Corsair Gaming K70 LUX RGB Mechanical Keyboard, Backlit RGB LED, Cherry MX RGB Blue

This keyboard is predominantly a gamer's keyboard, but, given that it is offered with MX BLUE switches, I think it's fair and perhaps useful to present a semi-pro typists viewpoint.FEELI've had mechanical keyboards since the 80s and I've always enjoyed the feel of a clicky mechanical keyboard. This keyboard does not disappoint. I can hear the clicks nicely. Yes, they are loud but not overly so. Yes, you can hear the bottoming out of the keys if you're a hard typist. Overall, the sound and feel is fantastic.In addition to the audible click, I get a very nice tactile key. If you don't know how these switches work, it's worth a search through the internet for Cherry MX Blue switches. You'll get a video. Basically here are the major differences.MECHANICAL VS MEMBRANEMost keyboards sold today are membrane keyboards. Basically, that's just a sheet of plastic with plastic dimples. They then put keys on top of them (sometimes with little scissor little devices to give you more of a feel). Membrane keyboards are everywhere. They are cheap. They are reliable. They are good. I will likely be berated for saying this but they're OK to me, but they have some clear disadvantages for gamers and for tactile typists -- basically you don't get as fast of a response from them and you don't have as much give on them when you type so there's a loyal following of mechanical keyboard people like me out there. If you're a millennial and grew up with membrane switches, you might try mechanicals and ask what all the rage is. On the other hand, you might try them and fall in love with them. If you're a gamer, you will quickly grow to appreciate the advantage of mechanicals - regardless of what century you were born. I you're a typist, it might not be as bit of a difference but I do love mechanical keyboards to type on. Mechanical keyboards feel better to me personally - I've written one 120,000 novel, 100,000 nonfiction book, have about 100,000 words with short stories, and another novel in the 100,000 range. I also write a lot of reviews and I write professional documents so I do wind up typing quite a bit. I'm not a great writer but I've typed a million words in books, novels, and documents so I know what I'm talking about but I'm not a pro by a long shot.I will say that ALL mechanical keyboards are louder than membrane keyboards. That's going to have to be a given. Even if they don't have a "click" designed into them, the mechanical switches will make more noise as they wiggle or as they bottom out. Expect any mechanical keyboard to be "noisier" than a membrane keyboard. With that caveat, here we go on switch types:CHERRY MX RED (LINEAR) - No sound, no tactile response. Straight up and down. The switch activates around the midpoint of you pressing it. It's not fair to say that these are silent. They are not silent, particularly if you are bottoming them out when you're playing a game. You'll get plenty of feedback. They make a Cherry MX Black and a MX Dark Grey Gray that are the same as RED switches but they are just stiffer. Gamers usually use RED switches because they can work those switches very fast.CHERRY MX BROWN (Tactile) - These provide a tactile bump so you know that you've actuated the switch. Brown switches are preferred by typists because of the feedback but not a click. Now, if you bottom them out, they are still noisy when you type on them. MX Clear and MX Light Grey switches are similar to browns but require more energy to actuate with the Light Greys being the stiffest.CHERRY MX BLUES (Tactile + Click) - The way the MX Blue switch is engineered means that you're going to get a great tactile bump and a resounding click when you type on them. To a typist, these are quite literally Heaven. Membrane keyboards can be ok for typing but once you type with Blues, you won't come back. Typists do vary and some like Browns so go to a store or order a sample to find out what you'll like best. MX Greens are stiffer versions of the Blues. Usually they uses Greens for space bars on keyboards that use Blue switches. THere is also an MX White which is a softer click version but it takes a lot of energy to actuate those - they are stiffer than Greens so be forewarned.BUILDThis keyboard features an aluminum chassis. Now this is where this keyboard is nice. The keys are not sunken into the aluminum. That means that crumbs and other debris can't get caught up under the keys as easily. A few blasts of compressed air and this keyboard is squeaky clean.The German switches are rated to 50million strikes each so you're buying a quality product. This keyboard is going to be around 20 years from now, even with the abuse I give it - and I am going to abuse it.LIGHTINGMine came with the red lights turned on. I downloaded the software and I customized my light settings to how I like it. Gamers sometimes like lighting to know where certain buttons are. Typists are the same way, except that the buttons that we want to highlight are different. I color coded my INSERT, DELETE, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, WINDOWS, ESCAPE, ARROW KEYS, MEDIA CONTROLS. That's what I like to have highlighted. The nice thing about this keyboard is that it's entirely up to you to set up your lighting scheme. Heck you can set it up so that each key lights up when you hit it or you can set up a rainbow kindof setup. Whatever you want to knowCAVEAT ON COLORSWhen I first got this keyboard, I couldn't get it to display blue keys, which is what I wanted. I selected BLUE and I got PURPLE. What I learned quickly from some forums is that sometimes the colors are additive. On the original profile, ALL the colors were selected as RED. RED + BLUE = PURPLE. Once I figured out how to create a profile, I was able to do what I needed, but, if you're not mechanically inclined, you could become frustrated -- be forewarned. I have mine set up exactly how I want it now. Since I do a lot of typing at night. It's nice to have backlighting. The lighting has 3 brightness levels. Another caveat, you are a bit limited in customizing the toggle buttons for brightness and lock. Also the LEDs for the NUMBER LOCK and SCROLL LOCK are just little white LEDs. Overall, the sky is the limit on customizing the colors and you can load the color scheme to the keyboard itself so you can take your settings with you.MACROSI'm going to disappoint you here. I have not done that. My understanding is that you can assign any key to a macro. I can see in the software where you can do that. I guess I can see myself setting some shortcuts like "comma, space, open quotes" for dialog but quite frankly after a million words of dialog, that stuff comes pretty naturally now, so I'll likely keep my keyboard stock. If you're a gamer and are technically inclined, you can customize to your heart's content.EXTRAS- This comes with some tire track extra caps for WASD and for QWERF along with a puller.- They keyboard comes with 2 USB plugs (look like 2.0). One is for the keyboard I think and the other for a passthrough USB on the keyboard. The cord for the keyboard is tough braided cord- It comes with a soft plastic armrest (well, firm but not metal)ONLINE PICTURESIf you're buying this from Amazon, make sure that you buy from Corsair or Amazon directly to get exactly what is in the pictures. Some of the older models sold by third party sellers might differ just slightly and if you buy a used keyboard there is no telling how it was customized before you got it. Tons of great sellers on Amazon. I'm not disparaging any of them. I'm making it clear that you could get a slightly different product than what you're looking for if you're not super careful in looking at the seller and the exact product you're buying. Mine is exactly like the image. I purchased from Amazon directly.All the best everyone!

