Cougar 700K Mechanical Keyboard Review

Introduction

Cougar is pushing hard to make an impact on the gaming scene and so far, they’ve been doing a great job. They’ve already had success with their K-series of keyboards and more recently, their new gaming mice such as the 600M; now they’re back once again with their flagship 700K mechanical keyboard.

Cougar is well-known for their unique chassis designs and reliable power supplies, but we’ve seen time and time again over the last year that they’ve got what it takes to make some great performing and unique looking peripherals. The 700K is packed full of features that are going to appeal to a gaming audience; there’s full key backlighting, on-the-fly macro recording, dedicated multimedia keys, a palm rest, windows lock key, mechanical switches and a whole lot more!

Of course, all those features come at a price and the Cougar 700K will set you back around £100 from most major retailers. This is expensive, but this is a feature packed mechanical gaming keyboard, which often cost in excess of £100. I’m really looking forward to testing this keyboard out and seeing if Cougar has got what it takes to compete against the big players of the peripherals market.

The keyboard comes fitted with a black braided cable and gold-plated connectors; the 700K features headset, microphone and USB pass through, hence the extra cables.

First impression of the 700K are very good, this is a great looking keyboard overall and the mixture of black trim and the thick brushed aluminium chassis give it a premium look and feel.

Down the left side of the keyboard you’ll find five G-keys, perfect for applying shortcuts, macros, launchers, etc.

At the top of the keyboard you’ll find the MR and M1-3 buttons, these are for the on-the-fly macro recording, saving and loading features; these switches are not mechanical like the rest of the keyboard. The F1-F4 keys also feature controls for the switchable report rate, which ranges from 1x to 8x.

On the top right edge of the keyboard you’ll find the brightness key, windows lock key and four of the multimedia keys. Strangely, you’ll also notice that the audio keys are just above the number pad, but they’re not mechanical; they feel like membrane switch keys. So we now have a mechanical keyboard, with three membrane switches and then a range of clicky buttons; not what I would like from a premium grade keyboard.

The keys are raised from the chassis of the keyboard, this is great as it prevents the key caps from bottoming out on the chassis of the keyboard.

Interestingly, the keyboards space bar is split in two. Either side, or both sides for that matter, can still be used as a space bar, but the G6 one on the right can be configured as an extra macro key.

The 700K has a fairly thick profile at the back, but as you can see, the keys are mounted slightly recessed into the chassis. Here you can also see how the left-side G-keys are slightly angled inwards towards the center of the keyboard, making them much easier to reach while gaming.

The keyboard is fitted with a hard-wired braided cable.

At the back-right corner you will find a single USB port, as well as a pair of 3.5mm audio jacks; more than enough for connecting your headset and gaming mouse.

The underside of the keyboard has four rubber grips to help keep it from sliding around; although this is a fairly heavy keyboard, so it’s unlikely to slide around much anyway.

Finally, we have the included wrist rest, it’s an optional attachment (included in the box). It clips into place, but also has a magnetically mounted rubber palm rest, which can be placed on either the left or right side of the wrist rest.