The Strafe in Action

Intro

This review is of a Corsair Strafe RGB keyboard with Cherry MX Blue switches provided by Corsair for review purposes.

CPU's, GPU's, RAM and motherboards... All key components many of us fret over when upgrading our machines or when putting together a new rig. However often left out or relegated to mere afterthoughts are the peripherals; keyboards, mice and other bits of kit that get used constantly. Great peripherals are in many ways just as important as good internals. They are the main devices that we use to interact with our computers and often get overlooked during purchases, with people settling for whatever is lying about such as a spare, cheap HP keyboard or those Apple chiclet abominations.

A good keyboard to me is as vital as a high end CPU or graphics card and over the years I've had the opportunity to use many. I'm personally a fan of mechanical keyboards, rather than the standard membrane based offerings you usually receive if you buy a PC from a retailer in a box. I personally find the travel and definitive click when pressing the keys of a mechanical based unit far more pleasing to use.

This obsession of mine stretches all the way back to the amazing SIIG Suntouch 101 keyboard I had in the 90’s. When I first discovered this beauty, I loved it. These days my daily driver is also a Corsair, but a K70 (also using Cherry Blue switches) non-RGB. I’ve had it for a little over a year and it’s been a solid and gorgeous clicky keyboard. My wife and kids get annoyed by me clacking away on it at full whack but that’s their problem, not mine!

Today we're spending some time with a mechanical keyboard, featuring Cherry MX Blues. The Corsair Strafe RGB. Corsair have recently released a “Stealth” version of this keyboard, still with mechanical switches but with the silent, non-clicky kind. Well, I can’t stand those switches, but thought I’d take a look at the Strafe since you can choose which type of switches you get on it.

In The Box

In terms of basic specs, the Strafe RGB features Cherry MX Blue switches, which offer 60g of feedback. Different models featuring Brown and Red switches are available also. Per-key RGB back lighting, which basically means each key has its own LED. A USB Pass through port. On board memory for the Corsair Utility Engine (or CUE, more on this later) to store lighting and macro settings directly on the hardware. Anti-ghosting protection and a 104 key rollover.

The keyboard measures 448 x 170 x 40mm, weighs 1.27 Kg, or 2.02 pounds for those less metrically inclined and ships with a 2 year warranty from Corsair with key switches rated for 50 million key presses.

First things first, out of the box we have the keyboard itself, a key removal tool, instructions, a removable, rubberised palm rest and an extra 10 keys (Q, W, E, R, A, S, D and F with an extra key each for W and D, which offer a slightly different angle to the other two keys)

The extra keys have a textured, grey rubber coating and have a subtle angle to them to help with locating them and theoretically shifting your fingers faster in an FPS or MOBA.

I’m not immediately in love with the keyboard itself because it has this odd looking white background underneath the keys. What’s that all about then? I’ll explain more later.

On first connection the keyboard is a veritable rainbow, illuminating itself with a rotating rainbow pinwheel effect, it’s a nice early demonstration of what the lighting on this thing can do, not really to my taste (although it drew some appreciative oohs and aahhs from the wife!)

The colouring is vibrant, the LEDS are fast to shift colour and do so with a great level of fluidity. So as an initial showcase, I'd say this was a good, if garish choice on Corsair’s part, since it instantly shows the potential for what can be done with the lighting in the Strafe.

The difficulty is, it also leads you to want to open up the CUE software mentioned previously, which was my only real (albeit minor) complaint about the entire keyboard.

CUE

CUE is what Corsair provide to configure the variety of options the keyboard has, be it something simple like merely setting up a colour scheme you like, to having powerful macros and sound effects and such. This software also interacts with other Corsair devices like their headsets and mice, allowing you total control over supported peripherals. It’s also a very daunting experience at first glance.

With all the facilities it offers and configuration options it has, it’s a bit of a confusing and overly complex affair. I managed to set up some basic lighting functions on the keyboard, as well as importing other whimsical things from the Corsair RGBShare site, such as light sabre duels (with options for sound effects) which play out on the keyboard surface. But to do anything more in depth? Hmmm.

My day job is in financial trading systems. I’ve created and worked on some pretty complicated algos over the years. Unfortunately even that has left me ill prepared for many hardware companies software interfaces. It’s a similar story with Razer’s Synapse software so I want to be clear here, this isn’t just a Corsair problem. After a lot of googling and reading of how-to’s and FAQ’s and video watching etc, I’m starting to get the hang of it.

It’s not a terrible situation, I just wish companies that made great hardware (and I absolutely consider Corsair to be such a company) were also as talented at making great software. The Strafe RGB is a great piece of hardware, it could be made an exceptional offering if the software were more user friendly.

Regardless, personally I have a mix of Corsair and Razer equipment so I have to use both CUE and Synapse. They’re not terrible, but they’re also not terribly intuitive either. Once familiar though (although my existing keyboard and mouse are Corsair, neither is an RGB so I’ve not had huge call for CUE until now), it’s not impossible to navigate.

