Corsair Gaming STRAFE mechanical keyboard review

1. Introduction2. Unboxing3. Corsair Gaming STRAFE keyboard4. Testing5. Final Thoughts6. View All Pages

Corsair Gaming dismayed long-time fans last year when it dropped its famous sales logo in favour of a tribal tattoo. Following fan outrage however, it has made a comeback on the latest line up of products, like the STRAFE gaming keyboard that we are looking at today. Featuring everyone's favourite Cherry MX switches, textured key-cap replacements and a refined red key-bed, the STRAFE still sports a high price tag, but comes with many of the bells and whistles of Corsair's flagship boards.

But are they enough to give this keyboard a solid recommendation? That is what we are here to find out. 

Although this is more of a mid-range board than the Corsair Gaming flagship products we have seen previously, it does come with some unique features – most obviously the coloured and textured replacement keycaps. While they may not offer much in the way of a functional change, they do help this board stand out from its contemporaries. Its clean look too is quite different from what else is out there.

Features

• Cherry MX Switches (Red).
• Per-key backlighting offers high-level customisation.
• Fully programmable keys for remapping.
• USB port for connect-through.
• Textured and coloured keycaps for comfort and control.
• Gaming circuitry gives 100 per cent anti-ghosting.
• Easy access to media with built in media keys.

The packaging for the STRAFE is very typical of Corsair, with a high quality box, mostly in grey and black with a yellow panel at the end to break it up. The front and back have large pictures of the keyboard itself, along with some of the optional keys in place.

There is also a sticker to tell you which Cherry MX switches that this board comes fitted with. In this case, red.


The back talks up some of its more impressive features, like the customisable per-key backlighting, NKey rollover and the deep and option-filled back-end software.

Along with the STRAFE, you get the usual set up manual and warranty leaftlet.

But the textured keys are the more impressive inclusion. They come vacuum sealed, which is a bit different. As well as having a textured metal-like surface, they also have different gradients than the usual keys and there are even a couple of variants for each of the W and D keys.

 

We checked in with Corsair what the reason was for the different slope directions on the optional keys was. It said:

“QWERDF is for MOBAs – the D and F keys are used separately as a pair of actions keys, so they are sloped together. Generally your little, ring and middle finger drive QWE and your index drives RDF, hence the sloping.”

“The WASD is designed to be for FPS gaming.”

Corsair's STRAFE keyboard is not the most eye-catching out there. Its matte black paint job and flat surfaces give it quite an enterprise look. Its build is pretty solid, with not much creaking or flexing of the frame if you attempt to twist it. It is made of plastic, so does not have that cold feel as some metallic topped keyboards can have, but that does mean it is not going to be quite as durable.

 

The key caps on this board are the typical shape, with translucent plastic keys which allow for the backlighting to shine through. However, as with some other gaming boards, this one comes with replacement key caps. There are WASDR versions for the FPS players, and QWERDF for the MOBA players out there.

Or you can use all of them if you prefer. They each have trextured surfaces and different angles for the key shape. We will need to test these to see if they have much of an impact on gaming or typing ability.

However installing them is as simple as using the provided key-changer tool, pulling off the old caps and pressing the new ones into place. They slot in nicely and raise the height of the standard keys by a couple of millimetres from some angles.

 

Running along the top of the board are the usual media keys, though Corsair makes the smart choice of having them present from F5 through to F12 (minus F6 for some reason). This places them all within a stretched hand's reach of the FN function key which replaces the right hand Windows key.

While this may look odd skippiung over F1-F4, it means that you are not required to use two hands to use the media keys, which would defeat the point of them being in a quick-press position, since you would have to remove both hands from what you are already doing. That is not the case with this board, which shows real thought has gone into the little things.

Continuing the enterprise theme are the understated lock indicators, which are simple strip plastic LEDs. Next to them are a pair of buttons, the first of which controls the brightness of the backlighting, which has four steps, including one that turns it off entirely. The switch next to that locks and unlocks the Windows key, to prevent accidental pressing mid-game.

 

As much as this board is quite bland in its styling however, there is an underlying bed of red behind all of the keys, which not only helps bolster the red backlighting, but also gives it a more interesting look too.

Peeling off the standard arrow keys, we can see also that the Cherry MX switches in use on this board are the standard Red variant, which means they are fast, but lack any form of tactile or sound based feedback for actuation. The LEDs are also off centre, which could mean that lighting coverage is not the greatest on these key caps.

 

Other notworthy points on this board, include the textured space bar and the fact that Corsair has thankfully reverted to its classic logo rather than the “tramp stamp”, tribal tattoo it went with for a while. There are also light strips along the left and right hand side of the board, giving your desk a red glow when overhead lighting is turned off. 

The underside of the Corsair Gaming STRAFE is also pretty unremarkable, featuring the usual rubber feet in the corners and the extendible legs for a steeper angled board. The feet on this are quite small though, which does mean it is not the ‘grippiest'. In our pre-testing use, we found that it did not take much to slide this board around a desk.

This seems to be because there are no rubber feet on the base of the extender legs. That means that when at full stretch, it leaves the STRAFE with just two front-corner rubber feet holding it in place.

 

The cable for this board requires dual USB – due to the USB throughput port – which each have bright yellow headers to separate them from all the other black connectors at the back of your PC. The cable is standard rubber and is thicker than usual to cater to the twin headers.

To test a keyboard like the Corsair STRAFE, we put it through its paces in a number of different gaming and general usage scenarios. That means testing it in multiple games of different genres that require different types of control, as well as typing on it for upwards of eight hours a day for just over a week.

Throughout all testing we take into consideration its comfort and ‘performance,' as well as any special features and its back end software.

