ranzware
For my sins, much of the work I’ve published here as part of the hardware team has been typed up using the ultra-low-profile keys of a corporate MacBook. I know, I’ve brought shame to this great house and worse still, as I jab away at my wafer thin Apple slices, there’s hardly a satisfying thock to speak of. The truth is, I’ve not really had my own fully mechanical magnetic gaming keyboard before—so as far as introductions go, the Corsair K70 Pro TKL makes the best possible first impression.
So, where does this board sit in Corsair’s increasingly crowded pantheon? In terms of dimension, it’s slightly longer width-ways than the Corsair K70 RGB TKL Champion Series, and slightly shorter lengthways. That is to say, it’s still not exactly compact as far as tenkeyless boards go, especially after attaching the magnetic wrist rest included in the box. The memory foam palm pillow in question is at least reasonably comfortable, but easy to detach if the leatherette cover simply isn’t your vibe.
Despite the heftier TKL form factor though, the K70 Pro quickly felt right at home on my eternally messy desk. It’s definitely not egregiously oversized, plus the solid build quality alongside the generously sized rubber feet on the keyboard’s underside means it’s unlikely to glide around even when sat on the silkiest of desk toppers either. These rubber feet can flip out too, allowing you to raise the keyboard’s already angled profile even further.
Rather than dedicating the board’s top line real estate to media controls like the aforementioned Champion Series, this board is back to two squishy nubbins (which enjoy a texture not dissimilar to gumdrops sans sugar) and a nostalgic dial like the one on the fullsize Corsair K70 Core. From left to right, the Pro’s nubbins activate game mode (a more responsive keyboard profile with a less distracting solid red light show), and offer pause/play functionality by default, with the control dial handling volume control.
K70 Pro TKL specs
Switches: MGX Hyperdrive & MLX Plasma (Function and navigation keys)
Connectivity: Wired (USB Type-C to Type-A)
Onboard memory: 8 MB
Anti-ghosting: N-key rollover
Polling rate: Up to 8,000 Hz in game mode profile
Dimensions: 370 x 145 x 40 mm (without wrist rest pillow attached)
Media controls: Yes, remappable control dial and shortcut buttons
Price: $180/£170 (ABS), $190/£180 (PBT)
Diving into the free iCue software offers a wealth of customisation options, allowing you to craft your own lighting profiles and remap the control dial to take charge of a number of functions, such as vertical or horizontal scrolling if you’re freaky. It’s certainly more functionality than I’m used to from my barely-there-laptop-keebs, though I personally don’t see myself tumbling down this remappable rabbit hole purely for personal use.
Corsair’s light ‘murals’ are another matter entirely. Somewhere between layering lighting effects to create my own snazzy, RGB lighting profile, saving up to five of these to the keeb’s onboard memory, and beginning to rethink my entire desk lighting setup, my deadline snuck up on me.
Corsair is no slouch when it comes to onboard lighting, with these RGB rays shining out from underneath and through the keycaps’ translucent lettering. The RGB lighting is both remappable on a per-key basis and striking for the most part. I found that certain colour combinations, such as my custom purple-pink profile, appeared oddly washed out though.
What’s not a letdown is the build quality of this tenkeyless mechanical-magnetic keyboard. Featuring Corsair’s linear MGX Hyperdrive and MLX Plasma pre-lubed switches, two sound dampening layers, and a very swish aluminium top plate, this is a decidedly premium feeling keyboard.
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The keycaps here are ABS, but to me these feel more luxurious than the Corsair K70 Core, with a price point to match at $180/£170. The option to go for PBT double-shot keycaps costs slightly more, setting you back $190/£180, but at time of writing this was only available for the North American keyboard layout.
Still, that’s significantly cheaper than the line’s big boy gaming keyboard, the $230/£220 Corsair K70 Max—while boasting a surprisingly comparable feature set and markedly quieter clacking.
