There’s no reason the digital world can’t be more tactile. Right?
I believe so. So much of our work and personal lives is conducted online, in a non-tangible atmosphere of pixels and bytes, that we overlook the hardware that our bodies interface with to make all those glowing bits of text and color dance around on our screens.
Just like how some folks eschew the e-reader for a paperback or a Bic for a fountain pen, there’s a pleasant, tactile feeling that comes from using a mechanical keyboard. I’ve got one myself (an old Filco).
The Corsair K70 RGB Pro is one of the best on the market, a fan-favorite that’s more than half off right now at Amazon. I’ll dig into the key switches in a minute, but the specific ones used on this board make it the perfect do-anything machine, from gaming to typing.
cherry brown key switches
I’ve been covering mechanical keyboards professionally for more than 10 years, and the market sure has changed in that time. Whereas originally us buyers in the US had to jump through a lot of hoops, often buying from overseas retailers to ship a Filco from Japan or a Ducky from Taiwan, now you can walk into a Best Buy or peruse the webpages of Amazon to find them made by PC heavyweight names, such as Razer, Logitech, and Corsair.
There are loads of different types of mechanical key switches underneath mechanical keyboard’s keycaps. Each has a different sound and feel. Corsair chose to go with Cherry MX Brown key switches for the Corsair K70 RGB Pro, a middle-of-the-road crowd pleaser that works as well for typing as it does for gaming.
They have a slight bump that enhances the mechanical feel of typing, but they’re not as loud as the Cherry MX Blues that I use to drive my loved ones crazy. Browns are not too loud, and not so clicky that you can’t use them for video gaming, too.
Switch preference is all very convoluted and, yes, also very interesting. These switches, in all their various flavors, are what give mechanical keyboards their richness in tactility, a break from the highly efficient but emotionally deadened experience of typing on laptops’ nearly flat capacitive touch keyboards and tapping away on touchscreens.
Regardless of your purpose, you can use the built-in RGB lighting to customize the backlighting on this keyboard, or just turn it off if you want to be low-key. Type away on the Corsair K70 RGB Pro for an afternoon and it’ll ruin other keyboards for you. It’s one of my favorites, and this deal makes it a premium board for a middle-of-the-range price.
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