Corsair K95 RGB Platinum XT Mechanical Gaming Keyboard & Mouse Combo for FPS/MOBA Gaming

One online review I read called the Corsair K95 RGB Platinum keyboard the “Rolls Royce of gaming keyboards.” As an all-around keyboard, however, it's not only a Rolls Royce but also a Ferrari, Aston Martin, Maserati, Bently...well, you get the picture. The K95 XT also falls under this description. One of the first things you’ll notice about either K95, are their heft and stiffness. This thing weighs a ton (for a keyboard). Both of the K95s owe their heft and rigidity to their inspired aircraft-grade anodized brushed aluminum frame, which screams: QUALITY! As a result, the K95 doesn’t flex even under the most relentless pounding as most plastic keyboards would. The next thing that pops out at you is this keyboard’s beauty. Corsair has long been known for its quality keyboards and the K95 XT doesn’t disappoint in the least. Compared to all other keyboards (regardless of price), both K95s are works of art you’ll continue to appreciate long after you’ve purchased one.I purchased a K95 in 2019 and a K95 XT in 2020. These two keyboards are nearly identical, so one may ask, “Why would you buy two nearly identical and VERY expensive keyboards?” Of course, I could answer, “Because I can,” but the very subtle improvements of the K95 XT simply won me over. Little things bothered me. I ordered my K95 with Brown switches because that was the closest choice to my preferred keyswitch, the Blues, which were unavailable on the original K95. Corsair, in my opinion, made a huge mistake not offering Blue and Green keyswitches with the original K95. They could have sold many more K95s had they done so. I ordered my K95 XT with Blue switches. In addition, I hated the cheap, hard plastic wrist rest that came with the original K95. The K95 XT’s pillow-like plush leatherette wrist rest is a HUGE improvement and brings its flagship keyboard up to the standard long ago adopted by many of the best keyboard manufacturers, all Corsair competitors.There are, of course, other subtleties that won me over to the K95 XT, but the elephant in the room was the real reason for my purchase of an XT—my K95 had a glaring malfunction: the USB disconnected continually, rendering the keyboard useless. Corsair gladly suggested I return the keyboard in exchange for a new one. I never did return the K95 because I was convinced the problem was with the iCUE software, not the keyboard. I decided to wait until Corsair fixed the software problem. I was wrong, it WAS a hardware problem. Now it’s too late to return the keyboard. My new K95 XT, thankfully, is free of this hardware problem (experienced by MANY K95 purchasers), and works flawlessly. I regret not sending my original K95 back to Corsair in exchange for a new one. It does, however, serve as a very excellent paperweight.My purchase of an XT and not another high-end keyboard like Corsair’s new K100, reveals my fondness for the original K95 design: solid, beautiful, classic, refined, stylish, but not flashy. It is still a work of art, professional and preferable to DIY mechanical keyboards. Many “in-the-know” folks say that an owner of the original K95 should stay the course rather than “upgrade” to the XT and, in large part, I agree. Unless, of course, you’re like me and can use and appreciate the subtle improvements of the XT and can afford the expense.Mechanical KeyswitchesAs a flagship keyboard, the K95 XT is, of course, a mechanical keyboard, which refers to its mechanical keyswitches. The keyswitch choice for the K95 is, unfortunately, very limited to two types: Cherry MX Speed and Cherry MX Brown. The K95 XT adds Cherry MX Blue and Cherry MX Speed Silvers. Of course, the Speeds are preferable for gaming while the Browns are meant to be a compromise between gaming and typing. The Blues are clickier versions of the Browns, a very popular keyswitch and my personal favorite, although I fell in love with the Browns. While I infrequently play video games and most of my work involves writing and general typing, the Speeds were out of the question for me. I can’t get enough (obviously) of the loud click and tactile bump the Blues and Greens provide. Many would agree with me, but just as many find the Blues and Greens to be intolerable (as do other members of the household and fellow office workers often do). The Browns are really a “silent” version of the Blues and don’t provide much of a tactile bump. Still, the Browns manage to deliver a VERY satisfying typing experience. They are crisp, precise and not all that silent.By-the-way, when referencing a Cherry MX Blue keyswitch, know that Cherry is the name of the manufacturer, a German company. MX stands for “mechanical” and Blue describes this keyswitch’s “clickyness” and tactile bump.Macro Keys and RemappingPerhaps the most useful feature of the K95s are the six macro keys running down the left side of the keyboard. Along with the iCUE software that is downloadable from the Corsair website, you can program these macro keys to use keyboard events, mouse movements, mouse clicks and the mouse wheel to issue complex commands, select menu items or type long strings of characters. Macros in each profile can be activated by a specific program associated with them, or you can manually switch between each profile with a simple key press. Although there