Corsair iCue for Mac REVIEW | Mac Sources

5 min readNov 22, 2019

iCue for Mac

Enables In-Depth Customization of CORSAIR Peripherals

As an Apple user, I always end up feeling somewhat left out when it comes to gaming peripherals. Several years ago, I found a gaming keyboard that I love to use for daily tasks at work. I’ve wanted to have a comparable keyboard in my home office and found what I was looking for in the Corsair K70 RGB MK.2 Rapid Fire Mechanical Gaming Keyboard. It’s a peripheral I’ve wanted for a couple of years now but didn’t want to pull the trigger on getting one because it wasn’t fully compatible with Apple computers. With the release of Corsair iCue for Mac, I feel like I can fully enjoy what Corsair’s peripherals have to offer.

DETAILS & FEATURES

Corsair iCue is a control system that brings all your peripherals together and ready for you to command. With it, users have the ability to synchronize RGB lighting effects, customize macros, and fine-tune your audio to suit your preferences. iCue can be used for gaming, builds, and simply for advanced control of your devices. Some of the features of the iCue software include -

Intelligent Control: CORSAIR iCUE software is a revolutionary interface that allows you to control lighting and create complex macros for all your macOS-compatible CORSAIR products.
Fully Mac and macOS-Compatible: Unlock complete control of your CORSAIR keyboards, mice and headsets.
Unlimited Possibilities: Synchronize RGB lighting across all of your macOS-compatible CORSAIR products with a single click, or create your own amazing multi-layer dynamic lighting profiles with boundless customization.
In-Game Advantage: Create powerful macros and key remaps for your CORSAIR peripherals to give you the edge.
Clean and Simple: Easily navigate and personalize the iCUE user interface to make it your own.

USER EXPERIENCE

The first thing I really want to point out here is that the iCue software package is free to download. Once it installs, you simply have to connect your peripherals to your computer and start working with the software. Since most of the gaming dashboards out there are PC-based and I’m primarily a Mac user, I’ve had a little bit of a learning curve when it comes to customizing the operation of the individual devices.

The first device I tested out with iCue was the keyboard. Even though there are lots of ways to customize your keyboard experience with iCue, the first thing I did was change the RGB effect. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to finally have the ability to change the lighting on my keyboard. It may seem like such a little thing to most people but to me, it’s a workspace enhancement. The lighting effects are a part of my desk set-up and I love being able to customize the look of the keyboard simply by changing to RGB color effects. There are several lighting effects built into iCue. Even with the pre-designed effects, users can customize their experience by controlling things like speed and color choice. Users can also build their own lighting effects from scratch.

When it came to using the Nightsword RGB mouse, I was very taken with the feel of the mouse itself. Sometimes ergonomically designed gaming mouses don’t agree with my hand, but the Nightsword is very comfortable. I was impressed with how many different controllable buttons there are on it and was so happy to finally be able to program each and every one. I’ve had the opportunity to use mice in the past that feature programmable buttons, but I’ve not had the level of customization that the Corsair iCue system allows.

In addition to the K70 keyboard and Nightsword mouse, I also had a set of the Virtuoso RGB Wireless headphones to test out with the iCue system. While the headphones also had lighting effects that could be customized, I really focused in on the customizable EQ effects. iCue provides users with the ability to tweak the listening experience on any connected headphones using an equalizer with specially designed presets and the 7.1 surround sound option that is provided. I listened to some pretty advanced songs that have elaborate sound design included. I was really impressed with how the iCue system provided an option to adjust sound preferences in real-time. I toggled the surround sound off and on to see if I could tell a difference in a movie’s soundtrack and sure enough. I could. The details that are adjustable really make for a rich listening experience.

CONCLUSION

After being able to work with the iCue software I really feel as though I’ve been missing out on a full entertainment experience all these years. Sure, I’ve been able to use mechanical keyboards and other gaming peripherals, but I’ve not really been able to ‘experience’ them. The iCue app for Mac really takes things to the next level for Apple users. I’m really glad that Corsair decided to develop iCue to work with Apple devices.

For more information, visit .corsair.com/us/en/icue, Facebook and Twitter.

Originally published at https://macsources.com on November 22, 2019.