As with most regular PC users, I've gone through my share of keyboards. For years, I used ergonomic-style units, but was always disappointed at the lack of mechanical units available in the form.Until I purchased this keyboard, I had used a number of offerings from Das Keyboard, incuding the  Das Keyboard 4 Ultimate Soft Tactile MX Brown Mechanical Keyboard (DASK4ULTMBRN)  and the  Das Keyboard Model S Professional Clicky MX Blue Mechanical Keyboard (DASK3MKPROCLI) . While working on the Das Keyboard Ultimate devices (those with blank keys) was cool, I have come to greatly enjoy the backlighting provided by this Corsair unit.The keys on this device have excellent feel, and the overall build quality of the unit appears to be exceptionally high. At this price point, I think that should be a given anyhow. Further, unlike the Das Keyboard units, the keys on this device are raised above the mounting plate so that cleaning underneath them (especially with forced air) is much easier. Because the keys don't sit in a depression, there is far less trapping of dirt and whatever dirt winds up there is really easy to remove.The wrist rest could be improved (i.e., be thicker and/or softer), but I don't keep my palms down that much so that's not a major issue for me.The worst part of the unit is the somewhat crash-prone software. The many key lighting options are excellent; however, the software crashes occasionally and must be restarted for the lighting effects to resume. It's a fairly infrequent (though consistent) occurrence. Still, I recommend this device without hesitation.

