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Statement from Andy Paul (CEO) regarding 16.8 Million Colors and RGB Keyboards


Corsair James

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  • Corsair Employee

"I have read several forum comments from RGB keyboard customers asking about 16.8 million color support. I know we have been updating customers on the status and challenges of our 16.8M color software development work on our forums but I wanted to give you a personal update.

 

When we designed the RGB keyboards, our goal was to give users the ultimate gaming keyboard with the most advanced color customization and lighting effects available. We achieved these goals with unique multi-color per key lighting, layered animation effects, and extensive customization software. We also planned and promised support for 16.8M colors. The keyboard and its lighting controller was designed to support 16.8M colors, and while we have made progress with this we do not yet have a software solution that provides a better overall lighting experience than the current version.

 

I believe, and hope most of our customers agree, that we’ve built the most advanced gaming keyboard on the market, but we have more work to do. Based on recent feedback from our QA team and customers in our beta program, our engineering team estimates it will take another 8 weeks before we can release a software update that supports 16.8M colors. We apologize to those that want 16.8M color support. We realize that this is a long time to wait, so we are continuing to offer customers the option of returning their keyboard to us by contacting us at KBinquiries@corsair.com. For customers that are enjoying the advanced lighting that your keyboard offers today, we thank you and we hope you like the new enhancements we are working on for you."

 

- Andy Paul

CEO and Founder

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Thanks for the heads-up, but i believe there are more important flaws with the keyboard software/firmware that, in my opinion, should be fixed prior to the 16.8M color support. The lighting freezes, slow POST, excessive resource usage by CUE, just to name a few.

 

I'm looking forward to the 16.8M color support, but what good is it if the lighting keeps freezing randomly.

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Thank you Andy and James for your continued vigilance in updating and patching the RGB line.

 

I am thoroughly enjoying my K95 and will continue to assist in posting bugs and trying to work out other flaws during the maturing phase of the product's life.

 

At the end of the 8 weeks during which you say that the 16.8M colour customization will be worked on I think there are more base features that should be attended to such as stated by other users.

 

While the 16.8M colour support is what the keyboard claims, it is not a fully functioning keyboard at the moment. For a wide variety of users and system configurations caps Lock freezing, steam incompatibility, other usb device conflict are common issues. There are issues that I dearly hope will be included in the 16.8M update in approximately 8-10 weeks. A comprehensive update to fix the most glaring issues, such as users having to either unplug the board or flip to BIOS and back in order to restore lighting, would be appreciated by the entire community.

 

This keyboard is a cutting edge tool for gaming, productivity, and tinkering for any and all who enjoy exploring colour theory and design. I patiently look forward to future updates and what they bring.

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Thanks for the heads-up, but i believe there are more important flaws with the keyboard software/firmware that, in my opinion, should be fixed prior to the 16.8M color support. The lighting freezes, slow POST, excessive resource usage by CUE, just to name a few.

 

I'm looking forward to the 16.8M color support, but what good is it if the lighting keeps freezing randomly.

 

You do have to remember these are edge cases not a majority so they are clearly not something that their teams can easily reproduce. Also, what do you mean "excessive resource usage by CUE"?

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You do have to remember these are edge cases not a majority so they are clearly not something that their teams can easily reproduce. Also, what do you mean "excessive resource usage by CUE"?

 

I'm personally not experiencing the slow POST issue, but still i feel it's something that should have priority over the color support, that's my opinion anyway.

 

About the resource usage, CUE has a very ineffective way of loading its data into the systems memory. More info in these posts: http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136675, http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=134956, http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/260063-corsair-utility-engine-high-memory-usage/

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I'm personally not experiencing the slow POST issue, but still i feel it's something that should have priority over the color support, that's my opinion anyway.

 

About the resource usage, CUE has a very ineffective way of loading its data into the systems memory. More info in these posts: http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136675, http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=134956, http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/260063-corsair-utility-engine-high-memory-usage/

 

The problems that effect the fewest customers are often the most difficult to fix, especially if it is difficult to reproduce on Corsairs computers. The color support effects all customers and is better understood so gets more attention.

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I just wanted to drop in and say this, as while I appreciate your stopping to give us an update, I feel that you are missing a critical point. Personally, I could care less about having access to 16.8 million colors, and I understand where you are coming from with the " we’ve built the most advanced gaming keyboard on the market". I agree with that statement....

 

HOWEVER, I think the issue here that upsets people the most, is that we have thrown our faith and our money in your direction under the assumption that the product you actively sought to sell us, was the product that we received.

