Corsair K70 RGB MK.2 Special Edition Mechanical Gaming
Corsair K70 RGB MK.2 Special Edition Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (Cherry MX Speed Switches: Linear and Rapid, Per Key Multicolour RGB Backlighting, PBT Double-Shot Keycaps) QWERTY, White
| Weight: | 1.25 kg |
| Dimensions: | 43.8 x 16.6 x 3.9 cm; 1.25 Kilograms |
| Brand: | Corsair |
| Model: | CH-9109114-UK |
| Colour: | White |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | Corsair |
| Dimensions: | 43.8 x 16.6 x 3.9 cm; 1.25 Kilograms |
Used mainly for gaming and general usage, and it is really nice so far. I don’t have a bad word to say about it and it is worth the rather high price.
It’s a corsair what els do I need to say
It’s exactly what I needed for my set up. Easy to use and set up. Cable is a but chunky though
I swapped a Ducky keyboard for the K70 Pro and am enjoying the size difference. The Cherry Red MX switches are fast and responsive. Great overall build quality. At first I noticed a ping sound within the aluminium chassis but now I don’t hear it. Excellent keyboard and very happy.
Was looking for a keyboard replacement, as my old cherry mx blue board had started double pressing some keys after many years of hard service. I wanted a full size replacement without macro keys and cherry mx blue switches. This fits the bill perfectly, and I got a good deal on an open box item via Amazon warehouse.
My only minor complaint is that because of the metal
backplate the keys make a metallic noise when bottomed out, it’s not too intrusive and you soon get used to it though. I’m sure you could dampen the noise with some light modification if it really bothered you.
Typing is absolutely fine. I use this with CherryMX Reds and another Corsair keyboad for work with Browns. If you’ve no idea what key caps you want, start with Reds. (the main difference is how hard you have to hit the keys. Reds are easy, the rest are harder) Daily driving both reds and browns for years now, I’ve found I prefer Reds due to how little force they take by comparison.
This does have the same issues as a K95 though. The iCue software still only ever works when it feels like it. This is a problem across all Corsair RGB stuff (Particually Ram weirdly, but its all kind of dodgy.) You will eventually get bored of faffing / reinstalling it and just forget it had RGB all together. If you’ve got an 8 year old you may want to shop around for a different RGB system that ‘works’ (spoiler they’re all pretty bad)
It also has a palm rest that while I find it essential… Its basically held on with wishful thinking rather than a carefully designed robust latching mechanism. The rubber its made from also blemishes almost instantly. Literally in the time its taken to write this review you can see where my sweaty gamer palms have been on the rest from it being brand new out of the box.
Be careful lifting the keyboard to clean it, if anything will break the paper towel strength clutch it uses to hold the palm rest. Lifting it up will.
Other than that it’s a fantastic keyboard, identical to the K95 I’ve daily driven for many years. Just a shame they’re not waterproof >.<
This keyboard is good but not without some really annoying faults and issues.
The issues you may not mind but i do.
THE BAD THINGS:
You should expect doubleshot ABS keycaps atleast on a 150 keyboard but NO,
The keycaps are NOT double shot but instead are cheaply painted which i have noticed have started to scratch off with use.
Once scratched, you cannot but and more premium keycaps because the stabilizers are in different places and are not in the usual place. They are slightly off center so you cant put any other keycaps.
The switches (MX Speeds) are great but are prone to fail. My W key has a click when i press it but it isnt too noticable to hear or feel but can get annoying as you pay for linear switches.
The wrist rest is NOT rubberised/soft touch as advertised but is instead cheap, scratchy, brittle plastic.
THE GOOD THINGS:
The aluminium backplate is really premium feeling.
The USB Passthrough is usefull if you need to plug something in quickly.
It feels nice to type on and is quite comfortable as it is ergonomicaly designed.
ICUE is really good software and easy to use.
Easy setup
Media keys are in a great place.
Nice looking keyboard
If you need a corsair keyboard, I would recommend just getting the standard K70 MK2 or even the K70 MK2 TKL with MX speeds. Those have a lot less problems. I wish i knew about these problems before i payed 150 for this keyboard.
So first of all I have upgraded from a 20 AJAZZ keyboard (which was still in good shape even after 3 years of use), so for me I can really tell the difference in quality, someone that’s switching out a equally priced keyboard may have different opinions. First impressions out of the box were very good, all caps were still on the keyboard and pressing down on the cherry mx red switches felt really good. I should of probably purchased the cherry MX box to test all the varieties of switch you can buy but these suit me just fine. Tested it out on Apex Legends and it felt really good, reviewers have complained that the keys are a bit spaced out for them but I didn’t find this at all and I don’t have hands like shovels, I could still hit the CRTL for slides without issue. The K70mk2 ships with some grey tactile keys for gaming (WASD etc) , which I will put in when I get a mo. you also get a wrist rest which seems o.k. but probably best suited for marathon productivity tasks than gaming. The aluminum brushed metal looks excellent and matches the creative Katna soundbar which has the same style metal
The RGB is more than impressive and customization is as big as your imagination is. Personally I had I-Cue already installed for my RAM, mouse and mobo, so it was a pleasant surprise when out of the box it loaded my 3rd party matrix profile from wallpaper engine. Now I really want to get some quality Corsair fans so I can sync everything through I-Cue, as ASUS Armory crate is hot garbage, they recently did a major update which made things worse. The colours it produces are vibrant and in the dark, look amazing
Another cool feature is the scrolling sound wheel, I can now adjust the sound on my creative katana without having to reach forward and operate the switches another time saver is the mute button which is right next to the volume scroller.
