Recently I had the chance to check out the 700M from Cougar. I went in with a little hesitation but I was pleasantly surprised. The mouse was good but on top of that I was really blown away that a relatively new manufacture had this good of software. This told me that Cougar was investing a lot into their move into the peripheral market, good software is hard to find and very expensive to develop. So today I’m sitting here with the 700M’s partner in crime, the 700K mechanical keyboard. Is the 700K going to be as impressive as the 700M was? Well there is only one way to find out.

Product Name: Cougar 700K

Review Sample Provided by: Cougar

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

 

Specifications

Product name

COUGAR 700K gaming keyboard

Key switch

Cherry MX mechanical

Processor

32-bit ARM Cortex-M0

N-key rollover

Yes

Full key backlight

Yes

Game type

FPS / MMORPG / MOBA / RTS

On-board memory

Yes

Polling rate

1000Hz / 1ms

Repeat rate

1X / 2X / 4X / 8X

On-board memory

Yes

Material

Aluminum / Plastic

Software

COUGAR UIX™ SYSTEM

Additional programmable G-keys

6

Palm rest

Yes

Audio jacks

Yes

USB pass-through

Yes

Interface

Golden-plated USB plug

Cable length

1.8m Braided

Dimension

230(L) X 487(W) X 40(H) mm

Weight

1.2kg

 


Packaging

The box for the 700K was actually larger than I expected, not really with its length but with the width. This did give Cougar room to put a large angled photo of the keyboard across the front. Beyond that there is a small feature list down along the bottom, standard Cougar and 700K branding, and a badge for their UIX software as well. Around on the back we have another photo of the keyboard but this time they have highlighted key features with lines and short descriptions. Next to that there are photos of other key features, especially things you can’t see from the outside of the keyboard like the ARM processor built in, aluminum back plate, and the key switch types.

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When I dug into the packaging I was finally able to see why the box was larger than most other keyboards. A lot of the manufactures just slide the wrist rest up under the keyboard but Cougar has it features in a thick foam padding just like the keyboard. The thick padding also adds to the thickness of the box as well but it protects the 700K a lot more than what most other keyboard manufactures do with their keyboards. Along with the keyboard and wrist rest you also get a small manual and a few Cougar stickers in orange, orange and black, and just black.

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Photos and Features

Right away it is clear when you look at the 700K from Cougar that they were going with an aggressive gaming styling, just like their 700M gaming mouse. You get a full mostly traditional key layout, I will touch on what it different farther down in this section. You do get a full number pad, direction pad and everything else. They even included a whole list of programmable keys as well as media keys that don’t require the use of a function button. In fact there isn’t a function button at all. The sides of the keyboard are angled similar to a stealth plane. The larger portion of the keyboard is aluminum but there is still plastic along the top and bottom edges as well as on the back.

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Cougar included a wrist rest with the 700K along with a really unique FPS pad as well. When I first opened up the 700K I actually though that the keyboard was missing one of its two rubber pads. As it turns out Cougar just incudes the one as a way to raise your hand up a little more for playing games. They mention FPS specifically but RTS and MOBAs would also apply as well. I kind of feel like the wrist rest is a little unfinished looking, adding the rubber pad helps but with there only being one it feels lopsided. I kind of wish the whole wrist rest had that thick rubber finish.

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Cougar went with a similar design to what Corsairs has been doing by using the aluminum backplate for the key switches as the main piece of the entire keyboard. What I mean by that is they didn’t put a plastic cover over everything to fill in the space between keys. This makes keeping your keyboard clean much easier because you can just push it right off the side where you would normally have to remove keycaps and vacuum and wipe everything out.

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Along the back of the 700K we have the USB cord. Cougar used a thick sleeved cable to bundle up the two USB cords and the two passthrough audio cords as well to keep things cleaner. Also on the back of the keyboard over on the number pad side are the passthrough USB and audio connections.

