Corsair K95 RGB or Logitech Orion Spark

Which Keyboard?

  • Logitech Orion Spark

    Votes: 12 50.0%

  • Corsair K95 RGB

    Votes: 9 37.5%

  • Other

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Total voters
    24
B

blairellis

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 11, 2007
Messages
398
Looking for a new keyboard to replace my Logitech K350.

What is your choice on new high end keyboards?

If there is another one you like, please tell me about it. These are the 2 that I am considering right now.
 
I agree. Not Corsair. Mine had 9 dead LED's and after a month of waiting for an RMA, Corsair finally agreed to give me a full refund. 4-6 weeks to process the refund. So basically, almost 3 months total. I have the Logitech 710+ now and love it.
 
Cyrix2k said:
Not Corsair.

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Not the RGB variant.

The RGB version is physically quite a bit different (it uses SMD LED's), and it should provide better reliability from individual LED's going out.

However there have been reports of bad software from the early adopters of the Corsair RGB boards.


The Logitech Orion is a complete unknown at this point. They aren't using a known switch, so the performance and feel of those switches will have a big part to play in how that keyboard evaluates.
 
I love Corsair and the looks of their new RGB, but they fubar'd them somehow. So many issues with both the software and the board itself.
 
Wow, Looks like their build quality on the keyboards isn't up to their usual par level. Too bad. It looked like that could have been a nice input device.
 
I've been considering getting a K95 RGB for a while and this is the first I've heard of the Orion Spark. I'm glad I waited.

The all-new Logitech Romer-G™ mechanical switch actuates at a distance of 1.5mm. That’s up to 25% shorter and faster than the leading competitor. Low-force, 45g actuation results in near-instant responsiveness and helps minimize fatigue over long gaming sessions.
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It sounds like they are similar to reds but with a shorter actuation distance. I think I would like that better than I like Cherry Reds and I prefer reds over all the other cherry switches.

Also if you think the 3 dead LEDs on that board are bad. I have a standard K95 with 28 dead LEDs. If that happened with a Logitech keyboard they would send you a new one for free.


The Orion Spark is extremely tempting. I'll probably wait for a few reviews, but my wallet is ready.
 
I too originally planned to get a K95 RGB (and a K65 RGB) in CherryMX Red most likely. However, the issues and late launch had me wait a bit. I'm also interested to see if Corsair's RGB products work well under Linux, with the abiility to change lighting, set macros etc...

I like Corsair better aesthetically and the RGB edition switches are far less likely to lead to dead LED. Logitech's other g-series items have worked excellently for me in the past, including on Linux thanks to open source SDKs for the logitech LCDs and macro keys. They've even made SDKs for the new G series stuff available - http://gaming.logitech.com/en-us/developers - which is great! The aesthetic of the Orion Spark seems a little overly "flashy/GAMER KEWL" in a way that the earlier G19 and G13 have not been. No idea yet about the Romer-G switches in terms of quality, but its at least better the Razer's CherryMX chinese knockoffs, so I'll have to see. Unfortunately, the Orion's non-standard key-shapes and whatnot mean that 3rd party keysets made for Cherry MX switches won't fit, so goodbye to that "standard".

Still not sure what I want to do, so I may hold out to see what happens with the Orion Spark and its reviews. I really hope that ARX Control, the new replacement for the GamePanel LCD that uses your Android (or iOS) device, gets better. Right now its pretty barebones, but at least its in the right direction.

Oh: Right now
 
theonlybabyface said:
I agree. Not Corsair. Mine had 9 dead LED's and after a month of waiting for an RMA, Corsair finally agreed to give me a full refund. 4-6 weeks to process the refund. So basically, almost 3 months total. I have the Logitech 710+ now and love it.
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Fortunately, there are actually very few instances of dead LEDs with the Corsair keyboards. The problem is, Cherry can't make the switches fast enough for Corsair and they're perpetually out of stock. This makes it a horrible end user experience for those who do end up with dead LEDs and need to do an RMA.

sharknice said:
It sounds like they are similar to reds but with a shorter actuation distance. I think I would like that better than I like Cherry Reds and I prefer reds over all the other cherry switches.
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No. They're NOTHING like the reds. If you have a chance to go to a Best Buy or something and try one in person, you'll find that the keys feel more like rubber dome than mechanical.

Not saying that's a bad thing. Different strokes for different folks. Some people LIKE the quietness and lack of feedback, but if you actually WANT reds, don't go with the Logitech.
 
