Corsair K70 Pro TKL Review: Dialled in

I know I’m meant to be more excited about the customisable Hall Effect keys on the Corsair K70 Pro TKL, but honestly, my favourite feature is the rotary dial.

Pros	Cons
Rotary dial feels great and works well	Pricey for a TKL keyboard
iCue software gives lots of customisation options	iCue can be kind of kludgy to use
Customisable actuation for most keys	Quite heavy

Score: 3.5/5

	Buy The Corsair K70 Pro TKL!	Buy On Amazon

If you use the link above, ART may earn a small commission

In this review

Corsair K70 Pro TKL Design
Corsair K70 Pro TKL Performance
Corsair K70 Pro TKL Conclusion

Ethical disclaimer: The Corsair K70 Pro TKL used in this review was sent to me by Corsair for the purposes of review.

Honestly, I don’t know if they’re going to ask for it back or not, but then, this never makes a ounce of difference to my reviews anyway; having access to it gets it reviewed and Corsair has no influence on my reviews at all.

That’s as it should be, but far too many reviews omit any kind of disclosure, or bury it at the end of reviews. I think differently on this score. For more on ART’s ethical policy, see here.

Design

Corsair K70 Pro TKL is a tenkeyless keyboard, and if you’re not familiar with that designation, it means it’s a keyboard that omits a number pad in the pursuit of being slightly smaller and allowing for more desk space.

TKL keyboards have their biggest fans in the gaming community where there’s more to be made from having more mousing space when the action gets frantic than in being able to more accurately fill out Excel spreadsheets. I’m sure I know which I’d rather be doing, though I’m far from being able to call myself any kind of PC gaming pro.

While it’s moderately sized, measuring in at roughly 36.6×13.5cm, it’s got some fair heft to it at 1.46kg. Connectivity is wired-only, with a supplied USB-C to USB-A cable in the box; the USB-C end is the plug end for the keyboard, so if you wanted to use the Corsair K70 Pro TKL with most laptops, you might also need a USB-C adaptor to make that happen.

I do appreciate it being a removable cable, as it does mean if it frays over time, it’s easily replaceable.

Being a gaming-centric keyboard, it’s RGB backlit – more on that later — but its other big design feature sits at the top right of the keyboard.

It’s a physical rotary dial that sits to the side of the media play/pause and game mode buttons. By default the rotary dial should act as your volume control. Not a totally new idea for keyboards of course, but the vast majority of units I’ve tested to date have tended to use horizontal rolling wheels for this kind of approach.

The Corsair K70 Pro TKL’s dial is a vertical unit with a slightly textured grip, and it’s really satisfying to use, as well as being customisable for other functions as needed.

Corsair’s pitch here is mostly for the game streaming crowd (it’s the owner of the Elgato brand, after all), and while there are other features in the Corsair K70 Pro TKL that will likely entice that crowd, I’ll come right out and say that the dial is my favourite feature. It feels robust and works well, and it’s also placed where I can quickly click it down if I want muting – yes, I’ve left it on volume control duties – or spin to pump up the volume as required.

Performance

As a wired USB keyboard, at one level getting the Corsair K70 Pro TKL up and running is no more complex than plugging it in. In most circumstances across PC, Mac, Xbox or PlayStation that’s all you might need, though you’d only be scratching the surface of what’s feasible here.

Corsair has a wide range of gaming peripherals to sell you, so naturally it has an all-in-one application for managing the features of connected devices.

That’s iCue, its PC and Mac software that lets you run through features such as adjustable RGB lighting and the precise functions of keys and the dial on the Corsair K70 Pro TKL. While I’m happy to have the rotary dial just control volume, you could switch it up to control brightness, vertical or horizontal scrolling or zoom functions at will.

The bigger selling point for iCue relative to the Corsair K70 Pro TKL specifically lies in the fact that the primary part of the keyboard is using Hall Effect Keys, giving them magnetic actuation rather than physical.

What this means is that you can set the point at which each key registers a press to be lighter or harder, depending on your mostly-gaming needs in millimetres as long as you’re not keen on changing the function, direction or home cluster of keys, because those are actually still just full mechanical keys. No, I don’t know why Corsair opted for that approach either.

To be clear here, changing the magnetic actuation doesn’t change the physical movement characteristics of the key itself, just the point where it will it count as a keystroke while you’re using it.

Set it to 0mm and it’ll fire up rapidly without delay, while setting it to the full 4mm and you’ll have to give it a hefty thump to get it to trigger, but it’ll feel like the same key either way. The appeal here is, once again, for gamers because this is a gaming centric-keyboard. I mean, you could go nuts with this and make a custom performance keyboard for your everyday office work, but I don’t think that’s the market that Corsair’s after here.

The Corsair K70 Pro TKL also supports Flash Tap, the ability to set priority on movement keys when pressed simultaneously, a feature primarily of interest to really competitive FPS players.

Am I one of those? No, I’m not, but I totally get the utility of being able to hold down one key and use another for marginal peeking and movement changes on the fly if that’s you. You can activate Flash Tap for last, first or neutral priority within iCue, though by default it’s disabled on the Corsair K70 Pro TKL.

While I totally appreciate the utility of iCue if you’re heavily in the Corsair-specific gaming space – and it’s not like other manufacturers don’t have their own take on the same idea – the actual experience of using it can be, well… mixed.

On a PC desktop running Windows 11, it sometimes got quite laggy in response, while the Mac version, tested with a MacBook Pro M4 had the tendency to outright crash, only working when relaunched if I totally rebooted the laptop.

It’s not uncommon for all-in-one peripheral software to be temperamental, but that doesn’t make it excusable or preferable.

Corsair’s take on the sound level of the Corsair K70 Pro TKL sits at a moderate level; you can definitely hear each key as you’re typing or gaming, but it’s not quite at the machine gun level of some mechanical keyboards.

As always that’s a bit of a personal preference level deal, as is the use (or lack thereof) of RGB backlighting. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of distracting glowy patterns, but there’s certainly a lot of scope for experimentation here.

Corsair K70 Pro TKL: Alex’s Verdict

If you’re after a TKL style keyboard, the Corsair K70 Pro TKL is definitely worth considering, though at a typical RRP of $299, it’s not exactly the lowest cost option out there.

It does appear to be being regularly discounted – while I’ve been testing it out I’ve seen it for around $260 from some retailers – but that’s still on the higher side of pricing. Corsair’s iCue software is very nicely customisable, but I do wish it was a little more stable and reliable for everyday use, too.

Was this review useful to you?
Support independent media by becoming a sponsor or buying me a coffee!
Join The Patreon!
[kofi]
Donate via PayPal

Find out more about how you can support Alex Reviews Tech here.