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Linus Tech Tips coverage of CES 2014 is brought to you by ncx.com, your source

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for great technology, selection, and service along with Corsair Memory and

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Western Digital. This, you guys, is not

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your average Corsair K70 keyboard. This

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is the world's first fully RGB backlit

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mechanical keyboard featuring Cherry MX

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switches. Now, you might say to me, Lionus, we have tons of RGB backlit

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keyboards. Why would we care about mechanical? In which case, I would direct you to any of the other videos

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that we've ever made about why mechanical keyboards are vastly superior

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and particularly Cherry MX is a favorite of all the staff here at Linus Tech

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Tips. So, you cannot replicate the quality, at least from what we've tried

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in the past, with other differently branded switches. It just doesn't really

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happen. and they're still manufactured in Germany and there's not much stuff you can say that about these days. All

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right, so onto this keyboard. First up, well, okay, it's RGB back lit. Second

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up, what I was kind of expecting to see was programmable backlighting, and you

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could just kind of change the full backlight to any color, maybe like a WD

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zone to go along with one of the other zones or something like that. What we

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got is probably one of the most complex

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um one of the most complex keyboards ever. I mean, they're actually using a

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digital signage processor from Panasonic. The first time this has ever

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been implemented in a consumer-grade device in order to drive what is

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effectively an LED display. I mean, that's what this processor is for. It's

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for digital signage, large format LED displays, and that's what we're looking

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at here. So, I've seen 16.8 8 million color RGB back lit keyboards that really

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when you tinker around with them and you configure all the settings in the in the

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you know the color dials is probably more like 256 colors that is not the

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case here. We have an extremely wide variety. We've also got Okay. All right.

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Let's talk about the LED reliability. So, you've got all these colors and one

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of the things that I was really concerned about when I first heard about this keyboard was you see you see LEDs

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die. I have a K90 that's got a dead LED on it. It's like, yeah, okay, it still

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works just fine. The key switch works, but it's not perfect anymore, and that

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doesn't make me happy. So, what I was informed of is that they're using a

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completely different method of mounting the LEDs in order to dramatically

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increase reliability. Now, the way that LEDs on keyboards apparently usually die

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is actually from ESD, so electrostatic discharge. And by mounting the LEDs

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within the key switch rather than to the

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PCB of the keyboard, you can virtually

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eliminate that. So in spite of the fact that the LEDs are much more complex, we

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should still be looking at a situation where it's very difficult for them to

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fail even over an extended period of time. Now, in terms of lighting

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patterns, Corsair has pretty much everything under the sun. You can do

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your standard, you know, wave or breathing or fully lit here or color

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zones or individual colors on each key

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or you can have, you know, reactive uh reactive fadeins and fade outs and you

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can adjust the timing of that or like, you know, laser beams frigin zapping

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across the thing. And they have a very complex piece of software that's going

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to launch at the same time of this as this keyboard that's going to allow you to configure a lot of that stuff. Don't

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worry, there will be like an easy beginner's mode for just like, well, I

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just want an orange keyboard. Can't I just have that? No one's ever made an orange LED back lit keyboard before. Why

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can't I have that? If you want that, then that's still just fine. Or you can

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do some of the more advanced stuff. Or because they're keeping the software

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architecture open, you can even code your own way of lighting up the keyboard

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and have it do whatever you could possibly want. You can share that with

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friends. And Corsair is encouraging the modding community to just kind of take

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charge and run away with it if that's what they want to do. In addition to

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being fully programmable in terms of the lighting, every single key on the

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keyboard is fully programmable. We've seen this with uh uh Steeler's latest

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Steel Series Engine software, and it's something that I'm personally very

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excited about. I think it's great. So, not only could you remap one to seven if

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you wanted to, you could remap it to uh control 7. So, you can do macros, you

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can do straight remappings, whatever you want. Every key on the keyboard can be

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changed into something else if you prefer it that way. Now, of course, the

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question you're going to be asking me now is Lionus, how many hundreds of

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dollars am I going to have to pay for it? And Corsair

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is being very wishy-washy about it. They won't tell me a straight price. I was

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like, okay, tell me this. Is it 200? Is it 250? and they said, "Okay, we won't

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tell you, but we will tell you that there are RGB backlit membrane keyboards

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that will cost more than this, which to

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me means under 200. Although, I could be wrong, but I hope I'm right. Cuz if this

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comes in around 150 to 170, I think it

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is a knockout punch to pretty much anyone who is not delivering such an

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advanced LED backlit mechanical keyboard. It's going to be available in

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red switches, black switches, and no, not black switches, red switches, brown

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switches, and blue switches at the start. And uh so that addresses one of

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my other complaints about Corsair keyboards, and that's that they seem to always lead with red. And I'm more of a

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brown guy. So there you go, guys. If you have always wanted an Easter themed

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keyboard, Corsair will be delivering it sometime this year. Don't miss any of

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our CES 2014 coverage here, guys. Our trip to the show is powered by ncx.com,

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your source for great technology selection and service, as well as our

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other sponsors, Corsair, which has nothing to do with why I'm raving about

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this keyboard. If you guys will notice, I was actually raving about this before

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I'd even seen it yet because I was super excited, and a Western Digital. Big

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thanks to those guys for allowing us to be