JonnyGURU - The Logitech Orion Spark is available now at Best Buy? I thought they weren't available until November and I can't find them on Amazon or BestBuy 's websites. Is there something else with this exact "Romer-G" switch available to try out there? Then again, if I remember correctly from your username you're a solid reviewer (I recall your excellent power supply teardowns over the years) , so maybe you've tested something not available to the general public?
 
I am really liking my Logitech G710+ and I will be going with them in the future for all my keyboard needs.
 
Wait till Christmas. by that time SteelSeries will have their Apex mechanical version :) (and yes, I know it from "sources")
 
Morgoth, would you happy to know...er...predict if the mechanical Apex will have per-key RGB illumination? Cherry MX switches uses or something else? Macro keys? An open source SDK/API and/or utility that means it can be programmed (color, and macros etc) and/or usable on Linux etc..?

If Logitech were using Cherry MX RGB and thus could accept any keycaps made for them, I'd be very likely to purchase them, because of not just their utility (Logitech Gaming Software is better made than most drivers), but the SDK/API for lighting, programming, and Arx means that support will be wide-ranging. Logitech became the de-facto "standard" with their G-series because of the GamePanel and G-keys open source SDK with permissive licensing was available in every driver download - that's the reason that more programs than ever support Logi's GamePanel, from Borderlands and World of Warcraft, to Mumble, to CoreTemp etc... while there is little support for Razer's SwitchbladeUI or whatever MadCatz tried to do.
 
If it is important to you, you might want to know that it has been discovered that Corsair's RGB line can only produce 512 colors. The story has been going on for about a week now as the #RGBGate.

Via Corsair's forum.
 
_PixelNinja said:
If it is important to you, you might want to know that it has been discovered that Corsair's RGB line can only produce 512 colors. The story has been going on for about a week now as the #RGBGate.

Via Corsair's forum.
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16.8 million colors... but you only get to use .003% of them! I'm genuinely upset with Corsair over this debacle of a keyboard. I was planning on getting it until I saw all the issues. Hopefully their next revisions straighten everything out.
 
According to CalcProgrammer1, the person who has been investigating the problem in depth, the problem is due to the limitations of the Panasonic LED matrices being used. He thinks it is possible to work around the limitation, but that it will not be an easy thing to do :

CalcProgrammer1 said:
It doesn't sound easy at all, but if they optimize it well, yes. With the new numbers we have 144 LEDs updating at 194Hz. 144*194 = 27936 LED scan frames per second. That means 35uS per LED frame. Considering that the palette supports 7 (possibly 8 but I'm not certain) independent PWM values at once, that means you only have to update the palette every 7 LED frames, or 7*35 = 245uS. That is more lenient than the 115uS I came up with earlier. Since we know now that the SPI clock frequency can be up to 10MHz as opposed to 1MHz, that cuts our previous bit time of 1uS down to 0.1uS. The SPI write takes 16 bits (making my 2-byte assumption correct) which is 8 bits for write flag and address and 8 bits for data. It looks like you must specifiy address for each byte written. 16 bits * 0.1uS = 1.6uS per write. However, now you're updating the entire palette rather than just one LED, so that becomes 1.6uS * 7 = 11.2uS to update the entire palette (not including delays between transfers). Now you need to do this three times because there are three drivers to update. If they wired all of them on the same bus, this takes 11.2uS * 3 = 33.6uS but if they are using three independent SPI busses this could still only be 11.2uS plus a bit of processing time. That means updating 11.2uS over a period of 245uS, which seems more reasonable. This still seems to be a very high demand on the CPU and will require perfect synchronization, but if they optimize well it does seem doable, though pushing the limit.
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Source.

I honestly think is was a big mistake for Cherry to let Corsair have an exclusivity on the RGB Cherry MX switches. Corsair did not successfully implement classic LEDs on their Vengeance line and Cherry expected them to do a good job with the RGB LEDs that are harder to work with. If someone did a poor job at building a shack would you ask them to construct a house? It is a shame.
 
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I guess time will tell. Before I even saw that link I did think the colour gradation I was seeing on my keyboard was a little off.

Also, I've got the Cherry Red variant and I can't decide whether I like them or not. Wondering if I should return it at go for one with Blues or Browns.

I don't mind the lack of audible feedback but the lack of tactile feedback feels really odd. I'm going to see how it goes for a week or two and then decide. If I can get my hands on a Blue/Brown variant at the same time then so much the better.
 
So a quick update.

My Corsair is being a right pain in the ass. It was working fine but now some of the reassigned keys are not responding.