This of course is the most basic and important bond between a retailer and its customers. That bond was damaged pretty badly here. To knowingly provoke the purchase of a product that does not do what has been regarded as one of its biggest selling points, is a giant middle finger in the face of people, like myself, who have been dishing out my hard earned cash, to your company, for many years.

 

I understand that your team is working very hard, and I thank them for that! But, this is not an issue with the team of people making the product. It is an issue of lying to customers and us now being left in a position of little to no GOOD recourse aside from having to decide whether we choose to return a product that we otherwise love, or adopt the "just deal with it" mentality that comes with being sold a product that doesn't meet the standards to which many of us made our decision to purchase it off of.

I normally would not have commented, and I know this has all been said at some point or another, but I felt it needed to be reiterated as the final paragraph of your post comes off rather rude. How about thanking NOT JUST the people who are happy with the product, but all of those who aren't. The people who are happy with the product shouldn't need your thanks, its those that are not that you should be thanking for sitting around and not returning a product, giving you the opportunity to make your mistakes right.

 

This is not the gaming software industry. We don't need Alpha, early access products. We do not need you to RUSH the product into our hands, incomplete. I have come to expect from Corsair, finished, and quality products, of which I don't have to check forums every week for fixes that should have been standard.

 

I am personally happy with my purchase of the k70 rgb as it meets every one of MY needs. I have and continue to recommend this keyboard to my friends and family. But, if there were an alternative of equal quality, I would recommend that because there is a level of trust that has been broken here, and something about this forum post does not scream to me that there is an attempt to rebuild it. Rather this comes off as an attempt to thank those who are happy even though you lied, and reiterate that you still made a good product OTHER THAN the part about it not being what was advertised.

 

I'm sure a few of you will crucify my for this post, but I don't much care. This is just how the update struck me.

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And why is it that you still advertise that thing with 16.8 million colors when you have apparently known for well over 4 months that this just isn't the case?

 

I hope this has consequences for you. I don't want to see such lies turning into an acceptable business method. Because if you get away with it then why wouldn't you do it again and why shouldn't other companies follow?

 

I'll send that keyboard back to the shop on monday. What a waste of time. Expect me to pay almost $250 for a keyboard and then the only reason to buy it (could have bought a cheaper K70 otherwise) lives up to a whooping 0.003% of the advertising.

 

I hope you intend to compensate all shops stocking your "most advanced gaming keyboard". The shop unfortunate enough to sell that thing to me now loses money because of your lies.

Not only do they have to pay my shipping cost, they are now also stuck with a keyboard they can't sell as new anymore.

 

Although I'm not required to provide any reason for returning this item I'll take the extra time to explain them that Corsair deliberately gave them a product that they knew doesn't work as advertised. Maybe fire your marketing department or whoever thought it was a brilliant idea to approach the release of this product in such a stupid way.

 

For customers that are enjoying the advanced lighting that your keyboard offers today, we thank you and we hope you like the new enhancements we are working on for you."

You got to love marketing bla bla. Where making the product do what its supposed to do can get called an "enhancement".

 

I'm sure a few of you will crucify my for this post, but I don't much care. This is just how the update struck me.

Interesting how some people blindly defend anything, isn't it?

If Corsair would kick kittens then surely some people would defend that too.

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The problems that effect the fewest customers are often the most difficult to fix, especially if it is difficult to reproduce on Corsairs computers. The color support effects all customers and is better understood so gets more attention.

 

I understand what you mean from a marketing point of view and i'm not saying you're wrong, the 16.8M colors issue is something that needs to be fixed and like i said, i'm looking forward to having the full spectrum available to play around with. But i'm fine with having 512 colors instead of 16.8M for now, in all honesty i didn't even realize the issue existed until i read about it on this forum. The rainbows still look fancy even with 512 colors, right?

 

I hate to repeat myself, but the example that i put up in my first reply, where the lighting on the keyboard freezes on certain keypresses (caps/scroll lock) or when starting certain programs isn't just experienced by a few people and it's definitely a dealbreaker. There's a boatload of forumposts here with people complaining about that issue, and personally i think this issue should have priority over the missing colors. Like i said: what good is it to have 16.8M colors available if you have to manually unplug your keyboard every X amount of hours for the lighting to actually show.

