I've long believed that hardware can make you a better gamer,
but when it comes to 8,000 Hertz polling rate keyboards
and mice, I've been a bit dubious. So when Corsair decided to sponsor this video,
so we could check out the K70 Pro TKL
with their version of Snapchat, I said, we'll give it a try.
After we open the box, we've got our typical warranty guide,
we've got our safety and compliance information,
and then we've got the keyboard just right on top here.
Let's look at everything else first, because there's some stuff underneath.
It should come with, I think, a wrist rest. Yep, that's what this looks like.
Ooh, I like the paper packaging with the Corsair logo.
I do really like the look of the logo here, but I kind of wish they'd maybe put it up here
instead of right in the center, because it is magnetized, by the way,
but one of the problems that might encounter is, if you go and you move over just a little bit,
you're gonna edge of your palm, just gonna touch it, it's not the worst,
it's totally fine, but Corsair, just move it. I like it, I like the style.
I like the rest of the wrist rest, to be honest. I like this design they've got going on,
this little texture pattern that they have here. Feels nice, comfortable, squishy, just enough give.
I'm not big on granite or wood wrist rest, personally.
I like a nice foam one, they're nice and soft. There's only one other thing in here, and it is long.
It's probably about six feet, 5.5? No, it's more than 5.5.
All right, it's got the MGX Hyperdrive Magnetic Switches,
but then it's not all the Hyperdrive Magnetic Switches.
The F keys are regular, so that's really cool.
With these being magnetic and Hall Effect, that means that we can change all of our actuation points.
We've looked at this a lot in the past with other keyboards that have kind of done it first,
but especially with SnapTap becoming dominant in the FPS scene, it's gonna give you
that kind of fine-tuned control. Let's say you want to action the key
as soon as you basically press it. So Feather Touch, boom, it's down.
And then the nice thing is what it can also do is, basically once it's stopped going down,
the moment it lifts, it'll reset. So instead of having to go up all the way,
I can take my finger off this key just slightly and then push down into action again right away.
But while I'm a gamer, what I care more about is the look and the feel and the sound of my keyboard
as I type on it and game on it and do everything in between.
So how does it actually, you know, it's really,
it's kind of better than I was expecting. I know that this is sponsored, but I mean, you guys will be able to hear it
and make your own judgment call here. But my biggest pet peeve on most keyboards
is the stabilizers, particularly the spacebar.
No rattle, or at least very little. I can't really make any out.
Enter has got a little bit, just the teensiest shift as well.
But it's really, you know, the spacebar is usually, because you're touching the spacebar all the time,
you know, every, between every word. And as for the sound, aside from, you know,
checking out the stabilizers,
the rest of it sounds pretty decent. They've got two layers of sound dampening silicone,
which really helps with this version versus the previous ones that did not.
I'm not gonna lie to you guys. It's not my favorite keyboard in terms of sound.
It's not the most amazing sounding one, but the thing is, companies like Corsair,
their keyboards have come so far in the last few years. They've had to play catch up,
but they've kind of done it admirably. And I've got to say,
this is like good enough for most people, especially when what you're really looking for
is that eight kilohertz polling rate and those hall effects switches.
It feels okay too. They're linear, they're pre-looped already,
which has been so much better in the last year or two
when it comes to buying switches. I used to actually recommend against factory pre-loob
because they didn't do a good job. Or if it was a good job, it'd be fine on some switches
and then really bad on others. So it's just kind of all over the place, but it feels like that's been fine tuned
over the last year or two. But that's all the hall effect switches.
How are the F keys? Cause those use another one. Those use their plasma switches.
And these are just regular linears.
Sure, they're fine. Also pre-looped from the factory. Keycaps are a double shot PBT,
although you can get the ABS version. We'll talk about price later,
but the ABS one is 10 bucks cheaper. In my humble opinion,
I think you should just get the PBT, spend the extra $10, but to each of their own.
And then they've got their classic brushed aluminum finish.
I'm not crazy about the brushed aluminum. You guys, please just stop brushing the aluminum.
Just make it aluminum. I do like the stamped Corsair logo here.
And then I like that they've got this included knob. It's hard to go wrong with a solid knob.
Really satisfying tactile feel.
But then these two buttons are just buttons and they don't really spin or anything.