ABS is the less hardy material choice compared to PBT, but I still feel assured of the K70 Pro’s staying power. The aforementioned game mode offers a polling rate that goes up to 8,000 Hz, which is directly comparable to the speedy, responsive clacks of the big boy K70 Max. This, coupled with the K70 Pro’s magnetic Hall Effect sensors ensures a long-lived, responsive keyboard—so long as one resists the urge for raging keysmashes.
…what I’m left with remains a snazzy gaming keyboard with excellent keyfeel and build quality that allows it to take pride of place on my desk.
Yes, it’s finally time to talk about that all important THOCK. The sound dampened clack of these ABS keycaps is comparable to the Core, offering a buttery smooth motion and a far less aggressive thock than other options. That means though the Pro is far from silent, your typing may prove slightly less annoying to anyone you happen to share office space with.
One colleague felt the Pro’s key resistance was ‘bubbley,’ but they’ve been hammering away at an old Razer Huntsman for years so they’re used to keyfeel with a little more bite. For my purposes, the Corsair K70 Pro TKL keyboard presents a refined, satisfying, though decidedly lowercase thock.
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Naturally, the raised profile of these keys took some getting used to for me with my murky MacBook past. Thankfully, the K70 Pro offers adjustable key actuations, meaning with a little fiddling you can alter the sensitivity of your keys. Adjustable in 0.1 mm steps, you can set the keys to activate after anything between a full press at 4 mm depth to the barest whisper of a tap at only 0.1 mm. No more awkward typos induced by stumbling over mountainous keycaps for me!
Like the aforementioned light shows, these can be saved to custom profiles that can then be stored within the device’s onboard memory. You can cycle through these by pressing the bottom row Function key in combination with F2–but only while iCue is running.
Without this software, similar Function key shortcuts only manipulate the keyboard’s RGB lighting effects, and you otherwise can’t adjust your custom profiles on the fly. So, if I wanted to plug and play on my corporate MacBook, I’d better be sure I’ve got my key actuations exactly how I like them on all of my stored profiles.
Buy if…
✅ You want a satisfying linear clack that won’t wake the neighbours: While far from silent, this is definitely quieter than other K70 keyboards. Adjustable key actuation points can make it quieter still.
✅ You’re an FPS keyboard warrior: Customisable actuation features, Rapid Trigger, and a high polling rate could prove a real game changer for anyone with esports aspirations.
Don’t buy if…
❌ You’ve not got much desk space: Though tenkeyless, this isn’t small. Corsair still hasn’t cracked a truly compact K70 keyboard.
❌ You’d rather not download yet more software for a peripheral: iCue isn’t bad, but it’s still gatekeeping much of the K70 Pro’s customisable feature set.
Obviously, the intended use cases for this sophisticated actuation goes far beyond my attempts to avoid heated Slack conversations. This is another gaming keyboard with Rapid Trigger, ensuring multiple inputs register when you dash to double tap your opponent in high-level play. Dual actuation features then allow you to map two inputs to the same key so, for example, at a half press you walk and at a full press you run, or even cast two skills from the same keypress.
This part of the feature set is definitely more for the esports crowd—and as someone still investigating why The Roottrees Are Dead, it’s not really a gamechanger for me.
With that in mind, what I’m left with remains a snazzy gaming keyboard with excellent keyfeel and build quality that allows it to take pride of place on my desk. Granted, I’m not really a fan of downloading yet more software in the form of iCue to get the most out of the K70 Pro’s richly customisable feature set, but I’ll live.
At the very least, the ability to whip up keyboard profiles and then store them on the device’s limited memory means I don’t need to have yet one more thing running in the background at startup.
The Corsair K70 Pro TKL may make a keyboard fiend out of me yet…for better and worse. Exposure to RGB lighting has only empowered the keycap goblin part of my brain, and it’s begun whispering things like, “You know what this needs? Pudding keycaps.” After the great key disappearance of 2024, that is a slippery slope indeed.
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Kurt Indovina
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