in

Corsair K100 – The New King of Keyboards?

YouTube player

For the last couple of years keyboards have become very innovative, adding weird and sometimes useless features. For instance keyboards that split in 2 or designed to look like a dragon. Manufacturers have been trying all kinds of things to make their own keyboard stand out from the other. So Corsair has joined the innovative trend with the all new K100 keyboard.

Pricing

The K100 is Corsair’s new flagship and one ups the K95 or well should I say 5 ups. The retail price on this new flagship is $230 on amazon and R4700 in south africa. 

Design

Now there isn’t much that can be done to really improve on a good gaming keyboard, well corsair sure did try. The new design is gorgeous!

The main feature of this keyboard is ofcourse the big wheel on the top left side of this keyboard. 

It’s this big gunmetal grey wheel with their new  triangle texture around the sides for grip. You can also see this textured triangle theme all around their keyboard. 

The iCue button in the middle has 8 preset features. Each feature indicated by a colour designated for that feature.You can create your own feature as well, although it is quite a lengthy procedure. Inside iCueYou first need to create a macro on the actions tab and only then can you assign it to the left or right scroll. So I hope you have a photographic memory to remember what each color is for.

I do feel that this is such a handy feature but not executed perfectly. Corsair has the tech and could have easily made this a little programmable screen button like on their streamdeck. The button itself is not programmable and can only be used to switch between the preset or created profiles. 

The button itself isn’t very sturdy and wiggles around, which is disappointing for a $230 keyboard. Next to the iCue button you get a profile selector button and a windows lock button.

Now the profile selector button is a must have on this keyboard, as you can save up to 200 different profiles thanks to the second key feature of this keyboard. 

Specifications

The all new AXON CPU that corsair used. Now this CPU is why the K100 is the fastest keyboard in the world right now. Running at a staggering 4000HZ polling rate. Now you have to set this to 4000HZ in the iCue software as it only runs at 1000HZ on default. 

The third key feature of this keyboard is the OPX optical switches from corsair. Now unfortunately we did not get the OPX switch version. We got the standard Cherry MX silver speed switch version. (THANKS CORSAIR). Strangely there is no price difference between the 2 switch choices.

Switches

Now here at We Do Tech we aren’t really fans of silver switches. For gaming it’s fine but when you get into typing, backspace is your friend. Basically touching a key next to the one you were aiming for actuates it and, then you backspace. But of course for the majority this is not going to be your essay writing keyboard, it’s your own all noobs keyboard and that’s where the silvers really comes into play. Also we are happy to see that the bottom row of keys are standard, so you can easily get custom keycaps for your corsair keyboard. 

Build Quality

All of that aside the build quality if the K100 is brilliant. The keyboard has no flex to the body, the double shot PBT keycaps feel very premium and have a very nice texture to them. The font choice for the K100 was spot on as well as Corsair actually listened on this one and changed it from the previous font choice, that was honestly a bit aggressive. You also get a few game inspired keycaps included, which has the continued triangle texture on them for increased grip. Unfortunately they are ABS plastic, but that’s not a deal breaker at least. 

Layout

Looking at the layout of the keyboard. It’s a full size keyboard. On the right side you get your dedicated media keys, and a volume controller that continues the look from the wheel on the left, with the gunmetal look and triangle grips. The controller does not have steps and is instead a smooth glide. On the left you get your 6 macro keys, with a gunmetal grey finish and are slightly slanted to easily press them. They are also stream deck integrated.

In the middle you get a glossy center piece, which displays all your smaller details, like caps lock, num lock, mute, windows lock, macro record etc. I don’t quite get this as the glossiness doesn’t really fit into the look of the rest of the keyboard. Oh yeah and the corsair logo is RGB. 

Now for the cable corsair used. It be thick son! But that’s because of the USB 2.0 passthrough on the keyboard, which I always appreciate. 

Lighting

Which brings us to this keyboards show stopping piece. The RGB, damn there is A LOT of that and I LOVE IT! It’s everywhere, each button has RGB, the logo, the mute button, the macro keys. Even on the sides and front of the keyboard has RGB. But best of all it looks good. The RGB on the sides and front shines onto your desk, which is actually the first time that I have seen a keyboard get that right. Usually it’s too dim to be able to see shine on the desk.

Each key is individually lit and can be set to its own colour using the iCue software. There are your usual iCue presets to choose from. But the RGB around the keyboard is really impressive. With a 44 zone strip. Each zone can also be individually set to a specific colour.

Wrist rest

At the bottom you get a super comfy wrist wrest, this is one of the best ones I have ever felt on a keyboard. I actually use it as a pillow at night now. No but seriously, the memory foam they used and textile finish, with the again triangle theme, is very comfortable. It could have maybe been 1cm wider as someone with larger hands might have their palm sitting on the edge. So 1cm wider with some RGB and it would have been perfection! 

Underneath

Underneath the K100 you get plenty of channels to route your cable in any direction, The only thing is, they are way too small to route the keyboard cable with, so the best is to plug your  mouse into the passthrough and route its cable underneath the keyboard. You get 4 big rubber grips and 2 flip out feet. That flip out sideways to stop the feet from flipping back when maybe moving the keyboard forward. 

So for $230 the K100 is a bit steep, their previous flagship was $200, and I feel that,that is where  this one should have landed, price wise as well. The design and look  is very premium but there are small things that will make me think twice about spending that much money on this keyboard. The iCue button was wiggly,the wheel was also not very sturdy and did wobble around. For $230 I would have expected at least a few stream deck inspired macro keys at least. I’m not a fan of silver switches,so I would have liked more options on switches as well. But overall the keyboard is very good especially for gaming. It’s comfortable and will be the centerpiece of your setup with the brilliant RGB all around the design. 

Report

What do you think?

Leave a Reply with either Twitter, Facebook, or Google accounts

GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings

Newbie

Written by Ruan Bronkhorst

Ultimate Battle of The RTX 3080’s – ASUS VS Gigabyte

XPG D50 RAM 3600MHz – Insanely fast and equally beautiful