Corsair Raptor K40 Review

[section_title title=Conclusion] Conclusion

It’s clear from the features offered that Corsair wanted the Raptor K40 to be their mainstream gaming keyboard and it succeeds in that regard completely. The K40 is competitively priced, has more gaming functions available than you have games on Steam, and can also be tailored to fit your computer’s or room’s design with it’s LED configurator. The only problem with the K40 is that it’s been particularly hard where possible for me to tap into what Corsair have served up. At one point during the review window I had to switch the keyboard out to play some Ranked team game on League of Legends because I just didn’t want to risk skewing my key presses. The awkward spacing just simply isn’t ideal.

No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get used to the K40’s layout at all which becomes all the more frustrating when the “G” key features that made my experience a hard one are not entirely justifiable to accommodate. I don’t think I’ve ever hit the Windows key by accident during a gaming session yet I imagine the lock was for the best here as it may have nullified any errant presses whilst I flapped around searching for a Ctrl key that feels one key too far away and for no good reason. There are other nitpick things as well: I lost two USB ports moving to the K40  as well as a having to plug a headset directly into my computer for the first time in a long while. The USB ports may not be an issue depending on your setup at home anyway. But as I alluded to earlier on, having media keys on the K40 but no headphone jack just seems a bit strange. If this conclusion seems too scathing that isn’t my intention at all. I can appreciate the features that are there to be exploited by the end user with the K40. But for a variety of factors including my own comfort zone and the K40’s design, it just hasn’t worked for me. Ultimately, it’s been a frustrating experience when it has come to actual game usage with the Corsair Raptor K40 because of the layout.

Overall though I think the keyboard has promise. The finish is rather good for the price range and there are plenty of extras if you should need them. The problem arises when you need to adapt to the slightly and nearly imperceptible change in layout that for me proved very difficult to the differences being minute at best. Aside from the layout frustrations the programming software could use a bit of work, but in its’ current state the K40 is a hard keyboard to recommend because it lacks extra USB ports, a headphone jack and it’s all packaged in a hard to adapt layout. Of course with a few minor changes this keyboard can definitely be a winner. Thank you to Corsair for supplying us with today’s sample and hopefully we’ll see more products from them in the future.

[ratings]