I'll have to plug it in and find out what exactly they do. But I wish they were just a tad more satisfying.
I also really like the angle of the case and how the edges are nice and clean.
It's just a plastic chassis on top underneath this kind of brushed aluminum top plate here.
And they've got USB-C. And then on the back of the keyboard,
we've got this pretty cool, just Corsair logo in the middle for looks.
And then as per usual, when it comes to the big name brands and keyboards,
they've got adjustable feet. Something else to note is that's a good,
that's incredibly satisfying. They're also what feels to be a very durable,
nice rubber feel so that they're not gonna, it's not gonna slip very much.
Like I'm really pushing on this thing here. In terms of durability though, it's pretty solid.
There's like really not a lot of flex at all. I'm actually surprised. I was expecting a bit more decently heavy,
but not too heavy. I kind of wish it was wireless, but then the weight would go up with the included battery.
And one of the big benefits of going with a keyboard
like this is you can just go to a store and buy it. Like you can just walk in the best buy and buy one.
You don't have to sign up for a group order. You don't have to order something online.
Just walk in, hand the guy your credit card or cash
and walk out with your brand new keyboard. But let's try it out, you know, properly.
We'll see some RGB. We'll try typing on it, where I have actual words to type
instead of random gibberish. One moment, please. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, here we go.
108, 97%, that's not too bad. I've been slowed down a little bit
because I'm used to typing on Chicklet-style keyboards right now. I've been using my laptop quite a bit.
Also, I have a flat XDA low profile kind of set at home
that I've been really enjoying. And I really like this.
The RGB is nice. It shines through really nicely, nice and bright,
nice and colorful. I love the blue. I don't know if it's just because of the white
and gray and aluminum that it's kind of illuminating,
but I really like the tone of the RGB or the hue of the color.
I will say Corsair IQ, it's great.
Is it kind of frustrating sometimes? Yes, but it works.
It's pretty cool. You hit function, all the lights turn off except for like your FRO and Windows and FN.
Let's open IQ. Check out some of the Hall Effect customization you can do
because they say that you can go anywhere from 0.1 to four millimeters of actuation.
And they've actually suggested that we go anywhere from 0.4 to 3.6.
You could go as low or as high as you want, I guess, but somewhere in the middle is usually about right.
The other thing is you can change that in 0.1 millimeter increments.
So let's open IQ and take a, ooh, lighting effects.
New features exclusively for the Corsair K70 Pro RGB TKL
keyboard. Okay, click on the control dial.
Rotate the control dial left and right to adjust brightness.
Let's turn it all the way, oh, that was fast. Okay, I'd like a few more steps,
but I guess you actually don't really need it, like four or five steps or whatever's here is good.
That's honestly pretty sweet. Okay, what else? Press on to turn on the brightness, press again.
Oh, okay, and this just turns it on or off. That's great. The toggle turns the mode on, switch the toggle
to the right to activate horizontal scrolling.
Control dial colors are unique and indicate the current mode. Yellow stands for horizontal scrolling, for example.
Oh, okay, let's see if this actually works. Let's open a page.
Oh, what? Okay, that's pretty cool.
Okay, so if I hit FNF12,
oh yeah, it's back to volume. So there's vertical scrolling, volume control,
brightness control, horizontal scrolling, and zoom. You can turn zoom on.
And then you can turn all of these on or off. So say you just want to cycle
between vertical and horizontal scrolling. You don't set the volume with this. You've got like a GoXLR, I mean, they're dead now,
but you've got some other kind of media control system
in place and you just want vertical horizontal scrolling. You turn those two on, FNF12, boom.
You swap between the two. That's really cool, actually. I'm gonna try the zoom mode.
What?
It's kind of features like that you don't tend to get with boutique boards.
Yes, you all of a sudden have QMKVIA and you can do whatever you want,
but also I'm lazy and I just want to like tick a switch
in an app that tells me, hey, you've enabled this thing instead of setting up a bunch of macros
and doing it myself. Time to set up key actuations.
Customize the response speed for each one. You can start by adding a new actuation preset.
Select the key you want. During the tutorial, please select the T key.
Select the color you want to customize your color indicator.
Oh, that's neat. Primary actuation point can be customized from 0.1 to four millimeters.
Use the slider or enter the exact value. What I do love though here
is that they've got a little handy visualization for you.
