Closer Examination

As we saw before, the K65 RGB MINI from CORSAIR comes with a plastic dust cover that can be used to keep it clean on your desk. Taking it off, we get our first look at the keyboard, and it is extremely clean and minimalist, so much so that it has no telltale signs of a CORSAIR keyboard head-on. There are no extra keys here. In fact, we don't even have all the keys from the full-size or TKL keyboards CORSAIR has sold to date. No volume wheel, no profile switcher or Win lock button, and even no backlit CORSAIR logo. The logo is on the back, and there's also a subtle "K65" written on the left side. The bezels are minimal, and the only bit of flair comes in the form of the "Radiant ABS" space bar keycap out of the box, which you can of course replace with the PBT plastic keycap we saw earlier.

The keyboard adopts a monochrome color scheme with a black ABS plastic case, black keycaps with white doubleshot injected legends, and a white steel plate you can barely see through the gaps. The keycaps are not the same black color, but the discrepancy isn't stark enough to really matter to me. The case also has a high profile with angled edges and contours towards the bottom, especially on the side directly facing away from the user.

The alphanumeric section is all you get here, and even the Tilde (~) key is replaced by the Esc key. This is the most common 60% form factor layout. Given the smaller number of dedicated keys, we see more secondary legends than usual. CORSAIR has gone with an interesting implementation wherein the tops of the keycaps have the same legends as is typically the case, which allows CORSAIR to use the same PBT doubleshot keycap mold as for the K100. To make up for this, there are front-facing secondary and even tertiary legends. As it stands then, expect to see the top-placed legends backlit just fine and the front-facing legends backlit poorly, if at all. The font typeface is also a departure compared to their previous generation of keyboards. These legends are smaller throughout, which may be the company acting on feedback that the previous legends were too large for many. The use of loop-less doubleshot injection also means some of the legends are different from their ABS laser-etched ones.


Flipping the keyboard around, we see the usual certification sticker, but with a yellow tag next to the company name. Four pill-shaped rubber pads on the corners keep the keyboard from sliding around on the desk, and that's about it here. No case feet on the K65 RGB MINI, with the nonadjustable integrated elevation of the higher-profile case as the only option. No wrist rest or cable-routing options either, with the former at least in line with the keyboard design.


The detachable cable is neat and adds to the portability of the keyboard. The side facing away from the user has a cutout in the middle where the USB Type-C connector of the cable plugs in, and substantial casing on either side protects the connectors. The cable is also braided in a durable sleeve, which is black to match the rest of the keyboard. You will need a spare USB Type-A port on your computer for this, and USB 3.2 Gen 1 is recommended.


Taking a look at the keyboard from the side reveals the true nature of the high profile case here. The K65 RGB MINI uses the tried and tested OEM profile, but of course across just five slanted rows with concave surfaces on top instead of six, and we also have the now-expected "standard" keycap spacing for the bottom row increasing compatibility with aftermarket keycap sets. We will no doubt see some more CORSAIR replacement keycaps since their previous black and white PBT doubleshot keycap sets are not compatible anymore. But the good news is that the stock keycaps are very good to begin with because of their thick PBT plastic composition (average wall thickness 1.44 mm) and doubleshot injected legends that will not wear out before the rest of the keyboard—PBT plastic resists signs of wear and shine from finger oils better than ABS plastic. These are compatible with backlighting, which is no doubt part of the RGB lighting feature here. The front-facing legends appear to be laser-etched—as you can see above, no light passes through these. Given you will never touch these legends, the laser etching is not as big a deal as on the ABS plastic space bar and the replacement Esc key, which will wear out sooner than the others.


There are three Cherry MX switch options in the Cherry MX Red, Silent Red, and Speed (Silver) RGB switch. This keyboard is thus available with three types of linear switches, and I have the MX Speed (Silver) version here. The larger keycaps use Cherry stabilizers, which helps with their removal, but at the expense of that typical mushy feeling with these stabilizers. It is mitigated somewhat by the PBT keycaps, so maybe replacing the stock space bar is worth trying if this is an issue for you.


Speaking of which, here is a look at the keyboard with the replacement keycaps. Personally, I would just replace the stock space bar keycap with the PBT keycap, although for the sake of the review and lighting imagery, I stuck with the default option since it was purpose-made for the K65 RGB MINI.


[Update: March 16] We had two more units come in for reasons you will soon read about. All three samples use the same switch and language layout, so there is no reason to show them other than that it looks cool.