For example, my FPS profile has the following reassignments:

Insert ==> Esc
Delete ==> Tab

Keypad Enter ==> Right Shift

This is because I mouse with my left hand so I use the NumPad and adjacent keys with my right hand for movement etc.

This was working fine, just yesterday in fact. Today, no dice...

If I set it to a profile/mode without reassignments the keys work just fine and perform their default actions. They just refuse to work if they're reassigned.

It's obviously a software bug but frankly I don't have time these days to tinker and fuck about trying to get shit working in the manner it should be from factory. I just want to buy stuff and have it work as intended out of the box.

And one thing I absolutely do not have time for is companies failing to QA shit as they should. This is a £130 keyboard, is it too much to ask that it and the supporting software fucking work!

I'm trying not to loose the love for Corsair but it's fading fast for a number of reasons and this keyboard is probably going to mark the final time I spend money with them.

I'm going to return this K70 RGB and wait it out for the Logitech Orion or Razer Blackwidow Chroma.
 
Syphon Filter said:
So a quick update.

My Corsair is being a right pain in the ass. It was working fine but now some of the reassigned keys are not responding.

For example, my FPS profile has the following reassignments:

Insert ==> Esc
Delete ==> Tab

Keypad Enter ==> Right Shift

This is because I mouse with my left hand so I use the NumPad and adjacent keys with my right hand for movement etc.

This was working fine, just yesterday in fact. Today, no dice...

If I set it to a profile/mode without reassignments the keys work just fine and perform their default actions. They just refuse to work if they're reassigned.

It's obviously a software bug but frankly I don't have time these days to tinker and fuck about trying to get shit working in the manner it should be from factory. I just want to buy stuff and have it work as intended out of the box.

And one thing I absolutely do not have time for is companies failing to QA shit as they should. This is a £130 keyboard, is it too much to ask that it and the supporting software fucking work!

I'm trying not to loose the love for Corsair but it's fading fast for a number of reasons and this keyboard is probably going to mark the final time I spend money with them.

I'm going to return this K70 RGB and wait it out for the Logitech Orion or Razer Blackwidow Chroma.
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I'm having similar thoughts. I love the design and the features of the Corsair keyboards, but my experiences with the K90 and regular K95 weren't great. The K90 had the key repeat problem. It was fixed by a firmware update so it wasn't that bad, but my K95 has 28 dead LEDs. This is unacceptable. Also the first K95 I received was bent and wobbled on the desk and I had to exchange it.
It makes me wonder if Corsair does any form of quality control on their keyboards.

Then there is Logitech who will straight up send you a new keyboard if it has any problems and their keyboards seem to have excellent quality control. Their software is also much better for macros which is the whole point of getting a K95 over a K70.

I'm contemplating pre-ordering a Spark right now.
 
Well, I recently had issues with the Logitech K830.

That's a £75-85 living room keyboard and, quite frankly, it was poorly built. Way too flexible/flimsy and the left-click button in the top left corner was hit and miss.

Then the whole thinght started to behave REALLY intermittently. All this within a couple of weeks of owning it.

Returned for a refund.

My experience with Razer isn't great either to be honest. I had an Onza that had to replaced (and is now unused). I also have an Orochi which has actually been fine but used less these days as I don't use my laptop for work anymore.

Can't win in my opinion. So many companies are letting paying customers do the legwork of QA/Beta-testing these days.

SteelSeries could be an option I suppose...but no idea what their keyboards are like...
 
Logitech makes solid mice but their keyboards are not very well built. The construction on the G710+ is flimsy and far from being worthy of keyboard of it's price.

If you want a solidly built back-lit keyboard, albeit minus the RGB LEDs, Ducky Channel is as good as it gets. For a more bang for buck solution Cooler Master keyboards are worth the money (avoid the QuickFire Pro and QuickFire Ultimate models though as they are made by iOne).
 
Is there a 3rd party utility that supports remapping of keys with selectable profiles?

The reason is, as per previous post, I'm a lefty and use a tweaked mapping for gaming.

In normal use (i.e. non-gaming) I use a default mapping but when I game I like to reassign keys. The main reason for this is that no all games support binding of keys like KeyPad_Enter etc. so being able to remap those is really handy for me.
 
Syphon Filter said:
Razer Chroma looks ok...seems to have reviewed well too.
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I got my hands on a few of them with Razer Green Kailhua switches and I found them to be inconsistent in terms of actuation force and clickyness (some keys barely clicking at all). I do not know if this is common on the newer Blackwidows with Kailhuas or if it only concerns a batch but I was not impressed.
 