Lighting is restricted to red, but is very versatile

Since the STRAFE is a gaming keyboard, the first tests we put it through were the gaming kind. To make sure it stood up to the vigorous gaming habits of its potential users, we trialled it in MOBAs, RTS titles, shooters and anything else we could find that would let us control it with a keyboard.

As you would expect form a system that uses Cherry MX Red switches, it performed very well, exhibiting all the usual plus points of that switch type. They are fast and light and though they lack the actuation feel of brown switches (our personal favourite) their low – 45g- actuation pressure means that they are the fastest switches available from Cherry.

The Corsair Utility software is some of the most versatile available for any peripheral customisation

Save perhaps those ones that it has begun putting in its new 6.0 keyboard, which are twinned with a faster “analogue” interface. There are also a few alternative switch designs from Steelseries and Logitech which have a slightly faster actuation.

As for the additional grey, textured and angled key caps, I did not find they particularly improved gameplay by any measurable margin. They look cool though.

100 per cent anti-ghosting means that every single key on the board can be pressed at the same time without a single one being missed, making this great for those that like to hotseat games, or just play very, very quickly.

In terms of general usage, the STRAFE again performs well. It is comfortable to type on for long periods and the switches allow for fast and accurate input. The brown switch alternative of this board is likely to be better for typing, as the actuation feedback lets you know when the key is pressed without having it to bottom out. It is subtle, but the difference is there.

Likewise some of the other switches being used in other keyboards like the Steelseries Apex M800 are nicer to type on for longer periods, but that and the aforementioned Cherry 6.0 are both vastly more expensive than the STRAFE. Red switches are not the best for typing, but they could be considered better than black because they are lighter and less tiresome, and they are certainly quieter than blues.

Above all though, they trounce every membrane board.

 

Comfort wise, the Corsair Gaming STRAFE is very nice to use. I particularly liked the textured space bar – though I could see that wearing off in select places after hundreds of hours of usage. The slanted gaming keycaps did not hinder typing as might have been expected and in-fact after a short while you do not even notice they are there.

I did miss that this board does not come with a wrist rest though. The flat front edge does mean adding your own third-party one should not be too difficult, but a built-in or attachable one would have been nice to see.

While I never noticed it moving during gaming or typing, it does feel like the STRAFE could use some extra rubber feet on the bottom. When raised up on the extender legs it is very easy to slide around, pivoting around the right hand side where it is heavier. Adding a rubber coating to the base of the extender leg would be the easiest place to put one, as when laying flat, the keyboard stays still.

Some indicators are underlit due to the LED placement on the mechanical switches

This board is incredibly easy to clean though. Thanks to the fact that the base of all of the keys are self-contained and raised almost flush with the rest of the frame, once keycaps are removed, getting a duster or vacuum head in there is a doddle.

One of the big selling points of this keyboard however, is that it supports the incredibly deep back-end software, known as the Corsair Utility Engine. It is much the same as when we reviewed the Corsair Vengeance K70, with all of the options for key assignments, lighting, macro recording etc.

It's still not particularly easy to understand from the offset and can require some playing around with. Once you have gotten over the hump in the learning curve though, it is some of the best peripheral back-end software available. The only real difference between this version of it and what you have access to with some of Corsair's higher end gaming products is that it is monocolour. In this case, the only lighting options are red, so whether you have rain effects, reactive lighting, ripples, waves or all of them on at once, they are always red.

Profiles can be saved to the device, as well as locally.

Media keys being within reach of a single hand was a nice touch. Something that a lot of manufacturers seem to miss when creating their boards.
The Corsair Gaming STRAFE has some great features with its Cherry MX Red switches, the industry standard (although hard to understand) Corsair Utility Engine, its 100 per cent anti-ghosting, per-key backlighting and the overall strong build quality.  This means that it is great to game on, great to type on, and quite the looker if you are a fan of red on black (with a little red underneath too).

As great as all these features are though, they are available on similar boards for a noticeably lower price.

The STRAFE also suffers from the fact that there are better switches out there than the standard MX Red keys these days, though the STRAFE will be available soon in Brown too.

There could be a few extra underside feet to make the grip a bit better as well, and there are the usual issues with the backlighting being off-centre, since MX switches are not designed with good LED coverage. It is also limited to red, though RGB backlighting does tend to set you back much more than this particular board's price tag.

The STRAFE is not even monumentally expensive, it is just a good few pounds more than some of its feature-filled rivals. You can get a board with high production values, good back end software, monocolour backlighting and anti-ghosting for £70-80 from other manufacturers. The back end software and customisation may sell you on the STRAFE, but if you are the kind of person that wants that deep level of tweakability, it might be worth spending a bit extra to get the full experience with RGB lighting and (if you go for another manufacturer) better switches in some cases too.

The Corsair Gaming STRAFE occupies an interesting range, where it is not quite a top end, high performing board with the best of everything and it is not quite the mid-range hardware it has the feel of. It is a good board, by any measure, but there are better ones out there and in some cases for less money too.

The Corsair Gaming STRAFE keyboard can be found at Overclockers for £100.

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KitGuru Says: Although the STRAFE is a well built, dependable and high-performing keyboard, we could not help but feel ourselves longing for something more, or at least something similar with a lower price tag. 

Pros

• Red switches are great for gaming and typing.
• Clean, professional look. Red key-bed looks good with lighting.
• Corsair Utility Engine offers deep, heavily customisable back end software.
• Raised keycap base makes cleaning much easier.
• USB pass-thru, Windows lock key included.
• Additional textured keycaps make it stand out.
• 100 per cent anti-ghosting.
• Features the classic logo.

Cons

• Underside feet could do with more grip.
• Additional keycaps feel functionally redundant.
• Per-key back-lighting is off centre and limited to red.
• Expensive.

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