Teased last month, Cherry’s RGB LED switch comes exclusively to CES this year via a new mechanical keyboard created by Corsair.
Teased last month, Cherry’s RGB LED switch comes exclusively to CES this year via a new mechanical keyboard created by Corsair.
Cherry announced their new range of mechanical switches last month and as promised they’re being showcased this year at CES. Brought exclusively by Corsair, the new Cherry MX RGB designs offer full colour backlighting on a per-switch rather than diffuse basis by implanting a RGB LED on the surface of the keyboard PCB, focussing the emitted light through clear plastic housing.
The keyboard demoed looks to (almost) all outward appearances identical to the popular Vengeance K70, and inherits most of this keyboard’s popular features. In that respect not only does it utilise Cherry MX RGB switches, thanks to Corsair’s own engineering trickery it also implements the per-key backlighting of the K70. Praised in our own review, per-key backlighting allows you to tailor the brightness of each individual key to provide you the utmost flexibility possible from your lighting.
The extended launch trailer brings a sneak peek of the new keyboard.
Currently only Red-Level (i.e. light-weight linear) switches have been revealed by Cherry – using the Cherry MX RGB Red nomenclature – and you get the feeling that a new keyboard is at least partially intended to test the market out. The Vengeance K70 is Corsairs purest design from an aesthetic standpoint, certainly more so than the otherwise excellent K95, and has the greatest opportunity to appeal to the style-conscious. If it’s a hit and isn’t too cost-prohibitive more switch types and a K95 variant wouldn’t be too surprising.
Corsair is asking those interested to sign up to their mailing list and indicate a release date of a relatively nebulous ‘2nd half 2014’, but don’t yet have further information on pricing. New products of this ilk often command a premium so expect to pay well in excess of a Vengeance K70’s MSRP, currently sitting at $129.99/£119.99. We’ll bring you more information as and when we receive it.
