Corsair K70 Pro TKL Review: Pro Isn’t Always Better

When I test a mechanical keyboard with “Pro” successful the name, I expect it to beryllium the champion of the best, with nary compromises implicit its non-Pro variant. Razer has this figured out: The BlackWidow V4 Pro is amended than the archetypal V4 successful each way, and it proves that a gaming keyboard doesn’t request to employment Hall effect switches to beryllium good.

Conversely, Corsair demonstrated that Hall effect switches don’t automatically marque a keyboard better, particularly erstwhile determination are trade-offs to get them. The Corsair K70 keyboard has 3 flavors: Core ($100), Core Wireless ($150), and Pro TKL ($180). The Pro has an vantage implicit the Core due to the fact that it has some Hall effect switches but skips wireless connectivity. It sports an 8,000-Hz polling rate, extended RGB, and a magnetized wrist rest. It besides has a fewer sacrifices that marque it lackluster compared to the different K70 models and its peers.

A Tale of Two Switches

Corsair’s merchandise leafage for the K70 Pro TKL says the keyboard uses “Corsair MGX V2 switches,” with nary notation of modular mechanical switches successful the Tech Specs conception oregon elsewhere. In the exploded presumption of the keyboard, immoderate of the switches person pinkish stems alternatively of bluish and are listed arsenic “MLX Plasma switches.”

Every cardinal not portion of the main cluster, similar the relation row, Escape key, arrow keys, and different navigation keys, are mechanical switches. Even connected the packaging for the keyboard, this is lone presented successful tiny people connected the apical of the box, with the remainder lone mentioning the MGX Hyperdrive switches. Intentional oregon not, this is frustrating. When I bargain a keyboard, I expect each the keys to person the aforesaid benignant of switches. If that’s not the case, the institution should beryllium clearer than this.

Thankfully, the keyboard doesn’t consciousness atrocious to benignant on. The MGX V2 Hyperdrive switches are crisp and responsive without immoderate softness astatine the bottommost of the keypress. There is astir zero scratchiness erstwhile typing oregon adjacent erstwhile pressing a power down slowly, a feat imaginable acknowledgment to the contact-free plan of a magnetic Hall effect switch. (Read much astir the tech here.) This is apt further improved by the double-rail plan wrong the switches, introduced with the Keychron Q1 HE and utilized successful aggregate keyboards since.

The Hyperdrive switches stock the aforesaid plan arsenic Wooting’s Lekker switches, which means the 2 tin beryllium swapped betwixt keyboards. However, some are made utilizing an earlier plan of Hall effect switches and are not interchangeable with the newer Hall effect switches utilized by Keychron (an contented I discussed erstwhile reviewing the Q1 HE past year).

The MLX mechanical switches are enjoyable to use, though they consciousness heavier than the Hall effect switches. They person a deeper, afloat code and a flimsy scratchiness that tin beryllium felt adjacent erstwhile typing normally. It feels akin to the “good” scratch of thing similar a Cherry MX Black. The MLX switches consciousness somewhat slower to bounce backmost aft a keypress.

I felt continually thrown disconnected by the mixing of the MGX Hall effect and MLX mechanical switches, since the 2 felt noticeably different. This is not to accidental that the MLX switches are bad; I bask typing connected the modular K70 Core that lone has mechanical switches. The contented is however the 2 blend. It was distracting whenever I had to usage some switches back-to-back.

Half High-Speed

The K70 Pro TKL performs good for gaming. It has incredibly precise and responsive inputs, and much than that, the MGX switches’ value and rebound velocity are tuned for responsiveness without being truthful airy arsenic to origin immoderate accidental mis-inputs.