At first glance, Corsair's K83 Wireless Entertainment Keyboard looks to be the perfect keyboard for home theater PCs (HTPCs). It's sleek, it's slim, and it feels surprisingly good to type on. But the K83 (a.k.a. the "Lounge Wizard," in some of Corsair's marketing materials) aspires to loftier ambitions, too, that alas actually make it to use as an everyday lapboard. By attempting to fly higher than a simple HTPC board, the K83 pulls an Icarus. Both its unique gaming controls, which work well only for certain game types, and its patchy compatibility with living-room devices are a bit undercooked. In the right setup, paired with a Windows-based HTPC to control media and do light browsing, the K83 is slick and pleasing to use. But don't let Corsair convince you that it's time to ditch your universal remote or your gamepad. Keyboard, Meet Couch Potato As a living-room-first keyboard, aesthetics are definitely a priority with the K83. The 77-key layout drops what Corsair deems non-...
The Corsair K83 is a solid living-room keyboard, great for navigating streaming sites and videos, though its ambitions as a keyboard-shaped "universal remote" and gamepad replacement are a reach.
Slim construction; Decent battery life and low latency rating for a wireless keyboard; Sensitive touchpad
Default key mapping changes from device to device; Bluetooth worked inconsistently on our sample; Cannot access iCUE software over Bluetooth