(Apologies in advance for the quality of the pictures, I only have a phone camera and dim lighting)
I’ve been using my PC for gaming exclusively from the couch for a little over five years now. Why would I do this? Well my main motivation was that I just dropped $5000 on a sound system and going between that and the logitech whatever I had on my gaming PC kinda sucked. So I decided to move the PC in to the lounge and hook it up to the home theatre. So now I have awesome sound but I’m giving up a lot. For one, a good monitor is so much better than a TV, not only are you limited to the resolutions and refresh rates you can use, but there’s also latency and because you sit so far away you lose a lot of detail that you would be able to see when using a monitor. But the worse thing is giving up the keyboard and mouse.
At the time I got an Xbox 360 controller to use for gaming. Now there are some games where a gamepad is pretty decent, or even better than a mouse and keyboard but for the most part mousey keyboard is far, far superior.
So I got a plastic table thing, prettied it up with some cardboard, duct tape and vinyl wrap, glued a USB hub to the bottom, rigged up a home made 10 meter USB cable (made from splicing some old USB plugs to a length of network cable) and stuck a mouse and keypad on top. Later on I added a full keyboard above the mouse and keypad so I could use keys which weren’t mapped to the keypad, or if I needed to quickly add a new key or macro, or just to type something quickly.
It was pretty clunky, kind of heavy and awkward, had a bunch of cables and stuff stuck to the bottom, and had to have a power cable run to it as well as a USB cable to power the USB hub. But it did the job, I could play games with a mouse and keyboard from the couch. It was great.
Well, eventually an idea this good is going to get stolen, and now we have the Corsair Lapdog.
The Lapdog is what I think is best described as an extension of a Corsair K65 or K70 in that rather than being something you can put a keyboard on, you instead insert the keyboard in to it with a perfect fit and matched style. With the internal cable management it really does look like a keyboard with some extra space and a mouse pad stuck to the side. It looks great and has excellent build quality, the top surfaces are all made from the same brushed aluminium as the K65 and K70 with the rest being plastic. It feels solid but not too heavy.
The TL;DR of this review is that it’s a pretty great thing, I would describe it as a no compromises (sort of) way of using a keyboard and mouse from the couch. Take it from someone who’s been PC gaming from the couch for a few years now, the Lapdog does exactly what you’d expect it to and does it well.
I’m recommending it early on because I feel like I’m going to be overly critical and nitpicky in this review, and I just want to make it clear that I do really like the Lapdog. I’m going to go in to detail on each section of the Lapdog; what I like, what I don’t and what I would have liked to have seen or what I’d like to see in a future version or alternate product.
Keyboard area
The lapdog supports any of the Corsair K65 or K70 (there is a small panel to the right of the cutout which can be removed to install the K70) keyboards. The keyboard is installed in a cut out on the top surface of the Lapdog so that the brushed aluminium top surface of the keyboard is flush with the surface of the lapdog. It makes a perfect fit and looks like a single unit rather than a keyboard and lapdog.
Installing the keyboard is pretty simple, you remove the top most surface and slot the bottom of the keyboard (where the wrist rest would attach) under the bottom panel, plug the USB cable in and then reinstall the top panel over the top of the cable. Once it’s installed it is secured really well. There is no movement at all in the keyboard and it won’t fall out if you were to tip the lapdog upside down. It feels like it is bolted in even though it’s only held in by the shape of the top surfaces and the plastic on the inside. It’s a great design which not only looks nice but feels solid.
This is why I think corsair made this thing to only work with the K65 or K70 as trying to achieve the same thing but with universal keyboard support would be very difficult. In limiting the supported keyboard they were able to pull of this design. However I think that Corsair missed an opportunity (perhaps deliberately) to make the lapdog more universal in that all they would need is to include an extra panel which could be installed over the keyboard cutout. This way you could use any keyboard by putting it on top of the Lapdog rather than inside it, but a Corsair keyboard could also be installed inside. It would be a simple way to have the best of both worlds.
The keyboard is positioned low (rather than centred) on the top of the lapdog, I would have preferred it to be slightly higher as when using it my wrist rests on the bottom edge of the lapdog, which is flat aluminium. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s uncomfortable but it would be nice to either have more space to rest my wrists or have an actual rubber wrist rest at the bottom of the lapdog.
Typing on the lapdog is somewhat awkward as the keyboard is positioned off centre from the user’s body. The design is fine for gaming though and it is easy enough to shift the whole lapdog across your lap so that the keyboard is central if you need to type on it. Because most of the weight is on the keyboard side it doesn’t feel unbalanced when positioned with the keyboard central.
Mouse pad
The mouse pad is located on the right side of the lapdog. It is about 28cm high and 25cm wide, which I think is a good size. It is made from an aluminium panel with a rough textured plastic surface. I prefer rougher surfaces over smooth ones for mouse pads but for me this one is a little too coarse. The quality is nice but large mouse movements make some noise which because the area under the mouse pad is hollow the sound is amplified slightly. It’s not a huge deal but it could be irritating to some.
The big problem I have with the mouse pad is that I have a R.A.T 7 mouse and it does not like the surface used on the Lapdog. The mouse does not seem to track well on it which makes mouse movement weird and difficult. I tried with another mouse I have, a logitech G9 which is also a laser mouse and that one works fine. So it might just be an issue with higher DPI laser mice. I will assume it works fine with optical mice (such as those made by Corsair).
