A $50 Corsair RGB Mechanical Keyboard? Nope

[scolaner]

We did a double take last week when we saw Corsair’s announcement that its K55 keyboard would cost just $50. But it's not a mechanical keyboard, it's a fugazi.

A $50 Corsair RGB Mechanical Keyboard? Nope : Read more

 

[synphul]

Usually it's safe to say that if advertising shies away from mentioning something there's good reason. It makes sense in the case of the switches. If something sounds too good to be true it often is and $50 for a mechanical with rgb per key lighting definitely falls into that category.

There are mechanical keyboards out there though and some rgb backlit like the rosewill rgb80 ($50-65), azio mgk1 ($60), cherry g84 ($72), thermaltake poseidon zx ($72) among others that fall in at $80 or less. Not all are full rgb backlit, some use kailh instead of cherry mx switches.

It would be curious to see if they did anything special with the membrane switches on these or if they're just enthusiastically priced semi rgb backlit standard membrane boards.

Definitely enforces the need to read the fine print. To be fair it's not false advertising, they didn't go out of their way to make it sound like a mechanical board in an attempt to fool consumers but they didn't exactly make it clear that it wasn't either. Typical marketing ploy allowing potential customers to make assumptions that land in their favor.

 

[jackie_1]

I just want a cool LED keyboard for my office computer. I don't game. Would this work? ANd when they say mechanical keyboard, does that mean they are loud and you hear every click when you press a key?

 

[scolaner]

[quotemsg=18870918,0,1649354]I just want a cool LED keyboard for my office computer. I don't game. Would this work? ANd when they say mechanical keyboard, does that mean they are loud and you hear every click when you press a key?[/quotemsg]

It would work for that, sure. There are several others out there are also non-mechanical but have nice lighting, etc. Like these:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/razer-mecha-membrane-switch-ornata-chroma,32637.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/coolermaster-masterkeys-lite-l-rgb-combo,32538.html

And, well...lots of others.

"Mechanical" refers, basically, to the fact that a keyboard has actual switches instead of rubber dome or scissor designs. (That's what you get in those $10 keyboards you find everywhere.) Mechanical keyboards are not necessarily loud and clicky.

Cherry and Kailh red switches are linear, so the only sound is the thunk at the bottom of the key travel. Brown switches have a little "bump" in the travel, but they're not loud per se. Blue switches are loud, though...very loud.

If you don't want to fiddle with customizing your switches to cut out noise, look at Topre keyboards or Logitech's Romer-G switch keyboards. They're a little softer-sounding, IMHO.