INTRODUCTION

   RGB lighting may have been around for just over 7 years in the PC industry but in fact it's been used in the electronics industry for over 12 years now and more specifically when the first LED Philips Ambilight TV's made their rather historical debut back in 2007 (Ambilight TV's had been around since 2004 but due to limitations from their cold-cathode fluorescent lamps these didn't feature RGB lighting). The Cyborg amBX Gaming Lights by Mad Catz was the very first gaming peripheral to try and imitate the Ambilight "effect" for PC users and even though back then it was indeed quite impressive it failed to become the best-seller Mad Catz was hoping for. Today even though the market is filled with RGB LED strips of all sizes none of them is really designed for PC users and this is where CORSAIR comes in with their brand new iCUE LS100 Smart Lighting Strip which we've been using for almost 2 weeks now.

   Founded in 1994, CORSAIR has grown from pioneering the high-performance DRAM market into one of the world’s leading providers of high-performance PC peripherals and components. CORSAIR offers a complete range of products to equip gamers, enthusiasts and e-sports athletes, including mechanical keyboards, precision gaming mice, wireless headsets, high-performance components that gamers use to build gaming PCs, and the CORSAIR ONE fully-integrated gaming PC. With a company-wide commitment to quality, innovative design, advanced features and high performance, CORSAIR products have won thousands of media and industry awards, earning their place in gamers’ hands and PCs following years of development and engineering by a team dedicated to building great products they themselves would want to use.

   The iCUE LS100 family of smart lighting strips includes the starter kit which should be more than enough for single monitor use (contains two 450mm and two 250mm LED strips along with a two-channel external RGB controller) and two expansion kits for people with dual-screen configurations (the first contains two 450mm strips while the second contains two 250mm strips). According to CORSAIR the strips of the iCUE LS100 are made out of flexible light-diffusing material which softens and blends light for the most immersive effect and as for the number of available RGB LEDs in each the 450mm long strip features a total of 27 individually addressable ones while the smaller 250mm long strip features a total of 15 (84 LEDs in total for the starter kit / up to 192 LEDs supported by the RGB controller - all LEDs are fully adjustable via CORSAIR's iCUE software). So, let's move forward with today’s review and see if the iCUE LS100 is the RGB LED strip kit(s) to get for your PC.