iTWire has previously looked at Corsair's remarkable K100 keyboard, a massive keyboard that brings every possible feature you could want while looking brilliant as it does it. That keyboard is a beast, but let’s face it, it takes up two USB ports on your computer and it has a sizeable footprint on your desk.

Instead, the Corsair K70 RGB TKL shaves off the numeric keypad to the right, plus special programmable keys on the left - resulting in a keyboard that uncompromisingly delivers the long-lasting strength we love in a mechanical keyboard with the tournament-grade responsiveness that gamers crave, while being compact and portable enough to take with you on your travels. This is the newest evolution of Corsair's popular K70 line.

As you might expect, the keyboard uses a single USB cable, but in line with the aim of portability, it’s a detachable, braided USB-C cable. That’s right; you plug the cable into your PC and into the keyboard and unplug the keyboard when you want to use it elsewhere without having to dig around the back of your computer.

It's not mandatory that you have to travel with it; it's a competent desktop keyboard with full-sized keys. In fact, it’s more than capable and competent; it’s an optical-mechanical gaming keyboard with PBT double-shot keycaps and imbued with Corsair’s Axon hyper-processing technology which delivers inputs up to 8x faster with 8,000Hz hyper-polling. Essentially, it’s responsive to your merest touch; it’s solid and tough; and with every key having its own RGB backlighting, it looks awesome too.

Using the Corsair iCue software on PC or Mac you can set up the RGB lighting however you like. You can have static colours, gradient colours, animated rolling rainbows, or all kinds of special effects. You could turn the RGB lighting off completely, but why do that? You’ll even find some games that recognise the Corsair device and animate it in accordance with the action on the screen.

The keyboard is compatible with PC, Mac, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S, though iCue is not available on the Xbox range.

There are some special media keys and other keys to perform particular functions, a volume slider, and a tournament switch - this is a physical slider that locks the keyboard’s macros and lighting to give distraction-free gameplay.

All in all, it's a remarkable keyboard as you'd expect from Corsair, and serves admirably as a keyboard for the toughest of typists, for the most energetic of gamers, for the avid competitor, and does the job both at your home or on the road. Do yourself a favour and check it out for yourself. You can find it at prices starting from $199.