The Corsair K63 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard Review: PC Gaming Untethered
by E. Fylladitakis on September 16, 2019 10:30 AM ESTConclusion
Corsair developed the K63 Wireless Mechanical keyboard primarily for living room gaming. And while, Corsair has made some trade-offs to get here, when combined with the optional Corsair Lapboard and a wireless gaming mouse like the Corsair Ironclaw, it forms an ideal setup for couch gaming. It can also be used as a wireless keyboard for a gaming laptop while connected to an external 5V power source or to another PC, making it particularly useful to users who want a desktop capable of switching between devices.
In terms of quality, the Corsair K63 is a well-designed, robust keyboard. Corsair mixed the design of the K65/K95 series with that of the Strafe with very good results, creating a solid and relatively lightweight portable mechanical keyboard. Cherry’s MX switches never disappoint, showing exceptional stability and quality over and over again. Aesthetically, the plastic-shelled keyboard certainly loses some points over the aluminum-based designs of the K65/K95 keyboards but, despite that plastic chassis, it remains elegant and ideal for modern desktops and living rooms. The real issue with the design of the K63 probably is the classic recessed keys area that, unlike flat designs with “floating” keys, traps dust and debris and requires frequent cleaning - an issue that will probably be bourgeoned during living room use.
With any wireless product – but especially one in a relatively new field like wireless mechanical keyboards – comes the question of battery life, and here Corsair's keyboard doesn't excel, but it does offer a reasonable compromise. On the whole, the K63's battery life is sufficient and it will easily last through daily gaming sessions, but at the same time it can't match typical wireless office keyboards, whose battery life of which is measured in months, or even years. With the backlighting disabled, you're looking at a few days of battery life, while enabling the beautiful-but-expensive backlighting will bring the K63 down to just a day of battery life.
Overall, the Corsair K63 is excellent quality product, but it is not a keyboard for everyone. Corsair made a gaming-focused keyboard with the K63, and that's certainly where it shines. The tenkeyless design is a trade-off in and of itself, but unless you need it for gaming, then the small size of the keyboard can enhance a gamer’s experience by improving mouse handling and space. On the flip side, however, this isn't a portable version of Corsair's most advanced keyboards – it's a K63 rather than a K95 for a reason – so gamers looking for the most advanced keyboard on the market may find the keyboard coming up short. In particular, the limited number of keys may constrain gamers who are used to having a great number of macros and other advanced functions.
Meanwhile, office/productivity users will want to look elsewhere entirely. The trade-offs made for a gaming keyboard don't make as much sense for general use, especially with the lack of a numpad.
As for portability, the K63 is a reasonably small keyboard; but it is not quite small and lightweight enough for frequent transportation. This goes hand-in-hand with the battery life of the keyboard, which although is reasonable for the segment, it is still is measured in days, making it better than a smartphone, but worse than something like a game controller.
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LauRoman - Monday, September 16, 2019 - link
That site is a piece of crap, automatically generated from Amazon reviews. Do you trust those reviews?It is quite similar to those sh**ty sites that auto generate the same comparison between two different gpus or cpus by comparing only the number of shaders or cuda cores or simple things. Not temperature or noise or boost clocks or throttling or anything not on the datasheet.
I can't really say anything about the quality of their stuff, because i only ever owned exactly one of their products. A memory kit in the tail end of the C2D/DDR2 era. I usually found better performance for the price, or comparable at a lower price.
I need more than a site that autogenerates reviews based on untrustworthy sources
Sivar - Monday, September 16, 2019 - link
Their K70 keyboard is certainly not junk -- it is the best designed keyboard I have used. The base of each key is mounted flush with an aluminum plate, making cleaning easier and spills less damaging. The volume knob, also solid metal, makes volume changes easy without the need to look down. The RGB lighting is a bit gimmicky, but can be useful when programming important keys to emit a specific light color, at least in the dark.The Corsair Vengeance C70 case is among the best designed cases I have ever used, and I have used a lot of them. The cable routing, ease of access to internals, easy disassembly, and top-venting is among the best I have seen. Indeed, the front fascia of the case did have a problem where its mounting was too weak and thus it could too easily be removed, but that was the only flaw I found in an otherwise well-priced and well-designed (and sadly, now discontinued) case.
That said, my Corsair gaming mouse has lost partial functionality in its "back" button as well as its middle-click (with the wheel as a button), which I use frequently. The wheel also always turned too much when using it as a button, leading to unintended scrolling. Not a great design, and mediocre overall hardware quality (though sample size = 1, I may just have a dud).
My Corsair Void Pro wireless headset had connection issues starting about a week after I got it, compared to my 7-yr-old Logitech wireless headset which is amazingly still going strong, albeit with limited battery life.
You win some, you lose some, but with Corsair keyboards, at least the K70, I'll easily call it a win.
olivaw - Monday, September 16, 2019 - link
About gaming mouse switches, if you are interested, there is an interesting analysis about the absurdly high rates of switch failures by Alex Kenis in his youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5BhECVlKJA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhhRTUrz0R8.Warning: heavy geekery ahead!
Sivar - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
This is good stuff, thanks!piiman - Saturday, September 28, 2019 - link
old news and has been fixedcpupro - Monday, September 16, 2019 - link
Corsair makes good products, never had problems with their stuff and they have good product support.cpupro - Monday, September 16, 2019 - link
I talk about RAM modules, don't know about other stuff.Oliseo - Monday, September 16, 2019 - link
""No where have I tried to present false information"And here you are, doing just that. It's hard to take someone seriously when they have no integrity.
Sivar - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
Let's not conclude the he has no integrity from a few lines of text. I don't like how the original post was worded (hence my initial reply), but that could be a misworded sentence, a result of a bad day, etc.lilkwarrior - Monday, September 16, 2019 - link
Actually, there are wireless Mouses & keyboards that are more reliable (besides battery running out) & have less latency.This is especially the case with mouses as of this year & last year with Logitech efforts on the matter