Review: Corsair Gaming Keyboards and Mice Attack with a Vengeance

Reviewer Experience and Recommendations

The reason we were so excited to test out these keyboards and mice had a lot to do with the people involved in the project as well as what we had seen back at IDF in September. Based upon these expectations, we were really hoping to finally replace our aging G15s with something much more modern and functional.
The first thing that we noticed when we opened up these keyboards was that they had a nice look to them due to the use of aluminum. Similarly, the mice really had the same feel as a result of their aluminum design and build, which we mentioned earlier.



When it came to setting up both keyboards and mice, we decided to pair up the K90 and M90 together as well as the K60 and M60 in another system. With these combinations, we decided that we would most likely experience Corsair's intended effect of having a full gaming experience.



When using the keyboards, we really found that the Cherry MX Red keys were really great for both gaming and typing. We typed this entire review on the K90. It was nice using the keyboard both during the day and night due to the fully backlit keys as well as the just right amount of feedback. Being a somewhat loud typer, though, this did somewhat increase the volume of my typing and for some people may not be a good fit in quieter settings.
In terms of comfort, the K90's full length wrist rest is really quite right and, in total, the keyboard actually takes up less space than my G15 did, giving me a better keyboard with equal or more functionality than my G15 in a smaller footprint, which is always nice. One must remember that we are comparing to the full-featured original G15 with 18 macro keys as opposed to Logitech’s current model which only has 6 macro keys. So, whenever the G15 is mentioned, we are referring to the original G15, because the current model is an inferior revision.



The K60 is quite nice as well, especially with the wrist wrest for long term FPS gaming. We found that swapping out the standard keys with the red textured and raised keys was really easy thanks to the included key removal tool which is included inside of the wrist rest. It would've been nice, though, if Corsair included one for the K90 as well for the neat freaks that want to remove all their keys easily and clean behind them. The raised/textured red keys, though can be a bit problematic for people who do a lot of typing as they do feel a bit awkward when typing a lot and take a bit of getting used to, but that seems to be more of a matter of preference above anything and you can always pick and choose which you swap out.



The M90 is extremely comfortable and has a nice texture to it that is that ruggedized type of plastic that you can't really put fingerprints on and always feels smooth to the touch. I didn't really find myself using the various profiles as much, so the profile switcher was a bit unnecessary, but for someone who uses mouse macros a lot, this could be extremely useful as you can switch between six different mouse profiles all of which can have different macros and DPi settings from 100 all the way up to 5700. The mouse also allows you to test the surface that you're using it on in order for it to accurately read the surface and give you more accurate and smooth movement. You can also adjust the lift height, which is really intended for people who like to play on really low DPI and use a gigantic mousepad and generally have to lift their mouse for movement. By adjusting the lift height, you can change how far away the mouse will start to sense the mouse surface. You have to be careful, though, because if you set it too low you can lose sensitivity on software cushier mouse pads instead of a hard flat desk or mouse pad.

From left to right: Corsair M60, Razer Deathadder, Corsair M90, Logitech G500

Corsair Vengeance M90

The M60, is admittedly, much less complicated. The M60 has most of the similar features as the M90 does, but with many fewer macro buttons. Admittedly, the software still allows you to essentially macro any button to your liking, but the amount of buttons available that aren't already assigned a predefined function are relatively low. The M60 also has DPI selection, but there are dedicated buttons that you can actually associate with a certain light on the mouse that tells you which DPI it is operating at. Similarly, you can adjust the lift height and surface quality and also program any macros into the mouse and save them to the mouse like the M90 and K90. The M60, as we stated before has a much more neutral design and could easily be used by someone who is left handed and it felt a bit more supportive to our hand than the M90 did. Also because of the design, we found that we got slightly less sweaty palms over longer gaming sessions. But the overall comfort level isn't quite as comfortable on the whole hand as much as the M90 because of this design. So, each mouse is slightly more friendly to different grip styles and preferences.







There are, though, a few recommendations that we would've preferred Corsair include in these keyboards that we hope that they'll implement in their future versions. First of all, the USB pass-through port is a great addition, meaning you get full USB power and functionality out of the keyboard, but its misleadingly blue even though it's still USB 2.0. Considering the year that USB 3.0 is going to have, there's really no reason it should be USB 2.0. Also pertaining to the USB port as well, we would've liked Corsair to somehow acknowledge where the USB port is to the user without having to look over the keyboard and find it. A simple little USB logo or even a simple blue dot would have sufficed. If Corsair wanted to be fancy, they could've added a little light to further make it visible at night as well as during the day.

What happens when you have a corsair keyboard and mouse

With the M60 mouse, we would've preferred to have in-mouse DPi switching that is easy to adjust without having to remove one's index finger from the left mouse click button. Admittedly, Corsair's sniper button does enable you to switch between one DPi and another, but it would be nice to have more flexibility in the future. Currently, the DPI switching is enabled by an up and down button directly centered in the middle of the mouse.
With both mice, we would've liked to have a similar scroll wheel to what we've seen on the Logitech G500, which has a frictionless option to the scroll wheel which allows for a lot of very fast scrolling with little effort. While we aren't sure whether or not Logitech has patented this, we'd still like to see it in Corsair's future mice.