Corsair Vengeance K70 review

We’re great fans of mechanical keyboards. They’re noisy, but are the fastest and most comfortable choice if you spend a lot of time typing or gaming. The Corsair Vengeance K70 is a mechanical keyboard with an unusual design that makes it one of the most fluid we’ve ever used. The keys are mounted directly on the brushed aluminium chassis, not recessed under the keyboard’s casing. We found this led to a faster, less obstructed typing experience, with no edges to brush against or affect the travel of the keys.

The layout consists of a full UK keyboard with cursor keys and a numeric keypad set well apart. Touch typists will appreciate this, especially when compared with the often cramped layouts and unresponsive keys of popular Chiclet-style keyboards. We were delighted with the supplied wrist rest. Its soft, textured design makes for comfortable typing and it keeps your hands in an ergonomically sound position to help avoid repetitive strain injury.

Alternative textured key caps are supplied for the WASD keys and keys 1-6, which are commonly used in gaming. These special key caps make it easy to know by touch that your hands are in position, so you never have to risk looking down at your hands. There’s even a button to disable the Windows key so you won’t accidentally strike it and obscure your game.

If you’re gaming or working in a dark room, the K70’s LED backlighting is especially useful. You can set the brightness of the backlights, and have the backlight illuminate every key or just gaming-critical keys such as WASD, number and cursor keys. There are multimedia buttons, too, such as a rolling volume control, a mute button and music transport controls. All of these are positioned above the numeric keypad and have a low profile, so there’s no chance of striking them accidentally.

You can get the Vengeance K70 with your choice of Cherry MX Brown, Red or Blue switches. The blue switches are too light for this style of chassis, but the browns and reds should keep both gamers and typists happy. The Ducky Zero DK2108 is the benchmark to which we compare other mechanical keyboards. After a couple of weeks’ intensive use, we’re happy to say that the Corsair Vengeance K70 is better, largely thanks to its raised, unobstructed keys. However, the K70 is significantly more expensive than the DK2108, particularly in the brown-switched version we reviewed, which comes in at around £120. The red-switch version can be bought for £100. The price is justified, though, and the K70 wins an Ultimate award.