Corsair STRAFE Silent RGB review

The Lights

Corsair’s per-key RGB backlighting is simply the best of all the mechanical keyboards I’ve tried, and that remains true on the Strafe RGB. Each key is bright enough to be seen clearly during the day, let alone at night, but you can choose between three brightness levels using the button at the top right corner of the keyboard if you find it too distracting at night. Illumination is next to perfect, with no dim keys and the double-row punctuation and number pad keys being perfectly legible.

The Strafe also gains a light strip on either side of the keyboard tray. Each one is fairly dim, casting a small glow across your desk at night and acting as an attractive design flourish during the day. They are also restricted to white light only, unlike the rest of the keyboard.

Otherwise, the lighting effects are completely customisable using the Cue software suite. This works with Corsair mice like the Scimitar and gaming headsets such as the Void, too, saving you the need to run separate drivers for each peripheral. There are multiple effects pre-sets, including a random ‘rain’ of light from the top to the bottom of the keyboard, steady fades, pulses and shifts, a Knight-rider style side-to-side pulse, and my personal favourite, a rainbow ripple that slowly crosses the keyboard from left to right. You can also add per-key ripples, where a burst of light spreads across the keyboard whenever you press a key.

Creating your own effects takes a little more effort, as you can dial down into individual key effects, colours and activation parameters. Unlike the standard Strafe, which only has red LED backlighting, the addition of RGB colours here make things more complicated, so you could spend hours getting the effect just how you wanted it. Thankfully you can also download user-created profiles from Corsair’s support forums.

Conclusion

Now that the K70 RGB has gone up in price, the Strafe RGB is the Corsair keyboard to buy. The per-key illumination is fantastic, and unlike Q-Pad’s MK-90 the software actually works with Windows 10. It might not have a metal backing plate, but construction and build quality are fantastic, and the silent keys are perfect for typing or gaming when you have to share the room with other people. Corsair’s six-month exclusivity deal means it will be the only company with Cherry MX Silent switches until at least summer 2016, making the Strafe RGB Silent the obvious choice for anyone looking to add some peace and quiet to their gaming sessions.