Corsair Lapdog
Is this the answer for lazy living-room gaming?
WITH THE ADVENT of SteamOS and livingroom PC gaming, it was inevitable that we’d see the rise of a variety of gaming peripherals developed to enhance your couchmaster gaming experience. Whether that’s Corsair’s Lapdog, Razer’s Turret, or Roccat’s Sova, we’re well served by gaming gear designed to transfer the accuracy and versatility of signature peripherals into the world of the big-screen TV.
Corsair’s meticulously designed Lapdog is a highly advanced form of locking tray. The overall style follows the nowlegendary K70 aesthetic: Thick, brushed aluminum panels litter the frame, giving the Lapdog a premium feel. The mouse mat is a reinforced hard plastic, mimicking Corsair’s MM400 gaming surface, yet it’s still just a cover hiding yet another aluminum plate below it. The Lapdog sits on a memory foam-formed cushion, specially designed to fit around your legs, and lined with relatively powerful magnets, ensuring that the tray doesn’t slip off during even the most intense of nerd rages.
Installing your hardware into the Lapdog is relatively painless. You should note that the Lapdog only supports the K70 or K65 compact mechanical keyboards— no Strafe support or K95 here. All in all, it’s just a matter of removing the screws holding the various plates down, slotting your mouse cable into the internal USB hub located underneath the mouse mat, then slotting in your chosen K70 to do the same. Then it’s simply a case of locking everything down, plugging in the cable, and you’re good to go. It’s worth noting that the Lapdog does come with an additional power brick that you can plug in, but in our testing, utilizing a single mouse and keyboard, there really was no need.
PUPPY DOG
As for using the Lapdog, it’s a mixed bag. It’s comfortable, it looks sleek and classy, and the mouse mat provides great traction, even if it lacks some of the magnetic capabilities of its competitors. Our biggest problem is with typing—unless you’re just using WASD, you have two options: you contort your body to some new demonic position to allow yourself the freedom to type at a reasonable speed; or you can shuffle the Lapdog along, rest the middle crotch lock cushion on the opposing side of your right leg, then type as usual, with a more centralized keyboard. The keyboard is too far to the left to be a natural position for typing. It’s acceptable for gaming, but a more central keyboard, like on a normal desktop, would have made this far easier to use. We understand why this decision was made—for the sake of balance—and the fact that you should be typing less and gaming more, but it seems like a missed opportunity. Adding extra length on the left with, say, a cup holder to retain balance, and recentering the keyboard, would have made a world of difference.
Then there’s the aluminum. It looks spectacular, but there’s one problem: those sharp lines. It’s all good until you realize how much the Lapdog can cut into the palms of your hands if you sit at the wrong angle. There’s no wrist rest included, and in our experience, it became quite uncomfortable after lengthy gaming sessions. Couple that with zero options when it comes to raising the angle of your K70 or K65 keyboard, and we just felt a little underwhelmed. It’s not razor sharp, but it leaves a mark on your skin. Another easy solution would have been to extend the Lapdog again, just a little further toward the user, to ensure your hands weren’t resting on the edge of the aluminum.
So, it looks classy, it’s comprised of premium materials, and is easy to set up. Does it make gaming in the living room a reality? Absolutely—but there are too many niggles for us to let it off lightly. It’s nearly ready, but we feel Corsair just needs to take a step back, re-evaluate some of the criticisms, and come back with a V2 of this beauty before we ditch our desktops for the luxury of couch gaming. –ZAK STOREY