It's cool and all, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly for me. It would probably be nice for a kid or a professional gamer, but the colors weren't useful in any way. Also, some of the keys quit working for me after a little less than a month, so I had to return it.

I have tried out several keyboards to try and meet both my business (heavy typing) and gaming (FPS and simulators) needs... I am happy to say that after trying the Ducky, Cougar, Logitech (with proprietary switches), Das Keyboard, and the Corsair Strafe this Corsair K70 LUX is the absolute best keyboard that I have ever used! First, in my opinion, the Blue Switch is the best for those that do typing and gaming (Gamers typically prefer Red and Brown from what I can tell from reviews). While Red and Brown are great, if you want that old school "posi-click" feel, dedicated media controls, full RGB colors, with high grade materials (Aircraft-grade anodized brushed aluminum frame) and replacement keys for gaming (W, A, S, D) all with the ability to program lighting effects for each key, make this unit the full package. After using so many different keyboards and switches, I am more than pleased with the Corsair K70 LUX. I would highly recommend this Keyboard to Typist (heavy and casual users) and Gamers alike.Buy with confidence and enjoy!

As the title says, my ideal keyboard was finally released. Initially there was a very small launch of the K70 RBG with Cherry MX Blues, but it suffered the "bad color" problem with the early K70s. As such, it's been incredibly expensive to find on the used market.When I found out they were bringing back the Blues with the Strafe, I was a bit disappointed as I like the build quality of the K70s better along with having dedicated Volume controls.And to my delight, Corsair decided to release the K70 Lux with my Cherry Blues. I immediately purchased, once it arrived, I was ecstatic. This is my favorite keyboard and I won't need another one for quite sometime hopefully. I've tried a G910, G710, Strafe RGB w/Silents and Browns, and a Razer Blackwidow Chroma. This is by far my favorite.

