For so many years I wondered what all the fuss was about with mechanical keyboards. It’s difficult to see their merits especially considering the cost. But after joining the ranks of mechanical keyboard users you never look back. Given the choice I would never use a ‘normal’ keyboard again. I recently got my hands on the new Corsair K70RGB mechanical keyboard.
It’s the usual affair for a keyboard at this price mark, cherry MX red switches (although there is a choice of brown and blue switches too) and full key rollover. Were the K70RGB stands apart from the crowd is with the design of its chassis. The brushed aluminium looks stylish and goes a fair way to keeping the K70RGB reasonably light too, although this being a mechanical it’s still pretty heavy. But there is no bezel built up as a ‘wall’ around the keys making sure travel distance is the absolute minimum but also making the whole thing look slick.
The LED backlights are nice too and WASD, the cursors and number ‘7’ are white by default on my keyboard for gaming. But there are more than enough options to customize your board including the ability to change the colour of each key individually. There are also optional textured keys for WASD to help you get your fingers back into position without looking down at your keys and taking your eyes of the action.
The K70RGB also comes with a button to lock the windows key so you can’t knock it during a game and minimize everything as you scream uncontrollable at windows loading the inevitable error. There’s also media control buttons, mute and a very cool volume roller which has a nice metal feel.
I did have to wonder though why it is the K70RGB has a double USB port when my other mechanical (Qpad MK-85) has only one and has two rather useful USB sockets on the back for flash drives or whatever. It also has microphone and speaker input which is nothing vital but they’re nice to have. For those with few USB ports to spare taking up two for a keyboard could be a pain. Having said that you only need one USB 3.0 port but it might be a consideration for some users.
Another problem I had was hitting the F12 key occasionally when aiming for the backspace key. There is basically no extra space between the numerical keys and the F keys than any other key on the board. Instead this space is reserved for a nice big Corsair Gaming logo and the volume roller to the right. This might be useful for some games but when typing I got a little sick of seeing the ‘Save As’ screen pop up. The numpad and other buttons are well spaced but no more than necessary so everything you need is to hand.
The K70RGB is a great keyboard for gaming or typing. The backlights are great, the textured keys are great for gaming and it’s something that won’t look out of place next to that rig of yours. Corsair are currently asking £139.99 on their website. UPDATE: Don’t make the mistake I did. The K70RGB is different to the K70. Even searching for K70RGB will likely bring up the K70 so watch out. This might be common knowledge but it’s a mistake I made and the pricing of the two is quite different.
The price is a little high not because the K70RGB is bad in any way but just because £139.99 can get you a lot of keyboard and I feel there are others out there that perform as well for less. But the K70RGB certainly has a lot of style especially for something as mundane as a keyboard. I have to wonder how much of the price is down to good looks and the Corsair logo sitting at the top. But overall a great entry and a good board that hasn’t let me down.