are only six macro keys, up to three onboard profiles (five with the XT) allow you to program and use up to eighteen macros (thirty with the XT). Unfortunately, many find programming macros and profiles in iCUE to be quite difficult. The iCUE software does not present an intuitive interface and commands. For instance, there’s no way to “save” a macro or profile. Unintuitively, iCUE saves the macro or profile you create automatically, without need to issue a “save” command. Many find this “feature” disconcerting (was the macro saved or not?). The complexity and confusion of the iCUE software is due to its ability to use keyboard events, mouse movements, mouse clicks and the mouse wheel to issue complex commands and select menu items, not just keyboard events. Learning to create profiles, for some, has a long learning curve and viewing YouTube videos to learn how to create profiles is essential. The tutorial videos on the Corsair website are often narrated by speed-talkers who fly through explanations so fast, you find yourself rewinding sections and reviewing them over and over. I must say, however, that once you “get the hang of it,” iCUE is a joy to use.Some people find the location of the macro keys problematic. Some mistake the G1 key with the “ESC” key, while others mistake the G6 key with the “CTRL” key. Fortunately, I have no such problem since the macro keys are textured and color-coded. What if eighteen macro keys aren’t enough for you? The iCUE software enables you to “remap” any key to do anything you want it to do, including making keys other than the six G keys behave like macro keys. This allows you to use those otherwise almost useless “F” keys at the top of the keyboard to finally start pulling their own weight as additional macro keys. Also, often unused keys (like the Pause / Break key, the Insert key, the Scroll Lock key, etc.) can be remapped to become macro keys. This remapping capability is a delight, an efficiency booster and time saver.RGB BacklightingThe keys on the K95s are individually lit (also called, “per-key backlighting”), unlike some RGB keyboards which often use zone lighting. In zone lighting, one cannot assign a color to just one key…it has to be to a third of the keys on the keyboard or a fourth. In fact, most “RGB” keyboards utilize zone lighting, not per-key lighting, which is a premium feature. The keycap characters on both K95s are big, bold and allow plenty of backlight to shine through them, making typing in low light or no light situations a breeze. The XT has double-shot PBT keycaps which is somewhat of an improvement over the K95. Many backlit keyboards use small, skinny keycap characters and/or dim backlighting, negating the whole point of backlit keys. Such keyboards make typing in the dark a difficult proposition. The K95s have a button with a sun symbol on it which adjusts backlight brightness: Off, Dim, Medium and Bright.The K95s use true RGB L.E.D. lighting. Many keyboards tout RGB backlighting as a feature. In their case, it’s true that Red+Blue=Purple and that other combinations of Red, Green and Blue (RGB) can create other colors. Such keyboards, in reality, have only eight or ten colors available to them. However, the K95s use the entire RGB spectrum, which contains approximately 16.8 million colors. The K95s utilize “brightness” to expand the RGB spectrum. This allows the K95 to display truly amazing lighting effects such as the “Spiral Rainbow” and other effects which you can either create yourself or import into iCUE from the internet or obtain from a friend.You can also customize the keyboard with functional backlighting. For instance, I made all the alphabetic character keys shine with a white light, while the number pad keys illuminate in cyan; the ESC, Delete, Enter, Backspace, Del, keypad Num, Enter and Decimal point keys all shine in red; the Tab, Caps Lock and both Shift and Alt keys shine in blue, the G keys shine in pink, the F keys shine in cyan, etc. The F key shines in yellow (YouTube enlarge, minimize window), while the J key shines in cyan (YouTube rewind 10 seconds), the K key shines in magenta (YouTube Stop) and the L key shines in green (YouTube advance 10 seconds). This makes each grouping of keys distinct and quickly identifiable, making typing in a darkened environment much easier. My computer desk happens to be located in a dimly-lit corner and I prefer working in a darkened environment anyway, but with the K95’s bold key characters and brilliant backlighting, typing is a cinch—especially at night, when that corner gets even darker.Whether you purchase the K95 (approximately $176) or the K95 XT (approximately $230), you’ll have a premium keyboard that’s a joy to use and a great addition to your art collection. K95 users need not upgrade to the K95 XT unless they need and appreciate the K95 XT's subtle improvements and can afford the expense. Both provide a keyboard’s basic functions and much more. Except for some subtle differences, both K95s are basically indistinguishable from each other.Look, lets get this out of the way: This is a great keyboard. Really solid and well put together. I've tried around 12 mechanical setups in the past month and this one is clearly the best (most were in the $50-$75 range while this one is triple that, so it should be). Big fan of the volume controls + roller, user/brightness/lock