I do have a couple of cons with this keyboard but nowhere near enough not to recommend it. Firstly if the power switch is on, on my PC, then the keyboards RGB doesn’t shutdown. My PC is shutdown but I use it to charge LION 18650 batteries when I’m working, so that is a bit annoying and didn’t happen on my cheap AJAZZ. Secondly it doesn’t have any dedicated macro keys but I knew this when I brought it and I can always program some alternative keys if I want to play some MORPG’s. In summary I recommend this keyboard, it feels like a huge upgrade.
Firstly, I initially ordered this from Amazon Warehouse “like new”, but the keyboard I received was faulty. It was like someone was pressing every key on the keyboard simultaneously and my PC was going crazy as a result. So I ordered a new one which worked fine. Just a heads up on buying returned electronics. They don’t seem to be tested beforehand. To be fair though, Amazon customer service is great when this kind of thing happens and if you’re lucky you could end up getting a great deal.
As for the product itself, this is my first mechanical keyboard. I came from a Microsoft Sidewinder X4 keyboard which I’ve had for many years. It took me a few days to get used to this new one as the keys are so sensitive. This is understandable considering these are speed switches, but after that initial break in period I’m now typing faster than I was before. Some other reviews mention that they make lots of typos and this will probably happen if you are someone that rests your fingers on the keys with any kind of force at all. I have to emphasise how little the keys need to be pressed to activate them. So keep that in mind. For me it’s great.
I also like the low profile aspect of this. I was fortunate to be able to try the full sized version of the K70 as my dad has one, and I wasn’t a fan of how tall the keys are. The low profile keys allow my wrists to stay a bit more neutral which is more comfortable for me. The wrist rest is plastic but has a nice slightly rubberised texture on it.
For gaming, it’s great as well. With the keys actuating so easily it’s not tiring on my fingers at all. Another improvement over my old keyboard.
I find the software perfectly fine as well. It lets you customise the colour of every key, and to save 6 profiles. That’s 3 software profiles (which can be used only when Corsair’s iCue software is running) and 3 hardware profiles which are saved to the onboard memory of the keyboard. That’s nice for people don’t like having additional software running in the background all the time.
But before you tell me “you don’t know what you are talking about, razer it’s better, bla bla bla”, let me tell you all the keyboards that I have owned.
For starters, I own currently K70 LUX with MX Speeds and STRAFE RGB with MX Silents. In addition to that, I recently was in the look for other keyboards and purchased/tested the Razer Huntsman Elite and the Roccat Vulcan 120 AIMO, but unfortunately both of them didn’t meet my expectation so I returned them. Furthermore, at one point I owned a STRAFE with MX Reds and a Razer Ornata Chroma “Mecha-Membrane” Keyboard.
Now, don’t get me wrong. All keyboards are nice and have their own good things. However, I will focus specifically on the “bad” things compared to this keyboard which make aaaaall the difference, and that is: rattling or wobbling of the keys, the height of keyboard in general and height of the key.
The huntsman elite is an absolute joke when it comes to rattling and key height. I also found it tremendously slow to spam for games fast paced games for example, perhaps because of that little tactile clicky bump (similar to blue switches) it has and this made me realize that I much prefer a linear performance on a switch indeed. It has nice colours and a very confortable wrist rest if you buy elite version but other than that, it was just a no go. The K70 MX Speed is just too sensitive in my opinion for some reason, possibly the fact that your hand must be really “curved” when typing on those super high keys. MX Reds and Silent are “meh” in my opinion. They just have nothing in special. The only possible keyboard I would say is a competitor of this one is the Roccat which also has a low profile. However, that keyboard is odd looking, it also has that little bump (in this case not clicky so similar to Cherry MX brown swithces) which again slows me down, and the wobbling of the keys is indeed much greater than the one I found in this one which is virtually ZERO.
Regarding this keyboard, I think it has THE absolute best feeling to type or game (for me) when compared to all of the others. And it is true what some people say that original MX Speeds where quite “sensitive” and you were prawn to making mistakes quite easily, but this is not the case with the low profile MX Speeds. They are AN ABSOLUTE DELIGHT TO TYPE ON!!! Trust me…
Now, that’s not to say that in addition to that, they do have lower travel distances which mean they are even faster both to actuate (1mm), and to bottom out (3.2mm), in case you are the kind of person that usually bottoms out the key when gaming or typing. This immediately gives you faster typing/gaming, and at the same time, it also gives you a better feeling because of the low profile, which is almost like typing in a laptop, but with a very premium feel to it. Moreover, this keyboard produces a more pleasant and quieter sound to the touch which I also think is an improvement since I want to be able to use this keyboard in my office. Finally, I think that the RGBs on this keyboard stand out more beautifully than any of the other keyboards, particularly Razer ones which I think are quite weak, and the only possible competitor again being the Roccat Vulcan 120 because of its fully exposed keycap. The Corsair logo lighting is just perfect, media keys and other extra buttons are delicious, and although I haven’t actually programmed any profile, I can imagine the 8M for onboard profile storage coming handy sometime soon.
Overall this keyboard is a must try! You won’t regret it. Even if this keyboard were to “fail” me somehow, I would return it and buy it again over and over until I get a good unit. And if for some reason it failed me and had to claim Warranty, I would still give it 4 stars at the very least. I understand that QC issues can happen, but when it comes to rating to overall product that Corsair development team envisioned, I give 10 out of 5 stars, really. Just perfect.
I hope this is helpful for you and wish you luck with your decision.