CES 2017: Corsair New Flagship K95 RGB Platinum Keyboard & SCIMITAR PRO RGB MMO Mouse

It’s a new year and a new wave of peripherals. Corsair’s been busy updating its venerable line of high-end peripherals. While RGB backlighting remains a hit, it’s the small refinements that makes these keyboards and mice the perfect weapon in your digital life.

K95 RGB Platinum

Starting with the keyboard, Corsair has a new flagship in the form of the K95 RGB Platinum. Keeping the familiar yet extremely popular flush aluminum body, it dawns many of the features you’ve come to expect from a high-end peripheral.

All the keys are CHERRY MX series in either RGB Speed (a very responsive type of Red with an actuation point of 1.2mm) or Brown switches for those that like tactile without the click. All keys are individually backlit with full RGB color spectrum to pick from. This ties into Corsair expansive software suite called CUE. Read into our many reviews to see just how impressive the software is.

Down the left side are six dedicated macro keys for setting up all kinds of options and tactics in games, from attack profiles, common commands, or just simple keyboard shortcuts. The K95 comes equipped with 8MB of dedicated hardware storage for macros and complex lighting profiles, so you are not 100% reliant on the software for all functionality – great for LAN parties and competitions.

What’s new is the LightEdge system, which dawns the K95 perimeter with a strip of full RGB lighting. This light strip is split up into 19-zones so that you can have spectrum fades, simple shifts, or solid background lighting for a more ambient feel to the board. The full set of CUE lighting profiles can be assigned, including a pulsing visor – creepy.

There is a dedicated USB pass-through is is common with these high-end keyboards, along with textured keys on the space bar and macro keys. The Windows Key can be locked, dedicated media controls for volume and mute, and even a double sided palm rest with either soft-touch smooth or textured comfort.

SCIMITAR PRO RGB

MMO mice hold a certain niche in the gaming circle. While some consider them complex and unintuitive, that’s more an issue with the games they are meant to be played with than a fault with the mice. Yet complex games exist, and thus complex mice exist, and the SCIMITAR PRO RGB is one such mice.

With an adjustable Key Slider of 12 buttons that map out to the top row of numbers on the keyboard, this MMO mouse is a quick-reflex button masher’s dream. Not much has changed, with only small refinements to the mouse for increased sensitivity and minor ergonomics. There isn’t much change because it doesn’t need changing, since the original scimitar is an excellent mouse to begin with.

The sensor has been updated from 12,000 DPI laser to a 16,000 DPI PIXART optical sensor. The buttons have been tightened up to make them sharper and less squishy. One issue I had with the original has also been fixed, something so small you’d be forgiven for not noticing. There is now a small lip on the edge of the ‘5’ key on the Key Slide. While the alternating textured rows meant you could feel the column you were on, there was no center point of reference. I often found myself clicking the wrong row. With that little tiny lip, it’s now easier to feel and gain reference.

Apart from that, all things are the same. The RGB lighting in four different zones, along with the full suite of macro and application control are available through the CUE Software suite.

No pricing is available just yet, but expect to see both the SCIMITAR PRO RGB and K95 RGB Platinum in the coming months.