I ended up just putting my old mouse pad on top of the Lapdog’s pad. This is a good enough option, but I may remove the plastic surface and replace it with another material if I find something that I like. One thing I would like to see from Corsair is the option to buy additional mouse pad panels with different surface materials which could be installed in place of the stock one.
On the bottom and right edges of the mouse pad are small metal ridges which stop the mouse from sliding off the Lapdog if it’s tilted or moved while not holding the mouse. This is a really nice touch and works pretty well as it’s really easy for the mouse to slide off the Lapdog and having something to stop it falling on the floor is really handy. I would also suggest using a cable tie to tie down the mouse cable inside the lapdog so that there is a fixed length sticking out of the lapdog. This way if it does fall it won’t pull the cable out from inside and will hang rather than falling on the floor and possibly breaking.
The mouse cable is installed by putting it though a gap on the top right of the panel above the keyboard. I have seen some reviews which have complained that the cable rubs against the metal of the panel causing noise and possible wear. I haven’t experienced this myself and think it would be simple enough to position the cable in a way where it won’t rub on the edge of the panel. It’s a good enough way of connecting the mouse cable and keeps the cable on the top of the Lapdog rather than hanging off the back where it could get caught on something.
USB Cable and hub
The lapdog uses a USB 3.0 connection to connect to the PC. I think that wired is the best option for this, while others seem to think wireless would be a good idea. The big problem with wireless is that you would need a pretty decent battery to power the keyboard (especially with a RGB keyboard) which would add cost and weight to the Lapdog. Also other issues such as latency and interference could be a problem and the small inconvenience of using a cable is a small price to pay for all of it’s advantages.
The cable itself is about 5m long which for me is too short. I would have preferred a cable which is 10-15m so that I can run it around the outside of the room. As it is I have to run the cable across the centre of the room. It’s not too bad, and can easily be unplugged and packed away when not in use, but having a longer cable would make it easier to keep tidy. I’m not sure if there is some limitation with USB 3.0 cables which prevent making a longer one, but I was able to use a 10m cable on my homemade version without issue.
The USB cable is also combined with a power cable, with a splitter on either end. On the PC end you connect a 12V power brick and on the other end you connect the USB and power connectors. This means that you only need to run a single cable to the lapdog but you also have the option of having the power connect on the lapdog side.
The USB hub is positioned in the top right corner of the Lapdog, it has two ports on the inside which are used to connect the keyboard and mouse. On the right side of the Lapdog there are two more external USB ports, one of which supports fast charging. It’s pretty handy having USB access to your PC from the couch, especially for things like headphones or a wired gamepad.
Foam pad
On the bottom of the Lapdog is a removable foam pad. The foam is firm and when using the Lapdog it feels solid and not at all springy. The foam is contoured in a way which fits well in the user’s lap, this makes using the lapdog comfortable even after several hours.
The foam is secured using six strong magnets. Removing the pad is easy enough to do but it won’t detach or move around accidentally. Reattaching the foam is also easy, when placing the Lapdog over the foam it will position itself in place and doesn’t require any fiddling or having to tilt the Lapdog. It’s another good design which makes it both comfortable to use and also easy to remove so the Lapdog can be used on a flat surface, such as a desk. This means that it is easy to move the lapdog between the couch and a desk, it would also be convenient for LAN parities.
Conclusion
The lapdog is very much a premium product, not only in the sense of the build quality but the overall cost. The Lapdog itself is about $150 (AUD) when combined with a corsair keyboard ($200 give or take) and a decent mouse the whole package will cost almost ten times what an Xbox controller will cost. Is it worth it? For me, yes. I like gaming on the couch and the thing I’ve missed the most is a good keyboard. Compared to a gamepad or the Razer Turret I think the Lapdog really is the closest to a no compromises solution and despite it’s limitations I think it’s currently the best product on the market for this purpose.
The Razer turret is a more compact solution, and while I have no personal experience with it, it looks to me like an upgrade to a wireless keyboard with built in track pad. I think it would be good for a HTPC which is also used for light gaming. But for serious gaming I think the Lapdog has it beat and is worth the additional cost.
While I do really like the way the Lapdog looks with the keyboard installed I still feel that a simple flat surface that a keyboard and mouse can be put on top of is a superior design. While perhaps a little less ‘solid’ it would allow the use of any keyboard the user would like. In addition to being able to use a wrist rest or have the mouse on the left of the keyboard. For me the big thing which my home made version can do that the Lapdog can’t is that I can use other peripherals, not just a keyboard and mouse.
Here is my version with the keypad removed and a HOTAS set up instead. Having the USB ports and cables external, while being messy and slightly awkward does make it easy to quickly swap peripherals around. I think that a simple flat hollow surface with quick access to the cables (such as a removable section or hinged panel) would be a much better product than something as specific as the Lapdog.
So having said that I think if you’re looking for a solution for couch gaming and you either have a Corsair keyboard or want one, then the Lapdog is a great product that won’t disappoint. If you have another keyboard then a home made solution (or possibly modifying the Lapdog) may be better.