I give up. It's like quality control has just gone out the window in recent years. It's a nightmare. Buying a product shouldn't be a damn lottery!

Seeing as my K70 has started working I may stick with it. I'm guessing the software has a long way to go.

I definitely need to replace it though as the Red switches are just not doing it for me. Gotta be Blues or Browns. Not sure how loud the Blues are though, either way, I MUST have tactile feedback. I slightly heavier press would be nice too...
 
Syphon Filter said:
I give up. It's like quality control has just gone out the window in recent years. It's a nightmare. Buying a product shouldn't be a damn lottery!
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Not really. It is more that brands have jumped on the mechanical keyboard bandwagon and decided to go the 'Gamer' route; selling products with more flash than substance.

There are brands out there like Ducky, FILCO, KÛL, Leopold, Topre, Vortex and even Cooler Master that put out good reliable products for the money. The problem is that people fall for the marketing hype on the 'shiny' and/or RGB LEDs of the Razers, Corsairs, Logitechs, Tesoros, Gamedias etc. when the build quality is not worthy of the price being asked.
 
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I asked earlier if there are any that allow remapping of keys or a 3rd on a switchable profile basis or a 3rd party app to do that...

Happy to look at alternatives.
 
It depends what you are looking for. Some commercial SKUs allow minor modifications via DIP switches. There are (much) more expensive custom boards that can be entirely programmable. For third party applications that allow you to remap keys, you might want to look at MSKLC, KeyTweak or AutoHotkey.

Hope that helps somewhat. :)
 
_PixelNinja said:
Not really. It is more that brands have jumped on the mechanical keyboard bandwagon and decided to go the 'Gamer' route; selling products with more flash than substance.

There are brands out there like Ducky, FILCO, KÛL, Leopold, Topre, Vortex and even Cooler Master that put out good reliable products for the money. The problem is that people fall for the marketing hype on the 'shiny' and/or RGB LEDs of the Razers, Corsairs, Logitechs, Tesoros, Gamedias etc. when the build quality is not worthy of the price being asked.
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I picked up the Ducky Shine 4 mx brown just in time before it went out of stock. It isn't RGB (because corsair has exclusive rights to RGB cherry mx which is why all other RGBs are non cherry) but it is 2 LEDs. Makes different shades between red and blue. Looks pretty good and very sturdy. I like the "hoove lifts" because they will not accidentally fall down which I had issues with other keyboards that have clip up lifts. I only really wanted 3-4 different LED colors to differentiate the keys. It is easy to customize once you get used to it (just difficult to learn at first) and no software needed. The keys feels really great and the lights are nice and bright. The build quality looks solid and the top plastic while not metal does have an aluminum like texture and feel. It is really solid keyboard. With autohotkey i made the not so useful home, pc, and mail buttons into media keys.
 
Bought my Corsair K95 back in March and I have 13 keys with dead led backlights with 16 more keys that are much dimmer than other keys so its only a matter of time before those fail.

I guess its to be expected when a company starts to expand its product line into areas that are new to them....live and learn I guess.
Contemplating going back to a Logitech keyboard or trying a Ducky.
 
Between the two, I'd advise going for Ducky. The G710+ is a cheaply made keyboard that is not worth the price they are asking for. In regards to the G910, it's new and it has not been out long enough for substantial feedback.
 
theonlybabyface said:
I agree. Not Corsair. Mine had 9 dead LED's and after a month of waiting for an RMA, Corsair finally agreed to give me a full refund. 4-6 weeks to process the refund. So basically, almost 3 months total. I have the Logitech 710+ now and love it.
Click to expand...

Good luck. I just retired my 710+ after my left control keycap broke. And it seems like a pretty common issue. Instead of them sending you a 50 cent part, they make you RMA the whole keyboard.

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/G-Ser...al-use-plastic-tops-Where-to-get/td-p/1075449

Ironically I ended up buy a corsair RGB K65.
 
Diverge said:
Good luck. I just retired my 710+ after my left control keycap broke. And it seems like a pretty common issue. Instead of them sending you a 50 cent part, they make you RMA the whole keyboard.

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/G-Ser...al-use-plastic-tops-Where-to-get/td-p/1075449

Ironically I ended up buy a corsair RGB K65.
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So did you actually go through their RMA process? Logitech typically just sends you a completely new keyboard for free and you don't even need to send the old one back.

You could also just buy a new keycap instead of a whole new keyboard... lol
http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index....ngles/row-1-size-1x1-25-cherry-mx-keycap.html
There are numerous other places to buy them as well.
 
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