- Hot swap.
What is it?
Why should you care?
Well, I care because I have a lot of different switches
and I wanna put them inside different keyboards,
and if I can't do that,
then I've gotta like, solder them and de-solder them,
it's a real pain in the ass.
However, that's why I was so excited about
the K70 RGB Pro Mini Wireless
is because Corsair is finally doing hotswap sockets.
So let's take a look at this thing.
Let's open it up.
Let's see if it's still worth the kind of eye watering
$180 price tag.
It comes in two switch types.
I think there's Cherry Red and Speed RGB Silver,
which is what we've got.
Both of those are linear
but the beauty of hotswap is that you can buy this board
and you can put whatever you want in it.
You should note that there are some switches
that don't quite fit in Cherry-style switch pins,
like Outemu.
There's a couple other guys
like all of the analog stuff from Wooting,
the switches that go in those aren't gonna fit in here.
But otherwise, let's see.
We've got our keyboard, let's look at that later.
What else comes in the box?
What's in the box?
That's what I want to know.
You gotta safety information.
I don't know how keyboards are dangerous but you never know.
We've got a cable, we've got some accessories.
This is great for anyone who doesn't already have
stuff like this.
We have what appears to be a switch puller.
And we get a little Corsair logo.
And then we get, I think this is meant for like,
RGB shine through or something, that's why it's got the,
oh, yeah, the light kind of comes through.
You get a detachable cable,
which is another problem that I have
with these big manufacturers.
They just, they give you a cable,
and what happens if the cable breaks?
You're just hooped unless you know how to solder.
Otherwise, it's just a typical sleeved USBC to SBA cable.
But now we get to the keyboard and the moment of truth.
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The keyboard.
It's so light.
Wow, it's under a kilo.
It's 624 grams, which is like a pound and a half.
Now this thing is supposed to be crazy fast.
That's actually one of the big advantages
from buying from a brand like Corsair or Razer
that I haven't seen a ton of in the more niche,
like mechanical keyboard space,
is that most of those that you're gonna buy
are gonna be around a kilohertz, which is perfectly fine.
But the thing about these guys is if you're like,
trying to be an e-sports gamer or something,
these guys are gonna boast eight kilohertz polling rate
if it's wired, which is crazy fast.
Also, if you want fast but still wireless,
the slip stream stuff can do up to two kilohertz.
We flip it over, we've got some nice handy dandy feet.
And then we've got, like a power switch.
Ooh, it lights up.
They've got this like, one solid band of RGB going around.
I think it looks like the entire device, which is great.
Otherwise it's okay.
I mean these are just speed silvers.
I bet you if you threw in something a little nicer,
and you can thanks to hotswap,
this thing would actually sound and feel a lot better.
A lot of people might also want this for IQ.
Like, if you're just 100% into the Corsair family,
and you want to use IQ for all your RGB,
then honestly this is kind of the board for you,
unless you like need TKL or full size.
How are the stabs?
I don't know if these are screw-in stabilizers.
It does look like they're using some kind
of like proprietary thing from Corsair,
and it looks like it just unclips.
Like, I've got the one end unclipped no problem.
And I bet you if I took this top housing off,
I'd be able to just pull the rest of it off.
So if you buy this thing,
please look into lubing your own stabilizers.
You're not gonna get this like,
really high pitch rattle that you're hearing there.
But honestly, it sounds and feels okay.
The biggest hangup that I think a lot of people might have
is the layout.
60% is a little small.
Even for me personally, I like about a 65%,
where you get something like, maybe your arrow keys.
But a lot of people do love it, so whatever.
That's totally okay.
I love the transparent switches and I love the line of RGB,
the diffused light, that they've got around the side here.
I think that's great and it's really easy to see everything.
It's per key RGB and they've got north facing LEDs
for those of you who care about that.
As for like the quality of the rest of the materials,
I think that they're saying
that this is an aluminum chassis, but it's mostly plastic.
It might just be this top plate here that's aluminum.
But yeah, the rest, like this is definitely plastic.
This is definitely plastic,
so I'd really have to take it apart
to verify whatever claims they're making.
Otherwise, you know, it doesn't have like,
a ton of flex though.
Like, there's definitely some and it's not super hefty.
So if you're looking for that like, thick CNC aluminum,
with like, no flex and it's like, five plus pounds,
you're not gonna find that here.
However, if you want portability and just like, ease of use,
it's definitely at least an option these days.
Let me take a switch off.
You take this guy and then you just kind of go, oop,
and it'll click.