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To the left of the main keyboard Cougar did include five programmable keys. These are unique because they are all angled towards the keyboard and none of them have a traditional square shape. Logitech, Corsair, and Razer have all used similar keys but they normally have a standard keycap shape.

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I think the most unique part about the 700K is its space bar. For starters the overall length is a little shorter than a standard spacebar. On top of that Cougar has split it into two keys, leaving he left half as a standard space bar and the right as one of the programmable keys. I’m really curious how this will work out for both gaming and typing, it has the potential to be a really cool feature but it also has the potential to really mess with your typing as well. I will find out in the performance section.

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Up along the top of the keyboard Cougar included buttons to flip between three macro modes or profiles. They also give you a button to be able to create a macro on the fly. Over on the top right you also get media controls like play, pause, skip forward, and skip back. Up under the media controls they also included volume controls above the number pad. So all of the buttons along the top use a switch that is similar to a mouse switch but the volume controls are membrane switches. It’s especially a bummer because the membrane switches feel even worse when next to the other two switch types. I really wish they would have gone with a mechanical for them or the mouse switch.

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So for switches you are getting Cherry branded switches. The 700K is available with four different types, the standard black/red/brown/blue. The model tested here has red Cherry MX switches though. Each switch has its own backlight LED as well. Cougar doesn’t actually mention what color the backlighting is on the 700K. It is a mixture of a red and an orange although I’m sure with orange being one of their main colors that that is most likely the color they are aiming for. I was a little surprised that the programmable keys over on the left were actually mechanical, the weird key shape made me question it. The keycaps are made of ABS in a transparent white and then are painted black so the legends will glow with the backlighting. Speaking of that Cougar went with a font that is similar to the Razer and Cooler Master fonts. This is what we consider a more gaming focused font but some people aren’t a fan. I’ve grown so used to it that I didn’t even notice until as I was writing this. Last but not least, for stabilizers I was happy to see that they went with Cherry stabilizers. This makes pulling the key caps off much easier because you don’t have to fight with the stabilizer wire.

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On the back of the 700K we can see that the wrist rest attaches down at the bottom in the two notches. For feat there are rubber pads next to those notches and then rubber pads on the flip out legs along the back. When the feet are flipped down the rubber still touches the ground giving you a little traction, but as a whole this is a little less than most keyboards have. In the center of the back we also have a sticker with all of the requires regulation badges along with the serial number and model number for warranty use.

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Software

When I had the chance to check out the 700M mouse from Cougar it was the software that really impressed me. So when I got ready to check out the 700K’s software I was excited to see if they had good software this time as well. I was a little disappointed that when I plugged in the 700K the Uix software I already had installed didn’t pick up the keyboard. In fact I had to go to their website and download the 700K version. This installed a second program with the same name and icon but in a different folder. This was a bummer because the software implies that it will work with both at the same time.

Once I got everything installed the keyboard did pull the latest firmware update right away. After that I could finally open up the program and get programing. The software is exactly the same as what I saw with the 700M and that is a good thing. On the left you have three modes or profiles that you can select and program, these match with the mode buttons on the keyboard as well. Down lower on the left are three tabs for the three sections of configuration. You start on the Performance tab. Here we can set the USB polling rate, repeat delay, repeat rate, and even elect between 6 key rollover or N key rollover. The reason they even give this option is because full N key rollover over USB will sometimes cause issues in some BIOS.

What I didn’t understand was having the backlighting and sleep modes here on this page when there is a lighting page. So the backlighting modes let pick from a few fancy backlighting modes but the two that most people will focus on is the standard mode (that is just all on) and the click mode that lights up keys when you push them. The other three do things like a nightrider effect or one that looks like an EQ. The sleep mode also shares those same effects, so if you want you can set the keyboard to start a fancy lighting mode after 2, 4, 6, or 8 minutes. Cougar has the EQ mode set to 2 minutes by default and frankly when this first happened to me I thought the keyboard was going bad. I think this should default to none and just give you the option to turn it on. Additionally they should add a true sleep mode that turns the backlighting off, I don’t think I would want my keyboard to start flashing when I was trying to go to sleep or if I was afk for a minute. On top of that I think they should let you set any time limit on when it will go into sleep mode, or at least give a better range than 2-8 minutes. If anything something like 5, 15, 30, 60.  