Using the Strafe

As can be expected, the switches themselves are up to Cherry’s usual excellent standards, providing great levels of tactile feedback, both physically and auditory, with a nice light click to help you register when the key has been depressed. Overall the Strafe feels durable and has a decent heft to it, with high quality key caps. The font takes a bit of getting used to for me, but it’s clear and defined. The letters are large enough to allow a significant amount of the back lighting to shine through. I’m a touch typist so don’t generally look down that often.

How about that white background I thought was ugly earlier on? Now it’s put to good use. The RGB lighting reflecting off it nicely so it is actually in line with the rest of the colours you’ve programmed.

By default the keyboard has only the space bar with any form of texturing, beyond the normal little bump on F and J though the removable key caps can easily remedy this if you need to type/play by feel. While the texture moulding on the space bar is directly into the plastic (same as my K70), it does seem to have a very slight rubbery feel to it - examining the key shows it to be a single piece so you need to live with it but I’ve been used to this from the K70 so no problems with that for me.

In addition to the expected keys, there are two extra buttons added in - specifically brightness control (which switches between off, dim, medium and bright) and a Windows lock key, something many gamers will no doubt find useful. The F Keys up top also pull a dual role thanks to the addition of a function key in place of where you would normally find the right hand Windows key. These dual function keys give quick access to media controls for changing system volume, stopping and playing music and so on. The K70 has these as separate dedicated buttons above the numpad which I tend to prefer as it makes the keys look a bit less busy but realistically both are fine and it’s going to come down to personal preference.

Be aware, the cable which comes out of the back of the keyboard is pretty thick, about 1cm diameter. This then splits to two chunky, black and yellow USB plugs. No doubt this is for the USB pass through port on the back of the keyboard. Still, the thickness of the wire can make routing cables around your desk difficult if you like a fairly clean looking desk. Personally I try to avoid using USB pass through and hub devices, but for those that want the convenience of a USB slot on their keyboard, this has that option.

The real challenge of any keyboard, of course is not how nice its keys are, or how many keys can be pressed simultaneously before it starts dropping input (104, for those interested) but of course how it types. With Cherry being an almost default go to for a lot of mechanical keyboard makers, there is often little in it these days I find. Manufacturers can make minor adjustments to change the travel of the keys, or how squishy they feel but for the most part, the actual mechanism dictates the keyboard, not the other way round. As always, the Cherry’s feel great for typing on. Writing this review was one of the many things done to test how well I could actually write on the keyboard and it certainly came through with flying colours.

Compare this to my Razor Orbweaver, with its own Razer designed switches and I certainly prefer the Strafe, while the Orbweaver is nice, its keys feel a lot mushier and seem to have far less travel, thankfully the Orbweaver is a gaming controller rather than a full keyboard so it is less of an issue there.

One thing to note with the blues is they are pretty noisy, even for a mechanical keyboard, though this is as much down to how the blues are designed, with a 'drop' mechanism (see here for an excellent guide to the various Cherry switches available) as anything else. They were certainly loud enough for my microphone to pick them up eliciting a certain amount of friendly jibing while using discord to chat with some mates.

Wrapping up

Overall the keyboard itself is solid, well made and has some great features behind it. Are there some small gripes? Yes of course, but these are largely covered by being a great mechanical keyboard with excellent Cherry Blue switches and some good customisation capabilities.

I’m not the kind of guy who spends ages doing tons of different RGB profiles, regardless of the piece of hardware so I’m generally less likely to be in the software on a regular basis, as such my initial difficulties with CUE are less of a factor on the overall score than they may otherwise be. That much said, if I were already familiar with CUE (like I am a bit with Synapse), I’d probably be much more adept at using it and would be able to overlook its idiosyncrasies in the same way I do Synapse’s.

On the odd occasion where I miss my intended key and look down at the keyboard it takes a bit of getting used to with the font, but on the whole it’s a great mechanical keyboard. I love Cherry’s blue switches and the chances are that any keyboard which has them onboard, I’m going to get along with.

There are still a few things that I prefer about my K70 though. The solid metal base (as much of a pain as it is to clean as it is!) being one of those key things. Couple that with the slightly unintuitive CUE software, the odd font and I’m kind of nit-picking but I prefer my K70.

That much said, the STRAFE has a lot of functionalities that gamers will appreciate which the K70 (non-RGB) doesn’t have like fully programmable keys. Overall, I'm happy to recommend it as a great keyboard.

Final note. CUE is currently supported only on Windows. Apple users can use the keyboard of course, but most customisation capabilities are unsupported. I believe there are also some 3rd parties who have ported some of CUE's functionalities to Apple but this is unsupported by Corsair of course.

Overall, the keyboard scores highly. I drop down the usability score since to make use of it to the fullest, you're going to need to get familiar with CUE which is powerful but unintuitive to the new user.

Reviewed at $149.99 (Amazon US). and £144.99 (Corsair UK, Amazon doesn't have the version with the Blues)

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