If you are looking at getting this keyboard there are a few things that you should know about it first. One of the big things is that it is loud, and yes the Cherry MX Blue switches are designed to have audible feedback, but this is different. The sound profile on this keyboard is about 30% from the switches and the rest of that sound is going to come from the lack of a trough that the keys sit in. This results in the sound of the keycaps hitting the aluminum base of the keyboard and sounding out at full volume without a barrier that is going to stop that sound. If this is going to bother you, or when you do your typing you are not wearing headphones than this may not be the switch for you. Having tried many other switches as well as different keyboards, my opinion is that this was a bit over the top loud. If you know that the sound is going to bother you, you may want to consider a keyboard either with a trough for the keys to sit in such as the Das Keyboard 4 line of boards, or the Razer Black-widow keyboard line. As for the build quality the board is built really well, and by really well, I mean it is about as solid as a slab of reinforced concrete! The aluminum backplate makes it so that it is a solid and heafty keyboard to type on which is always nice, there is not unwanted feedback from the board such as bowing or other things that may slow down your typing or fatigue your hands. The typing experience on all of the K70 boards is great, the angle of the board without the feet extended is really good, especially if you are a person that rests their wrists on the desk when you type. The wrist rest is extremely nice to rest your palms on as well, it is the perfect texture for prolonged use. As for gaming, this is not the switch for it. That is a pretty bold statement, but when you think about it, when you are gaming you don't want your pinky finger to get tired from holding down the shift key to sprint all game long, I would recommend that you go with this board for gaming though, but not with this switch. If you want to game then I would recommend that you look into the Corsair K70 Rapidfire, those switches are a pleasure to game on due to how light they are and the low travel distance, but if you are a student and you are looking at doing both a lot of typing as well as some gaming, even up to 60/40 gaming/typing you should look at the Cherry MX Brown switches for this board. My first K70 board that I got had the Cherry MX Brown switches and that was an amazing board for gaming, but still didn't live up to the typing experience that this board is capable of. The lighting effects on this board are awesome as well. They are bright, except the red only, if you are planning on getting a board that is for red and red only look for one of the non-rgb versions of this board that have the red lighting as they are much brighter but I digress. The amount of built in lighting effects that come with the corsair utility engine are lackluster at best, the wave was nice, the ripple was nice, but nothing like what this board is capable of with downloads from the corsair forum. There are many more different lighting effects that you are able to import from the forum to your board, through the corsair utility engine though, that will really make people look and go WOW! The cable is thick to say the least, it is a bit obnoxious so I would consider getting a hole saw for a drill and drilling a hole in your desk as well as grabbing one of the hole covers from Amazon so that you can route the cable from the board through and underneath the desk. Having the USB pass-through is a nice feature as well but this is not an exclusive feature for this board as many others have that as well. You do get used to the gamer font that is on the keycaps no matter what you think of it right away. They are a bit in your face when you first receive the board but after a little why you get lost in the lighting effects and the comfort of the board. I had no driver issues installing the board which I have seen that some people were having that problem when I was looking at getting the board but after I plugged it into my PC I had no problems at all.So, why the four starts? The four starts are mostly because of the switch type, the actual board would have been a five out of five with a switch that was more targeting the gaming market. If you are looking for a board that is for typing, and need the number pad I would recommend the Das Keyboard that you can also get on Amazon. However, If you are looking at getting this board for gaming strictly I would not recommend it due to the blue switches being too heavy for long periods of gaming as well as the loud noise that they give off on this keyboard when you are gaming, if you are streaming, use a mic, or have a friend who is near by then you should look into a different switch such as the red, speed, or silent switches.Since I already have a K70 in the Cherry MX Brown switches I needed one for typing, in the end I decided on the Das Keyboard Ultimate. It is the best feeling board that I have ever typed on and the lack of legends on the keys makes it so that I don't waste time looking down at the board and trying to find out what keys I am pressing, I learned faster that way where all of the symbols on the board were.To sum up the review this is a misplaced board, it is trying to be a good board for typing, but it has the gamer aesthetic as well as it is built for gamers. If you are looking to get a board for gaming, or a mix of gaming and typing, the K70 is the one for you but not with the Cherry MX Blue switches. This board feels great when you are sitting down for long hours gaming or typing but the switch that you get is going to be different for each of those uses. Get the Cherry MX Speed (Rapidfire) for gaming only, Cherry MX Brown switches for gaming as well as typing, and if you are only doing a lot of typing and reports look into a different board like the Das Keyboard.

I've been missing my old IBM M keyboard since it stopped working roughly 20 years ago.It's my first mechanical keyboard since and I didn't know how much I really missed the clicks and clacks.It's pretty much why I bought the blue switches.The switches are a little stiffer than the blue switches sample I had try but I suspect a bit more use will get them to get a little softer. It's easy to get used to the blue switches but when you go back to a membrane keyboard afterward be ready for some awkward typing.The volume control is on the stiff side as well but works flawlessly. I came from using a Logitech G510 and the difference in brightness is remarkable. My logitech at 100% is dimmer than this at 33%.I have no issues with the keyboard itself but the CUE software is a different thing.The keyboard reverts to a red and white color when the computer is locked and changes back to my custom color when I unlock it. Whenever I do some remote desktop the application closes down and when I locally unlock the computer the keyboard stays red/white until I reopen the CUE software. The CUE interface can be a little confusing but after a little while you can get some pretty nice color layout and effects.

I searched for this keyboard for years before i knew it existed....blue switches with heavy actuation, lighting on keys typed(great for seeing your mistakes) aluminium build looks and feels outstanding and last but not least....raised keys, this is one of the best features i could ever have asked for... this is the greatest keyboard I have ever owned.

Perfect keybaord. I like the old design a lot more than the new MK.II. Fixed the dying LED problem on the old K95/K70 with cool effects.

Initially I was hesitant about the Cherry Blue switches but it turned out better than I expected!The lights are very luminescent, and the font is perfect (they didn't overdo the "elite gamer" style font).