 

Don't get me wrong, i'm still happy with my K70 RGB, even with its current glitches it's still the best board i have owned. The build quality is superb and i really like the level of customization that the CUE software offers. It's good to read that Corsair are working on a fix for the 16.8M colors, although 8 weeks is a long time for a feature that should have been available with its release. But, i'd rather have seen this time be used in fixing an issue that impacts the actual usage of the product itself.

 

/edit: Good news: as terabyte already mentioned in this thread, the resource usage issue seems to be fixed in CUE 1.5.80 (http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=138299).

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Freezing fix > 16.855 MILLION COLORS I WONT USE

 

Please, Corsair. I honestly didn't get this keyboard so I could use awesome animated rainbows on it, but now that I've gotten a taste of them, I NEED them to function properly. I didn't spend ~$170 to get a keyboard for one color or static colors. Right now it's worth maybe $120 to me.

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At last, we now have an idea of how much longer we have to wait.

 

I'm still suprised at the way that Corsair, a so called "high end" manufacturer of PC components and peripherals, has behaved on this matter.

 

Still selling a lie, but at least we'll "soon" have the product we thought we'd paid for.

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When is Corsair going to update its website? When I search for Corsair on Google the first link, that's 'all inclusive', directs me to the UK site. To get to the USA site on Google I need to search for Corsair Products USA, which seems weird. When I get to the USA site I'm still seeing products that were discontinued 6 months ago. Please update your site so we can see the actual products that are available at Corsair.
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Spending this much on a keyboard I don't expect that when I launch Half-Life the game won't launch for 15 seconds, my foobar in the background starts stuttering, my mouse freezes, my keyboard stops functioning, the lighting profile freezes, and then even once the game opens and everything works again (except the lighting) toggling the polling rate switch back and forth then waiting for the lighting to come back doesn't work if you're not using USB 2.0! This happens with so many games with minor variations of effects each time, luckily most of them open up right away and just get the other effects. Is this **** cursed? I honestly don't care that much about the colors. That's just a little disappointing. Everyone has that marketing bull****. What I care about is that you are hurting your consumers by doing things like making the K65 RGB a Best Buy exclusive, using the tramp stamp logo instead of your great looking, clean, respected logo. I want quality, I want metal, I want mechanical, I want clean. That new logo has no creativity it's crap and targeting an audience that historically doesn't appreciate you as much as the slightly older crowd with a bit more money in their pockets. Using a nonstandard bottom row is complete bull****. You are not "competing" or matching other "gaming" keyboard manufacturers by using that stupid bottom row. It's a negative not a feature. The crowd that's willing to drop $300+ on custom keyboards that they have to assemble themselves would love to use their keycaps on some of your boards but they can't because of the non-standard bottom row. But most of all not making the keyboard function properly is just ridiculous. I didn't return this board because I expected some quick pushes to get the blatant issues worked out because they are just that obvious and ridiculous. I can hardly say the real problems have been touched at all. You're working on the colors which is important and I actually think a bit higher of you guys after reading this, I expected a vague statement in this announcement to just shut people up for the next two months and then rinse and repeat until you feel safe phasing out support. Colors or no colors though if the issues with Steam and general stability of the keyboard and the programs it's affecting doesn't get fixed I will never let myself support Corsair again and you can bet I'll remind everyone about the problems you never fixed when a new product comes out.
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Non Standard Bottom row?????? ^^^

 

Keycaps are measured in units defined by Cherry, the company who manufacturers the RGB switches on these keyboards. Basically 1 unit = 3/4 inch.

 

A "standard" mechanical keyboard bottom row has keycaps with these measurements, (this is excluding the arrow keys, the big one is spacebar):

 

1.25 1.25 1.25 6.25 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25

 

Corsair is using what people refer to as the "gaming" layout, Razer uses it as well. It changes the bottom row, the measurements look like this:

 

1.50 1.00 1.25 6.50 1.25 1.00 1.00 1.50

 

Because of this you can't change the keycaps on Corsair keyboards because practically nobody makes keyboards or sets of keycaps with these sizes. To avoid this manufacturers usually only change the layout from standard when they need to make such large changes that there's no point in trying to make it compatible with other keycaps. It's annoying that Corsair does such a small layout change that isn't necessary. It's not a bad change, it makes less used and more annoying keys smaller to make the more relevant keys by them larger, but it's so small and unnecessary that it'd be better to just use the standard instead. It would please enthusiasts and those who wouldn't change keycaps in the first place really aren't gonna notice the change from "gaming" layout to the standard layout already used everywhere nor would they care.

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