Corsair has launched its first mechanical gaming keyboards based around Cherry’s premium value mechanical keyswitches. The new Corsair K60 Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboards deliver the essentials you would expect; durable aluminium frames, vibrant per-key RGB backlighting options, iCUE personalisation, full N-key rollover, and convenient media control shortcuts. As per the headline, Corsair is pushing the value angle with this lineup, having based the design K60 Pro around Cherry’s new premium value keyswitches.
Before going further it is worth indulging in a quick recap of the qualities of the Cherry Viola ‘premium value’ keyswitches. A full news article about the switches is available in the HEXUS archives, from January, and Cherry has a page dedicated to the switches too, as you might expect.
In brief, Cherry introduced the Viola line to combat rubber dome and hybrid switch challengers, as well as partner designed efforts from the likes of Logitech and Razer, and even cheaper efforts from names like Gateron, Kailh and Outemu. Cherry designed the new Viola switches from scratch to be a “significantly higher quality alternative,” to the challenging tech, claiming to provide improved reliability, typing feel and durability. The Viola switches use a minimalist solder-free design, with V-shape contact system for self cleaning benefits. Importantly, you can make use of any existing keycap set using the standard cross stem.
By design the Viola keyswitch only offers one type of feel which is dubbed ‘CrossLInear’. Cherry describes it by explaining that a keypress consists of a force of 45cN for 2mm depth and then 75cN for actuation (with a further 2mm to bottom out). Viola was designed with cost-efficient LED lighting in mind too.
Moving our focus back to the new Corsair keyboards the lineup consists of the following SKUs; The Corsair K60 RGB Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, Corsair K60 Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (red LED lighting), Corsair K60 RGB Pro SE Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (adds a premium magnetic detachable cushioned palm rest and wear-and-shine resistant PBT double-shot keycaps), and the Corsair K60 RGB Pro Low Profile Mechanical Gaming Keyboard. The Low Profile member of the family actually uses Cherry MX Low Profile RGB Speed keyswitches with a lower 11.9mm switch height and short actuation performance.
Checking for UK availability I can see the Corsair K60 RGB Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard listed for £109.99 and the Corsair K60 RGB Pro Low Profile at £129.98. Amazon UK had no stock but Scan had both these models available to order at the time of writing, though the Low Profile model was actually a pre-order item, due on 9th Nov.
