Corsair Gaming K70 RGB Mechanical Keyboard Review
by E. Fylladitakis on September 22, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Keyboard
- Peripherals
- Corsair
- mechanical
- RGB Backlighting
Introduction
It has been twenty years since Corsair's first retail products hit the shelves and the company has undoubtedly come a very long way since then. What started as a small memory manufacturer is now a major global supplier of advanced computer components and peripherals. Today is the dawn of a new era for Corsair, as the company announced the establishment of their own gaming brand. The new division has been christened "Corsair Gaming", and with the name comes a new department and logo. The focus will be on the development of high performance gaming peripherals.
Alongside the announcement of their new department, Corsair is also releasing several new products, with the much-anticipated RGB keyboards being among them. The company dropped the "Vengeance" series name and the new keyboards are just called by the brand name and model. That means we're now looking at the Corsair Gaming K70 RGB (and not the keyboard formerly known as Vengeance K70 RGB or some variation on that theme).
This keyboard has probably had more hype between its announcement and release date than any other keyboard in the history of humankind. Ever since the first demos of the keyboard found their way into pictures and videos back in January, there have been myriad rumors about the capabilities of the keyboard and the new Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) software. Some people even suggested that this is "just a Vengeance K70 with RGB LEDs", which could not be further from the truth. The truth is that the new Corsair Gaming K70 RGB introduces many new functions and far greater customizability than any previous Corsair mechanical keyboard.
Today we finally have a chance to go hands-on with the shipping hardware. Join us as we examine the keyboard, its capabilities, and the new CUE software.
Packaging & Bundle
We received the Corsair Gaming K70 RGB in a well-designed, attractive cardboard box, capable of providing more than enough protection during shipping. Inside the box is a minimalist bundle of just a few leaflets and a full size wrist rest. The wrist rest has a corona-treated surface that gives it a soft, comfortable rubber-like feeling. Corsair apparently ditched the extra set of contoured, textured "gaming" keycaps that we saw supplied with the Vengeance K70 and the Vengeance K60. As we mentioned in several previous articles, very few (if any) gamers would actually swap keycaps before gaming so Corsair understandably realized that this was little more than an unnecessary extra cost.
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DanNeely - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
"From a purely practical point of view, the Corsair Gaming K70 RGB is extremely easy to clean, as a simple blow can remove all debris from the aluminum surface of the keyboard."I can't say that flipping and blowing has ever failed to clean the crud out from under standard keyboard for me. Likewise, wiping the tops of the keycaps clean has been easy on every keyboard I've owned. However, I've never seen one that made it easy to clean the sides of the keycaps once they accumulate a layer of grime (presumably traces of skin oil gluing down dust). That's nearly impossible to get at effectively without dismantling the keyboard; and popping keycaps off is always a pain.
Calin - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
I had a cleaning kit with a specially shaped sponge (flat but with ridges spaced apart at keys height: ____/\______/\______/\__ ). It worked perfectly on cleaning the lower (user facing) sides of the keys, and worked ok for the display facing sides, when moving it from left to right with the ridges between rows of keys. It didn't work very well for the left and right sides though, as it didn't fit well in the spaces between columns of keys though.Wixman666 - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
Old toothbrush and some Windex works awesome for that.Ilias78 - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Please bring back Dustin Sklavos and his reviews. Sorry E. Fylladitakis, but your writing simply isnt good. I have read pretty much all of your work so far and you simply havent improved in this past year that you have been writing here. I dont think that you are suited for the job. Sorry, but thats the impression that you give me every time i read your reviews.Essence_of_War - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Dustin works for Corsair now...Impulses - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Jeez, tech companies need to stop using Anandtech writers as a talent farm... :pKaboose - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
Agreed."the Corsair Gaming K70 RGB leaves us no room for complains"
Just poor writing.
Essence_of_War - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
I will grant that "complains" vs. "complaints" is a copy-edit miss, but that is hardly "poor writing".Tetracycloide - Saturday, September 27, 2014 - link
"Great writers are easy to spot because their spelling and grammar are perfect."-Some idiot on the internet once.
Sabresiberian - Monday, September 22, 2014 - link
There is this thing. Ir's called a "typo". It means a word was unintentionally misspelled.Which is hardly poor writing. One might question the editing/review process, but that has nothing to do with the overall quality of the writing.