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The second tab is where you can program the macro keys. Cougar makes this easy with a drag and drop system that lets you drag an image to the key. You can also swap keys all together here if you want to rearrange the key layout altogether. There are pages and pages of things you can program to the macro keys including having them open up other programs, macros, mouse clicks, and media functions.

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The lighting page has less lighting options on it than the performance page. You do get a full image of the keyboard, here you can click on any key to turn the backlighting for that individual key on or off. So you can set one of your profiles to just light up the keys you use for a specific game. You can also turn off the backlighting settings that you flip through on the backlight button on the keyboard. I think they could expand on this by letting you set what each option does as well. I would love to be able to create a set that has my LoL specific lighting layout for example or set a brightness setting for daytime use and nighttime use.

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Performance

So now that we know what the 700K is all about, how well did it perform in my testing? Well to start off it took a little adjustment to get used to the unique design. The split spacebar helped me relize right away that I use my right thumb to hit the spacebar every time. With that side being a programmable key everythingItypedwasmissingaspace. I quickly fixed that by setting the right half to also be a spacebar in the software. This was a little disappointing because I really thought I might be able to use it for a special use in game with it being easier to reach than the other programmable keys. I wasn’t able to just use the left side of the spacebar for this because in game I use my left hand on the spacebar because my right hand is on the mouse. Additionally even when typing day to day the split and shorter overall length of the spacebar caused me some trouble as well, bumping my thumb in between the two keys would be offputting.

Other than that typing on the 700K went well. The backspace and a few of the other keys with stabilizers were noticeably noisy for the first few days of use. I think Cougar should lube these better from the factory. The red Chery MX keys were nice otherwise. The ABS keycaps were thick enough that they didn’t add additional noise. The programmable keys on the left aren’t something I normally use but I did like the angled keycaps, they helped make those keys easier to press when I did use them.

The wrist rest worked out better than I expected when not using the FPS pad. The PFS pad was actually really nice to use when in game but I would typically forget to take it off or put it on. Typing with the PFS pad on one side was not comfortable at all but again if the entire wrist rest was this material and thickness I would like it a lot more.

The backlighting was a nice color and different from other manufactures. Going with RGB backlighting would not let you replicate this deep orange/red color from my previous experience with RGB keyboards so if you like the backlighting color this is your only option.

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Overall and Final Verdict

All in all the 700K is a little flashier than I would personally need and the programmable keys didn’t come in handy for me personally. But I think Cougar is doing a good job stepping out of the box and trying new things. If you need the additional programmability the angled keys on the left and the split spacebar are better options than most other manufactures are giving you. You get a solid keyboard with an aluminum base that is easy to keep clean. Cougar make sure to include full media keys, putting them in an easy to reach location even. The software wasn’t perfect but you do get a lot of options and it is easy to navigate. On the downside though the wrist rest design felt a little unfinished when I wasn’t running the FPS pad and with the FPS pad I was left wanting the entire wrist rest to have the same thickness and finish. Cougar was careful to use mechanical switches for the programmable keys on the left and they used nice mouse like switches for the media keys but for some reason the volume controls have mushy membrane switches. The software required a new installation for the 700K even though I already had their software installed for the 700M and even after that I had to open the software up from the 700K folder to program the keyboard.

So is this the keyboard for me? Well no I really don’t put the programmable keys to use and I would prefer a cleaner non-gaming theme as a whole. BUT this is still a great keyboard. Someone who needs quick access to their macros would really love having a macro set to their split spacebar.

fv4recommended

Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #36170 16 Jan 2015 19:01
It wasn't that long ago that I took a look at the 700M from Cougar, today I have the chance to check out the matching keyboard. Enjoy, have a great weekend!

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