shortcut keys, and the 6 hotkeys down the left. They give you 10 highly textured keys to swap out the left hand gaming keys. In case you're unfamiliar, that's 6 for MOBA-style games and 4 for FPS games -- these are a nice set. The base keys have a slightly rough texture that I like -- few typists want fully smooth keys. I had no performance issues (response, ghosting, etc.) whatsoever. If you're not familiar with Brown switches: These give you a bit of feedback on keypress without all the noisy clicking of Blue switches (which sound like the old IBM mechanical keyboards) -- much better if you spend much time on the phone while typing.That said, once we've established its a REALLY NICE keyboard, I'm a bit annoyed by it. I bought this high end mechanical keyboard because I want to customize it for typing and work. But Corsair only considered customizing for gaming. I thought I could use the gaming keycaps to meet some of my needs. But the heavily slanted key tops make them undesirable for anything but gaming. I was all set to bitch heavily about Corsair's lack of forethought in regard to non-gaming customization. But honestly its gotta be tough to predict all the non-gaming ways someone may want to customize their board without including an entire set of alternate caps. But at this price, maybe a full set of alternate caps shouldn't be out of the question. At minimum, they should include ESC, WIN, DEL, F, J, ENT, Arrows and possibly a select few of A, F1, F5, F11, CTRL, ALT, Home, End, Backspace, and Tab (and 1-10 while they're at it!). But again, this is just whining. Its a great keyboard and its got good options for gaming. If you want more, find a good set of laser etched PBTs and start swapping.Ever since I got my Corsair K70 I was hooked to mechanical keyboards. I spilled a drink on it and I believe some of it might have got inside the switches, as that would explain why I get repeats on so many keys. I hoped the K95 Platinum XT would be the be-all and end-all for me, but far from it.I was unable to get back to full typing speed, to the point where I measured the keys thinking they were smaller. They felt smaller but no, they are the same size as the K70.The blue switches also felt like a very tame version of the switches I was used to on the K70. I thought I was shipped brown switches by mistake, but they are indeed blue. If you are the kind of person that get a little jolt of pleasure feeling and hearing the click of a blue switch, you may get disappointed if you owned a louder keyboard.The thing is that I could not get the keyboard to work with my A/B switch which I use to switch between keyboard and screen from my work and home setup. Whenever I switch now I have to unplug and replug the K95, even when updated with the latest firmware. The K70 handled that flawlessly.The build quality is pretty amazing on the K95 however. And the wrist rest feels fantastic. If none of the "flaws" I mentioned apply to you this is a solid purchase.I have ordered the K70 RGB MK2 and will return this one. To each his own and this one, as premium as it is, is not for me.I own more than 20 mechanical and membrane keyboards including Logitech and Razers. By-far, this is hands down easily the best. Great hand feel, built like a tank, very sensitive actuation, and awesome, well thought out features. This makes several of my other $200 keyboards look like hot garbage. Highly recommended.(Read the end, with the new Edition).For a Keyboard with this price tag I had many inconvenient with the one I got:Since day 1 they first time I plugged in the keyboard I had to disconnect it many times since it would just not work at all after working for about 30 seconds once drivers were installed, As I know how electronics are and sometimes they will just glitch out I did unplug and plugged back the keyboard after few seconds and it worked again just to find out later that the rgb would stop working properly and ignoring whatever was stored in the keyboard profile.To try and get the keyboard working properly I did hardware reset, firmware update, reinstalling drivers, cleaning the coms... etc.The keyboard kept failing on the same way for a whole week... since I did not care that much about rgb I stopped worrying, after about 2 weeks of use were enough for it to stop working again just like day 1 having to unplug and plug back the keyboard up to 3 times every hour.I did contacted corsair for assistance and the person who took my case told me I was eligible for a replacement and needed to confirm my personal info, I did so and I'm still waiting for an answer and that was more than a week a go...The conclusion is... for the price of this keyboard the quality is too low... even if the switches are nice and all you should not have this kind of problem with a device that should be plug and play, there are plenty of cheaper mechanical keyboards that will work just fine and wont give you such headaches like this one gave to me.I usually don't write reviews on product and let alone bad ones, but this one got to me hard.**** EDIT ***Giving it 4 stars, not 5 because of the first problem, but Corsair is a good company with good return/replacement policies.The new keyboard came as it should have the first time, works great, plug and play... been using it for a week now and not a single problem with it.Would recommend it.