Corsair Gaming K70 RAPIDFIRE Mechanical Keyboard, Backlit Red LED, Cherry MX Speed

Pros: It appears the K70 LUX is an updated version of the K70 keyboard. The "lux" at first made me think it was a premium version, but that's a red herring. The list price of the Lux is ten dollars less than the original k70...

The best I can tell, the lux has the newer key cap font -- bolder more modern, similar to the strafe -- and an updated logo at the top of the keyboard.

This keyboard rocks. The cherry red keys work flawlessly, and the aluminum top plate and braided usb connector cable gives a feeling and look of quality.

At first, i didn't think i would like the wrist rest, but after using it a bit, I think its great, so it will stay installed. Note, the connection to the keyboard is flimsy and not well engineered. Mine actually broke right off the bat. Luckily, a piece of duct tape is a quick fix and will probably last the life of the keyboard.

There are media keys above the number pad, and a very nice volume scroller. The num,cap,screen lock lights are small white LED's, and there is a windows key lock (which can be programmed to lock other things as well).

This is a modern, well-built mechanical keyboard that looks great and could easily be used in a corporate environment (if not for the characteristic sound of the cherry red keys).

Other pros include adjustable polling rate (1, 2, 4, 8 ms) and a BIOS compatibilty setting. If you're not gaming, slowing the polling rate seems to improve the accuracy of my typing. The BIOS compatibilty setting is needed when booting your computer into BIOS, since the keyboard may not be recognized otherwise. The scroll lock light flashes to remind you that you have engaged the BIOS switch, so you remember to reset it. The gamer features (key rollover, etc.) are also helpful for the touch typist. Be warned, if you are used to typing on a cheap laptop keyboard, it may take some time to acclimate to this. It just takes a little time and practice.

Cons: The cherry red keys have no tactile feedback - just a very smooth stroke until the key bottoms out. This is the most popular key for gamers due to the quick action. The light action has made my initial typing attempts a bit rough, lots of misspellings. After a few days, I'm getting used to it, and am comfortable that it will be just fine.

The CUE software continues to be un-intuitive but incredibly powerful. You can tweak the keyboard lots of ways, but you'll have to invest in learning how to use the software - macro options are pretty impressive, but i spend several hours tweaking and refining them as I began to understand how to use the software better.

The version I chose has red led's only, but are individually controllable for a number of built in effects. Once over the initial cool factor, i settled on just a uniform back-light - about 30% for all keys. Once saved to the keyboard, the hardware lighting button cycles the intensity 0-10-20-30% That gives a nice subtle backlight allowing the keys to be read in a darkened room.

Because of the placement of the under-key lighting, keys with multiple markings (like the 1! key or 2@) are "flipped" see the picture above. This means, for example the 1 is above the !, which is flipped from a standard keyboard. However, the ! is still the shift character, so if you, like me, occasionally look at the keyboard to find special characters, you might have a touch of confusion.

So why do they flip them? Because they wanted the lit portion of the key to be the normal character, and the LED's are towards the north of each key. I'm probably not explaining it well, so look closely at the picture and you'll get the idea.

Overall Review: OK, this is odd. Not only does the keyboard have the typical flip out feet to angle up the keyboard by lifting the top, it has feet at the bottom part of the keyboard to raise up that, too. Don't know what that's for. Maybe you do.

A good mechanical keyboard is a fun to use. Somewhere between the heyday of teletypes and iPhones, a bunch of great keyboards were made, its nice to see a re-emergence, even if driven by gamers. This isn't the only kind of great keyboard out there -- some of the early think pads had the best notebook keyboards I've ever used, so for sure there are other approaches. This keyboard may just last through multiple desktop upgrades. Who knows, it 10 years, you might be able to get more than you paid for it by selling on online.

Red vs RGB. I prefer the single color LED for a couple reasons. For one, the key switches themselves are black (rather than clear) which looks better when you see the keyboard from the side. Second, all I really want the lighting for is to be able to see the keys in a darkened room. If you're like me, RGB and animation is fun for 10 minutes and then I loose interest. YMMV.