Once the little clips have gone past the edge of the keycap,
pull it up just like that.
So then you take your switch puller,
and you see these tiny little clips right here.
there's one on the top and then there's one on the bottom.
And what you want to do is just kind of get it in there
and then squeeze together and pull.
I don't really like this switch puller, but it works.
So as you can see here it's a three pin
and not a five-pin board.
So if you have some switches that have the little side clips
on the side here that are clearly missing,
then you're not not gonna be able to fit it in this board.
There's quite a bit of like wobble in the casing,
so I don't know how much I like these actual speed silvers.
You can see the top part of the casing has wiggle room.
You can fix that if you wanted to.
Buy some switch films or something,
you can just take 'em apart, throw the film in on one,
and then clamp it back down together.
And they sound kind of scratchy
so I don't think they're lubed.
Honestly, if you're gonna go and spend $180 on a keyboard,
you might as well spend another like 20,
30 bucks on some lube and grease.
Why not?
Let me throw this guy on,
see how good the RGB shines through.
Yeah, it's not bad.
I still hate the stabilizers,
but I like the shine throughout the keycap.
They're double shot PBT,
so they're not gonna wear out super quickly
or get super shiny with use.
Probably my biggest problem
is that you can really hear the ping.
Like, when you're typing,
you don't hear it too much unless you hit the space bar
'cause the space bar's always a little louder.
But speaking of typing,
let's do a quick typing test on it and see how it feels.
Whoa, something's wrong.
Oh, caps lock is on.
Okay (laughs).
One thing about 60% to remember, is that there's no F row.
So to do any kind of F key stuff,
I've gotta hit Function and then a number key.
So like, Function 5 is F5 to refresh a page.
Speaking of hitting the function key to hit alternate keys,
if you look at the legend like this,
that basically indicates what that does
when you're hitting the Function key.
There's actually two Function keys
'cause there's like, FN and then there's Function 2
on this guy, so you can go Function, Function 2,
and then press something for a bunch of macros
if you wanted to configure anything.
(keys clacking)
Oh no.
Ah, 112, 98%, that's not bad.
That's like kind of middle ground for me.
I usually do over a hundred, but less than like 120, 130.
Yeah, it's fine.
I think the sound is like okay at best.
It sounds like a mechanical keyboard.
Does it sound like a good mechanical keyboard?
No, there's a ton of rattling and stuff going on.
It's kind of frustrating because Corsair and Logitech
and Razer like, and there's other companies too,
but like, they've been making keyboards for so long,
when they first started making mechanicals, it was cool.
Like, it was great.
You know, you could choose any of the brands
and you'd probably be fine.
This is like at least 10 years ago.
But they have competition now with other competitors,
like Keychron, who just have stock,
not always, but they're better than, you know,
a lot of the other boutique sites that only do a group buy,
they do a single order and then they're all gone.
So Corsair and Logitech and the like
can't simply move to hotswap
and expect to all of a sudden move a ton of units.
I think it's a good step forward
and I hope to see more improvements from them,
but the reality is when you're paying another company,
like $180,
and you're getting aluminum chassis and foam and silicone
and decent switches.
There's nothing wrong with these speed silvers.
They're okay.
And, you know, Gaterons aren't, like,
a ton better than Cherry in any way.
With the like slipstream stuff and with the RGB
and the IQ compatibility stuff,
I would love to see Corsair just step up their game
like, one more notch and give me basically this keyboard,
but with a better foaming solution
on the inside of the keyboard.
Like. the PCB just doesn't look super high end.
If you look at it, it just kind of looks plain looking.
Something about this white, like, plain PCB,
just doesn't excite me, but maybe I'm being elitist.
Is this the keyboard for you?
It could be.
It's not bad.
And with hotswap, you know you can really fix a lot on it.
Would I buy it for $180?
Probably not.
Almost definitely not.
But I don't use Corsair stuff.
I'm also super picky.
I don't like 60% and I'm not crazy about wireless.
I don't mind hooking up through a cable
'cause I like how my pretty custom cable looks.
So it could be for you,
but unfortunately it's not really for me.
Although, you know, two steps forward, one step back.
Thanks for watching everyone that's "Short Circuits."
The K70 Pro Mini RGB Wireless.
That's a hell of a name.
If you like this one,
check out our video on the Zoom 65 EE, Essential Edition.
It's like the same price, little cheaper even,
and you kind of get a better quality board.
But, you know it's missing some of the features
that the big guys offer.