So let's say I want to set it to one. Now I see that it's gonna apply
when I'm about that far deep. And if I set it to four, it's further down.
So that's actually pretty cool. And then, oh, you can just use the slider.
Okay, cool. So we've got our reset point here and you can change that as well to whatever you want.
Oh, it visualizes it and everything. That's right, because it's got flash tap,
which is Corsair's version. So we can set it to just below there.
So as long as I come above that point, it should reset, which is pretty cool.
And then rapid trigger. Oh yeah, separate press, release sensitivity.
I'll be honest, you guys, this is the sort of thing
that me as a non-customizer kind of person is,
I don't know how much I'd sit here and tinker with. I think that I would probably unbox this keyboard,
hook it up to my computer and then use it. But for everyone who loves this sort of thing,
which there's a lot of you, they let you do just about whatever you want.
So it's pretty good in that regard. What I need to do though,
is make sure game mode is on. Because for some reason, game mode doesn't start on by default.
Oh yeah, I can change my polling right now. 8,000 Hertz.
Yeah, I mean, let's be real. 1,000 Hertz is good enough for the vast majority of people.
When we're talking about going from one millisecond to point one to five millisecond.
Yeah, that's way faster, 100%. Most of you aren't gonna really feel it.
However, if you're gaming and you're playing in FPS
and you need literally that half of a millisecond or less
to determine who's the winner. I mean, technically, that's gonna win.
Let's see, activate win lock. Yes, brightness max. Yes, static color enforced.
No, actually, you know, I will keep that on. I like it as a good visual indicator
to tell you, hey, you're in game mode now. I kind of wish game mode was just enabled by default.
It does lock out a few keys, like win lock and other macros that you might have.
So I guess if you're gonna go from using macros and something to wanting to play FPS games,
you'll wanna go to game mode. But without this on, I can't change the polling rate, I don't think.
Oh yeah, I can. Hire a USB, okay, yeah, don't show this ever again.
I don't care if hire USB polling rates take more power, select anyway.
One of the other cool things is how it's doing all of this processing to enable
8,000 Hertz polling rates and flash tap and all of that stuff without getting super confused
is it's got an axon processor on board. Love to see it.
Now we got a game on it. I have to actually try flash tap. Can't play Counter Strike as much as I'd like to
because womp, womp, it's banned. If we try to use, you should be able to disable game mode
and play Counter Strike on this keyboard. However, I'm pretty sure if you go in with flash tap enabled,
you'll get a VAC ban or you'll at least get a warning. So just buyer or beware, be careful.
That's why they made it so obvious that like, yes, I am clearly in game mode.
Flash tap is enabled. You can jiggle peak guys.
I wish I had the dynamic cursor that CS2 has. Wow, I suck.
I haven't played in so long. Got that guy. And you know how I got that guy with flash tap.
If I didn't have flash tap, I wouldn't have killed him. That's not true at all.
And the thing about having a keyboard and a mouse
that's just perfectly responsive with eight kilohertz,
it's gonna do exactly what you want when you want. Is this the keyboard for me?
Do I wanna get back into competitive shooters? Not particularly.
But is it absolutely a solid choice
if you do wanna play competitive shooters or you just want like the next part of your IQ setup?
I think it's a really solid option. It sounds pretty good.
It feels pretty good. I can jiggle peak. I mean, I could before,
because I've played Counter Strike for like, I don't know, a couple thousand hours, no big deal.
But if you don't have that capability
and you're trying to just get into the scene now, this could give you that edge.
Is it gonna make you better gamer? Not exactly, but is it gonna make sure
that you've got the same edge that everyone else does?
Yes, and it'll make sure that you can never blame the peripherals
for your poor gaming performance anymore. You can only blame yourself like me right now.
If you wanna pick up the Corsair K70 Pro TKL, you can get it with ABS keycaps for 179.99.
But I really think that you should just spend that 10 extra bucks and pay 189.99 for the PPT keycaps
if this is the keyboard for you. I don't know if it's the right keyboard for me, but I'll tell you this much.
It makes me wanna play shooters again. Thanks for watching this ShortCircuit. Thanks Corsair for sponsoring this video.
If you wanna check it out, we'll have links in the description below and make sure you stay tuned for the next one.