Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

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CA_Steve
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Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Mar 21, 2016 10:59 am

I picked one of these up last week. It's my first mechanical keyboard, and man, am I having a learning curve for key actuation pressure vs typos. ;)

As far as SPCR is concerned, it's way less clacky than my horribly old dome keyboards....and while the key actuation pressure is significantly more, the precision feel is great (again vs. really old, hammered on dome keyboards).

Cistron
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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by Cistron » Mon Mar 21, 2016 1:20 pm

Welcome to the realm of civilised typing ;)

Are these variants of the Cherry red switches with O-ring to prevent bottoming out?

edit: just found, oooooh, new 'silent' cherry mx switches.

CA_Steve
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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Mar 21, 2016 1:45 pm

Yep, those are the ones.

MattHelm
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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by MattHelm » Wed Mar 23, 2016 11:19 am

But why did they put all the special shift keys upside down??? (example, on 99% of keyboards, the "*" is above the "8" key, but on theses, it's "8" above "*". I don't mind most of the time, but keys I don't use much, I use shift at the wrong time!!!

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by CA_Steve » Wed Mar 23, 2016 2:55 pm

It's just a bit of brain adjustment.

I like that I can see the non-shift keys w/o my reading glasses :)

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by Quinnbeast » Fri Mar 25, 2016 3:46 am

So, these are around £145 in the UK - approx $205 at the current exchange rate. The EU mark-up is strong with this one. That makes me a sad chicken.

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Mar 25, 2016 6:09 am

Bummer. I caught mine on sale for $120.

Cistron
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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by Cistron » Sat Mar 26, 2016 12:51 am

Corsair has an exclusivity deal with Cherry for six months. Once the competition rolls in prices will probably drop. I'm still waiting fork a nice tenkeyless wireless mechanical keyboard. Maybe it's to come :)

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by Abula » Sat Mar 26, 2016 6:28 am

Cistron wrote:I'm still waiting fork a nice tenkeyless wireless mechanical keyboard. Maybe it's to come :)
Varmilo VB87M Bluetooth Keyboard

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by NeilBlanchard » Mon Mar 28, 2016 4:35 am

The upside down keys would be the deal breaker for me. But quiet would be nice. I just got two different mechanical keyboards (because they are so durable). Here at work, I have a Corsair K70 with Cherry MX Red's and I added the o-rings. At home I have a Mac, so I got a Das Keyboard Model S Pro, which uses a knockoff MX Brown switch, and I also added the o-rings.

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by dreamalittle » Mon Apr 04, 2016 6:12 pm

Glad you're enjoying the better feel of the switches OP :)

I think a lot of us were excited to see the new cherry "silents" (should be called "less noisy" instead imo) and the QS-1 by steelseries. Having tried both of these now I gotta say they're only slightly less noisy than reds/browns with o-rings, which is still very noisy. I'm on browns with o-rings at the moment and I just ordered a logitech k740 (membrane) because I just can't handle the noise and miss my apple membrane keyboard which had beautiful acoustics compared with mecha.

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by NeilBlanchard » Sat Apr 30, 2016 7:48 pm

I just got a new system here at home, and I got a Logitech G810 Orion Spectrum keyboard, that uses their own Romer G switches - and it is the quietest mechanical keyboard I have tried. I looked for the Strafe, and was not able to see one in person. There are a few video comparisons. I like the Strafe's wrist rest, but didn't like it's lack of a volume control. The K70 and the G810 have the broad roller volume controls.

So, I got a 3M wrist rest, and I am really enjoying it. It is about the same sound as many cheap keyboards. The rebound noise in particular is MUCH better than the K70 with Cherry Reds. My Das Keyboard has Cherry Browns, and that is somewhere between the K70 and the G810.

The control on the backlighting goes way too far, but having the areas have different colors is useful. All the moving and dynamic lighting is worse than nothing.

The Romer G switches are rated for 70 Million keystrokes. Which is amazing on its own. But having them be this quiet is nearly perfect.

To sum up:

Corsair K70 with Cherry Red: useful red-only backlight, nice USB 3.0 pass through, nice volume control, and aluminum frame with excellent wrist rest too. A tad noisy even with o-rings.

Das Keyboard 4 for Mac with their own version of Cherry Brown switches: no backlight so needs good task lighting, two USB2.0 ports, decent volume control. Key marking seems a bit weak, but may hold up fine. Pretty quiet with o-rings.

Logitech G810: Romer G switches, that include over the top RGB backlighting that is useful. No USB ports, and no wrist rest. Extremely sturdy but all plastic exterior, and a great volume control. The quietest of these three, and they claim it is much more durable (it has two contacts in each switch). It has a shorter stroke, and is very nice to type on.

Here's a fuzzy picture (with the Das Keyboard 4 in the upper left of the picture):

Image

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun May 01, 2016 4:29 am

Interesting. Thanks for posting your brief impressions, Neil!

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by Abula » Sun May 01, 2016 4:49 am

Hey NeilBlanchard, i heard that when you leave it some time afk, it goes into modes like breathing, etc, that it doesnt remember the settings you left it or config it, is this true?

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by CA_Steve » Sun May 01, 2016 6:47 am

Thanks, Neil.

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Re: Corsair Strafe RGB Silent keyboard

Post by NeilBlanchard » Sun May 01, 2016 10:23 am

So far, it has not "forgotten" the setting I have in Win10. During boot up, it does a kind of full RGB wave mode. Which looks neat, but there is no way you could use it in anything that dynamic.

Here's a video of a display screen that Logitech made using a 160 of these keyboards with the key caps removed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf4GSWRuY-c

Here's some full reviews of the Logitech G810 Orion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MJPtoxUx7Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LjjTy_t3vU

And the Corsair Strafe RGB Silent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECZVYsKgrkY

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