Overall and Final Verdict
It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 4 years from my first look at the original Corsair Vengeance keyboards. Between now and then not too much has changed, the Strafe still has the same cleaning styling though to be far we lost the solid one-piece aluminum design. The Strafe still has the same Corsair build quality and with them partnered directly with Cherry there isn’t any question there as well. I’m loving the bright RGB backlighting and especially the ability to import and export lighting effect designs.
Now the keyboard isn’t perfect. With them dropping the media controls the top bezel being almost an inch wide seems a little unnecessary now. I would also love to see them bump up the size of the feet on the bottom, they are undersized even for a keyboard half the size and that only gets worse when you flip out the rear feet because they didn’t include rubber feet on those. Then of course the bottom row isn’t a standard layout, I still don’t see the benefit to going non-standard here when going with a standard layout opens up the possibility of replacing keycaps as needed, especially later in life when you start to wear through the painted ABS caps that the Strafe comes with. Then of course are the USB plugs being too large to plug in next to each other.
The Strafe is in a unique position though. Not only is it one of the only options available with RGB backlighting and high quality Cherry MX switches. It is also the ONLY keyboard available with the new Cherry MX Silent switches. The new switches were a night and day difference in sound, if you don’t believe me check out the video in the performance section. Hopefully soon they introduce a tactile MX Brown model as well.
With an MSRP of just under $160 the Strafe has also slightly lowered the buy in cost to get an RGB Corsair keyboard. If you are just looking for a non-silent model you can find a Strafe for as low as $140 right now. How does this compare to the competition? Well currently you can pick up the Razer BlackWidow Chroma for the same price. The Logitech G910 is less at about $140. The SteelSeries Apex M800 is the most expensive at $180. Basically the Strafe isn’t cheap, but it is priced better than the rest of the big names and you are getting genuine Cherry switches. That’s not bad in my book!
Live Pricing: HERE