Pros: >Actuating the keys takes very little force
>Comfortable to type on
>Comfortable to game on
>The 'disable windows key' key is an actual button, instead of the too common (cheap) switch
>Media controls have a satisfying feel, despite being rubber domes

Cons: |U P D A T E|
>4 months in, and its dying; random characters with unpredictable keystrokes

|O R I G I N A L|
>Corsair loves to fragment their software; LINK for their AIOs, CUE for they keyboards and mice
>LEDS are 'top-mounted', so you can't really see the shift-alt-functions of the keys that have them (number line, brackets, ect)
>No real community profiles exist for the non-RGB keyboards (not really a con, just be aware of this)
>The alt-functions of the keys are listed below the main function. So "=" is above "+", "/" is above "?", etc. All backwards from most layouts.

Overall Review: |U P D A T E D R E V I E W - MAR.9, 2017|
Less than 4 months of use, and the keyboard is effectively dead. I started noticing issues a few weeks ago, but at the time I attributed it to nVidia's buggy software. All that would happen is I would be typing and their GeForce Experience settings overlay would randomly come up, the one for when you want to start and stop recording/streaming. But then I noticed it when I was typing. I would hit "0", or ",", or some other key, and I would get a long string of characters instead. Sometimes the strings were consistent, sometimes they seemed random, but that didn't change the fact that those strings weren't what I typed. Strangely, it seems to affect keys on the right side of the keyboard more often, but this isn't constant either. Interesting observation: A key on the number pad will *usually* give the same string as the same key on the number line - not always, but if number pad key is acting up, then the same key on the number line is also acting up. This leads me to suspect that it is an issue with keystrokes being encoded by the microprocessor on the board or even the key matrix itself.

After googling around a bit, I discover this isn't unheard of with this particular model of keyboard. Uninstalling CUE doesn't fix it. Playing with the polling/BIOS switch doesn't fix it (even temporarily). Unpluggin/plugging it in doesn't fix it. Restarting the computer fixes it temporarily. Sometimes it goes away on its own, only to start happening again later. I'll be contacting Corsair for an RMA, but at this price point this kind of hardware/software behavior is unacceptable. I expect more, especially since I have older, more abused gaming keyboards that costed me less and are still working. This is why I have reduced my review from 5 eggs to just 1.

|O R I G I N A L R E V I E W - NOV.17, 2016|
So once you've gotten used to it, you can just 'flow' on top of the keys and trigger them without so much as a click, and without really being any slower. You do need to get used to this however. This makes is super comfy to type on for long periods, as it takes so little effort to actually use. But know that the lighting is kind of annoying. When every key is lit, it is almost uncomfortable to look at. If you turn it down, you can barely read it. I found a good balance with one of the ripple effects. When I am typing on it, the keys are lit, when I am not typing, they are off. I could probably go in and make a profile that lights up the keys when I type, and fades them out after so long of not typing. But I haven't. I've been lazy.

On the topic of profiles, don't hold your breath for one that will work with this particular keyboard. Nearly ever profile I found required RGB backlighting. Again, not a con - just be aware of this. While I'm on the topic of profiles, lets talk about the software - and Corsair stubborn refusal to merge softwares. I have an H80+ in my system, so I'm using Link to control that. Silly me, I thought Link would be used to control their keyboards (and mice) too. Nope, Cue. So you'll need two separate pieces of software running at startup for devices from the same OEM. Kind of an oversight. I honestly can't think of a technical reason as to why they can't merge the two, it is probably just a bureaucratic one. But, being frank here, both Cue and Link are pretty terrible. Sticking to Cue - the software for Corsair keyboards and mice - it is very confusing to create custom anything. There are completely separate workspaces for working on a profile or macro, and actually enabling. Both workspaces have steep learning curves (for peripheral software), and a change in one won't necessarily be reflected in the other unless you takes steps to make sure it is. I've used CAD software that had more streamlined workflows.... there is a sentence I never thought I would write.

Overall, a very nice keyboard. I love the MX Browns, more than Blues or Reds, and far more than I thought I was going to. But I wish it was RGB. I can't decide if the set of function keys that are on the K90 are worth the upcharge, especially since you can macro to pretty much any key. I don't think I am really going to knock any eggs off for the software, since the k70 works perfectly without it and it could potentially be updated in the future to make it more user-friendly. Don't expect to really enjoy the unless you are downloading user profiles - which you won't be, since they are rare for Corsair's non-RGB boards.

So 5 eggs, but only because the hardware is really nice and you can completely ignore the software that doesn't really add anything and only detracts from the experience.