KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
First impressions of the Corsair Raptor K40? It looks quite attractive and it is very light. It slides around quite easily on the desk, so it only requires a little nudge to adjust if it is not quite in the right place. That said if you are particularly heavy handed it will move around a little on a wooden desk.
Aesthetically it mixes black with a silver/bullet grey quite nicely and it clearly outlines the gamer WASD keys and the arrow keys in that same grey – making them stand out.
The individual keys are lovely and smooth, with a slight concave dip making them fit your finger tips nicely. The lettering is a cut out for the backlighting underneath, but even with it turned off, the keys are still perfectly readable in average lighting conditions.
One aspect of the keys which does separate this board from some of its cheaper cousins is that despite being rubber domed, and therefore part of a full length membrane, Corsair has separated each of the switches off with plastic housings. They're also raised from the main body of the board, which should protect them from any spill damage.
On the far left hand side, there's six macro keys that can be remapped to whatever you want in the bundled software. At the top, in the grey bar, are several profile switch keys, with a macro record key on the far left and a windows key-lock on the right. That lock turns off the function of the windows keys, so you can't accidentally hit them during a game and minimise what you're doing.
At the other end of the Raptor K40 – you have your numpad and other typical keys, along with media buttons. These are slightly different than all the others on the keyboard and work quite nicely, but need a little more force to activate.
Next to the lock-lights (which show whether caps, scroll and or num lock are activated) is the brightness key. That lets you control the backlighting brightness, giving you three options: off, dim or bright. If you want full customisation though, head to the software.
The back of the board is unremarkable, with traditional product information and rubber stamps to keep the keyboard as still as possible. Each of the top corners also has some little risers so you can have it at an angle if you choose.
The cable is very basic. Rubber, no braiding and a basic nickel coating on the USB. It is bright red however, so you'll always know which one's which in the back of your rig. If you mount it on the floor, under a desk where it's dark, that can actually be quite useful.
