Have I been unlucky or are Corsair peripherals suspect quality?
In the past 4 years, I have dropped almost $550 on five Corsair peripherals, and three of those peripherals have failed. The latest of these is the $80 Dark Core RGB mouse, which when using the mouse wheel, scrolling down, it will every 1 or 2 clicks, bounce back up, despite continuing to scroll down physically, so I guess the sensor has gone bad, making it next to useless, as I use the scroll wheel a lot.
I like to invest more in my peripherals, with a view to not having to replace them every 1 1/2 to 2 years. Which, in the case of Corsair, spending more does not mean longevity, in 4 years, I have gone through 2 keyboards, $150 Strafe RGB and $180 K70 RGB Mk.2, in addition to the Dark Core RGB mouse.
The Strafe RGB keyboard suddenly failed about 2 1/2 years into ownership while using it. The backlighting turned off, and when attempting to turn the backlight on again, I notice the CTRL, SHIFT, and Windows keys on the left side stopped working. Forcing me to run down to Best Buy to drop another $180 + tax on a Corsair K70 RGB Mk.2 as I was in the middle of my workday and needed a keyboard.
Within seven months of owning the K70 RGB Mk.2, the backlighting started to fail, certain keys no longer maintained it’s assigned color of white (#FFFFFF), albeit with a blue tinge. In addition to that, it would randomly stop responding, even a reboot would not fix it. Playing musical USB ports would eventually resuscitate the K70 Mk.2, at least until next time it had an episode. The K70 Mk.2 got so bad that it would stop responding almost daily, so I ditched the K70 Mk.2 in favor of the Apex 7 from Steelseries.
I have reverted back to using the Corsair M65 RGB Pro, which I replaced with the Dark Core RGB, at the same time I replaced the Strafe RGB with the K70 RGB Mk.2, June 19, 2018. The M65 works fine for now, but given my experience with Corsair peripherals, I don’t expect it to remain reliable going forward, I’ll be looking to get a Steelseries mouse to match my current keyboard in the coming months.
Am I expecting too much? If a cheap keyboard included with a pre-built system from 10 years ago still works, I would expect a $200 (incl tax) mechanical keyboard to last at least that long, and realistically way beyond that. If paying 10 to 15 times more for a keyboard results in a sub 2 1/2 year lifespan, maybe I should just buy that keyboard and mouse combo deal for $14.99 and replace them when it fails, instead of giving Corsair my hard-earned money. I won’t be buying any Corsair peripherals in the future.
Update [Jul, 4 2020, 19:27]: As I am now using the M65 Pro on my desktop computer, which I previously used on my Asus Zephyrus laptop, I decided to use the Dark Core RGB on the laptop, even without a fully functional mouse wheel, it’s better than the built-in mousepad. And guess what, I cannot connect the Dark Core RGB to the laptop via Bluetooth, Windows can’t find the mouse, it previously worked, now it does not, so I have to plug in the wireless 2.4Ghz dongle. The laptop works fine, I tested it with another Bluetooth device and it connected the first time, so it has to be the Dark Core RGB at fault.