This Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series review is directed at those who need the best gaming keyboard for work as well as for gaming, and those who really care about the aesthetics of their gaming setup.
Keeping things compact, the tenkeyless keyboard does away with the number pad, giving you a more sophisticated, less overtly-for-gaming piece of kit. For most people who switch between work and play, that’ll better suit your desk, unless you’re a numbers person in which case this isn’t the right choice for you.
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Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series review price and availability
Available to buy now both directly or from Amazon, the Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series costs $139.99 in the US, £132.62 in the UK and AU$209 in Australia. It’s not a cheap gaming keyboard by any means.
Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series review: design and setup
Straight out of the box, the Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series looks sleek and not at all clunky which can so often be the way with gaming keyboards. It’s got a brushed aluminium 0.9kg design that feels sturdy and durable with rubber feet keeping it incredibly stable.
The tenkeyless form factor keeps the keyboard relatively compact, giving you more desk space. As well as your usual keys, there are some useful additions along the top bar including a volume roller, and dedicated hotkeys like pause, play and skip buttons, brightness controls and so on. They are placed a bit weirdly, they’re not that easy to get to quickly but it is nice to have such comprehensive media controls in the first place. In the middle of that top bar is the RGB Corsair logo, and each key has its own RGB backlighting which is bright and vibrant, but more on that later.
Connecting to your computer using USB-3, the Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series comes with a detachable braided cable, a popular new trend that makes the keyboard easily transportable and adds yet another layer of customisation. Setup is as simple as plugging it in. To customise the keyboard to your own preferences, you’ll need the iCue desktop app.
One thing that sets this apart from the crowd is the Tournament Switch on the back, it turns off all your custom macros and lighting, returning the keyboard to default tournament settings with a static lighting profile, so you can fully focus on the game. You’ll know it’s in this mode by the red light below the switch. When you’re ready to go back to your custom settings, you just flick the switch the other way.
Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series review: features and performance
With the choice of Cherry MX Red and Cherry MX Speed keys giving you low minimum force and quick actuation points with a distance of just 1.2mm, the keyboard is built for esports in particular. The keycaps are moulded with a 1.5mm thickness making them feel firm and stable, it means you can hit them accurately and quickly each time. This does ring true, the keyboard is incredibly effective and quick, it’s definitely most suited to shooter games yet copes well across the board.
Registering keypresses up to 8x faster than most other keyboards, the Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series has native 8,000Hz hyper-polling. What that should mean is that your game responds far quicker than it would have done with the standard 1,000Hz polling. Honestly, we found it very responsive during fast-paced gameplay.
According to Corsair, you’re guaranteed 100 million keystrokes on this keyboard, and of course, you get a loud satisfying clack each time. The Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series feels less natural to type on during the workday because the keys feel quite hollow but you do soon get used to it.
Really worth shouting about is the level of customisation you get through iCue. Using the comprehensive software, you’ll be able to manage your lighting effects, create profiles for individual games and apps and reprogram any key.
The colour customisation in particular is amazing, with up to 20 lighting layers, there seem to be almost infinite possibilities. Each key has its own backlighting so you can alter them as a whole, in groups or even individually, which is just fantastic. There are lighting patterns to choose from, or you can create your own. You’ll also be able to synchronize all of your iCue compatible gaming gear to your own personalised RGB profile - I paired the keyboard up with the Corsair Sabre RGB Pro Champion Series gaming mouse and my desk has never looked better.
Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series review: verdict
If you’re keen to save some space on your desk, and you have no need for the number pad, then the Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series is a great option. If you want loads of customisation as well, then this is the very best option.
Designed and built for esports, you get a few really useful features that make it seriously efficient. The keys are effective too, while the detachable USB cable makes it easy to transport and adds more customisation. Other than its expensive price tag, there’s really not much bad to say about this keyboard, Corsair cements itself as a top-tier gaming peripherals manufacturer more and more with each new product.
Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series review: also consider
One of the best TKL keyboards you can buy is the Roccat Vulcan TKL Pro, it is slightly pricier than this one but has loads going for it including a compact design, super responsive keys and a satisfying clack.
If a number pad is an absolute must-have then the Das Keyboard X50 RGB is the best you can buy. It’s packed to the brim with extra features, a premium build and fantastic mechanical keys.
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