Packaging and Accessories

International travel limitations and lockdowns due to COVID-19 meant that I was residing out of a hotel room in Taiwan and without access to my usual photography setup at the time of testing. Regardless, we see that the CORSAIR LT100 lighting towers are sold similar to the older LS100 lighting strips in that there are expansion kits on top of the starter kit with which to add to the user experience. This starter kit comes in very familiar packaging if you are an owner of a recent CORSAIR product, with the cardboard box in a black and yellow color scheme and a plastic wrap. The box has an illustration of the towers lit up on the front, along with the company and product name and salient marketing features. This continues on the back in more languages for a strong brick-and-mortar store presence. There is a problem here, however, in that the required but included AC power adapter isn't mentioned anywhere on the box. The LT100 cannot be powered over a motherboard USB port by itself, so customers may be in for a surprise if they are out of spare power outlets.


I am a fan of CORSAIR's packaging engineer, who has again done a good job of designing a better unboxing experience than most would initially expect for the materials and the product inside. Cutouts in the inner cardboard layers snugly hold the various components of the starter kit, which includes paperwork on the product warranty and a product manual that helps you make the most of the LT100 lighting towers if you have no prior experience with CORSAIR or their iCUE software drivers. The AC wall adapter for the region is also seen here, inside another cardboard box for safekeeping during transit. I have here the US version with two prongs for 110 V/0.8 A at 60 Hz and a maximum output of 5 V/5 A. This means that the LT100 lighting towers can consume as much as 25 W, which is one of the reasons behind the use of an AC adapter. The adapter is quite large, however, and the prong orientation also means that it can take up 2–3 slots on an AC power strip, or even completely block off adjacent wall sockets.


The other included accessories are in a plastic pouch underneath the first layer, and we see a headset holder accessory made out of plastic, male micro-USB to male USB Type-A cable (sleeved, black), and male-male RGB LED adapter cable (flat, black). The base and tower units comprising the LT100 are separately packaged inside more plastic pouches, with a thin foam piece underneath and between the towers themselves to prevent any scratches or dents during shipping and handling.


As part of the review package, CORSAIR also sent along an LT100 expansion kit. For the sake of clarity, the starter kit comes with two towers and the cables to power and control them, and each expansion kit includes another tower and a Y (2:1) adapter cable to daisy-chain along the expansion tower. Power and control limitations (in iCUE) mean that you can have a maximum of four towers in the same setup off the same AC adapter and USB cable, so should you want to complete the set, you would need two expansion kits in addition to the starter kit. The expansion kit unboxing experience is nearly the same as for the starter kit, with more paperwork and the base/tower pieces placed inside as seen above.