Written by: Mark Abell

Photo courtesy of Corsair

Corsair STRAFE RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (http://www.corsair.com/en-us/landing/strafergb, $150)

As a desktop user, this keyboard meets my needs, and this will get the job done for gamers with four USB outlets or more. However, I would choose another keyboard for gamers with laptops—not that most laptop users choose to use an external keyboard—as most laptops come with two to four USB-outlets, and this cannibalizes two of your ports. The rationale behind this is that you can plug in other peripherals such as a gaming headset into the keyboard.

Typing on this is extremely satisfying; you can immediately perceive the solidity of its construction and the clickity-clack noise the keys generate reminds me of a typewriter, which is fun in a nostalgic sort of way.

In addition, the levels of customization that the RGB offers is  unreal. Pulsating lighting effects including themes like Visor, Spiral Rainbow, Rainbow Wave, Rain, Color Shift, Color Pulse, Color Wave, Type Lighting (Key), Type Lighting (Ripple). I prefer backlighting with a solid color such as blue or purple, and I explain how to transition out of the default red backlighting below. I didn’t mess with the import and export sections of separate Lighting tab. You can save your lighting settings into a profile that will load automatically or only when you turn it on through the Utility, depending on your preference. You can actually synchronize the lighting to correspond with what is happening during games. With shooting or flying games, the keyboard’s lighting shifts according to the actions that are happening in the gameplay.

This is one of the nicest keyboards I’ve ever used because of its mechanical excellence solidity of construction, and durability up to the manufactuer’s stated ten million keystokes. $150 is pretty much the de-facto cost of a mechanical keyboard. As a bargain-hunter, I had to accept the fact that there isn’t a way to get this cheaper because variable lighting costs more to manufacture than keyboards that express one color at a time.

Their primary competition is Razer’s Black Widow line (http://www.razerzone.com/store/gaming-keyboards-keypads/filter/family/0/type/mechanical) which run $100 for the BlackWidow X Ultimate up to $180 for the Black Ops III Razer BlackWidow Chroma.

I think Corsair’s Gaming K70 RGB with aircraft grade-aluminum (http://www.corsair.com/en-us/landing/k70-rgb) is the next best thing because it takes the opulence even further, and runs $178 on Amazon up to  $222 on Newegg. I prefer the look and feel of the K70 RGB to Razer’s Black Ops III Razer BlackWidow Chroma.

 Set-up:

Plug both USB cords on cord into the back of your desktop-the keyboard cannot be used with just 1 USB outlet. You know the keyboard is on because a ship with three sails in the upper left hand corner will light up

·         I stayed with the default red back-lighting although

·        Go to http://www.corsair.com/en-us/support/downloads

·         Select: Gaming Keyboards

·         Choose Corsair Utility Engine (CUE) Software Version 1.16.42

·         Run the installer

·         Extract All

·         Run CorsairUtilityEngineSetup.MUI_Release_1.16.42

·         Select Language: English

·         Accept End User License agreement

·         Start Corsair Utility Engine

·         Update to firmware version 1.33

·         Change the color of the backlighting of the keys in Profiles>Lighting

·         In Settings, uncheck the box for Start on System Startup to conserve RAM capacity