTo MT3 Noctua keycap set is now available for purchase from Drop. The base kit tested here costs $130 as of the date of this article with the other kits costing between $15 and $75. You can also complete the collection with the matching cable and desk pad as previously mentioned. It’s not an inexpensive offering and no doubt will be divisive in the colors and designs in the first place. This is a keycap set for Noctua fans, if you’ll pardon the pun, and clearly there is a market for it given the amount sold already. I also appreciate that these kits are available without the usual group-buy waiting periods that can often be measured in years.