At first we would like to thank CORSAIR for offering us their iCUE NEXUS Companion Touch Screen for testing and reviewing.

 

About Corsair:

"Founded in 1994, Corsair has grown from pioneering the high-performance DRAM market to one of the world’s leading providers of enthusiast-grade PC components and peripherals. Our groundbreaking technology and innovation can be found in our high-performance memory, ultra-efficient power supplies, PC cases, PC and CPU cooling solutions, and solid-state storage devices. Under the Corsair Gaming brand, launched in 2014, we provide gaming keyboards, mice, headsets and mouse mats to eSports professionals and anybody who is passionate about competitive PC gaming.

 

Corsair hardware is regularly featured in showcase “dream systems,” and we have earned the adulation and respect of the press, professional gamers and overclockers, high-end system integrators, and PC enthusiasts worldwide by delivering leading-edge technology backed by renowned service and support.

 

Corsair has developed a global operations infrastructure with extensive marketing and distribution channel relationships, and our products are available through leading distributors and retailers in over sixty countries worldwide."

Product Features:

 

The Power of iCUE at Your Fingertips: Control games and apps, monitor your system, and more with a fully customizable LCD touch screen – it’s an interactive heads-up display for your PC.

 

Personalize Your Experience: Design more than 200 swipe-to-navigate screens with unique graphics and icons, displaying up to six programmable virtual buttons at once with custom drag-and-drop graphics.

 

Monitor Your System: View in-depth, real-time system monitoring from your CPU and GPU, as well as temperatures, fan speeds and more from iCUE-compatible devices.

 

Control CORSAIR Devices: Adjust your iCUE-compatible device settings, such as mouse sensitivity and headset equalizer, without the need to even open the iCUE software client.

 

Command with a Touch: Create actions and macros for your favorite games and applications in CORSAIR iCUE software that can be activated with a single touch of the iCUE NEXUS customizable screen.

 

Connect to PC or Keyboard via USB: Use the standalone base or attach directly to the USB pass-through port on your CORSAIR K70 RGB MK.2, teh K95 RGB PLATINUM or K70 MK.2 LP.

 

 

Product Specifications:

 

In this article we will concentrate our attention upon another interesting hardware item from CORSAIR, and to be more exact the iCUE NEXUS. This is a small screen with touch capabilities driven by the unified iCUE software that can allow the user to access customizable functions via buttons, but also run widgets for displaying live hardware information. Each configurable screen can hold up to six buttons and we can work with more than 200 screens by simply swiping the screen in the desired direction.

 

The product is shipped inside a very compact cardboard packaging, with a triangle pattern on the outside layer; the frontal area does show how the unit will look like if mounted to a supported keyboard but also notifies the user that iCUE is required to run in order for the screen to operate, otherwise it will remain in „demo“ mode:

 

 

 

On the side of the box, we will get to see CORSAIR’s „Get Connected“ saying:

 

 

 

A photo of the product in operation can be seen on the opposite side as well:

 

 

 

On the back, CORSAIR does show examples of different programmable screens, a list of the main product features in different languages, the mounting modes of the iCUE NEXUS but also the box contents via drawings:

 

 

 

The packaging does also come with details on the product internal code name and its serial number:

 

 

 

After removing the top packaging layer, we will end up with an all-black box:

 

 

 

Let’s see what we do have inside!

 

 

 

First, we will spot the Warranty Guide but also the Quick Start Guide, in multiple languages:

 

 

 

 

If you do not own a compatible keyboard (CORSAIR K70 RGB MK.2, the K95 RGB PLATINUM or K70 MK.2 LP), you also have the possiblity to install the screen in the docking station:

 

 

 

The supplied docking does have the necessary space for storing the cabling of the display, but also an USB pass-through port for connecting the iCUE NEXUS:

 

 

 

 

On the top area of the docking, we do have a textured surface, but also a subtle CORSAIR logo:

 

 

 

The bottom layer, does hold a large rubber foot, so the whole assembly won’t move easily on the surface:

 

 

 

The dock USB cable is fully-braided and has a length of 1.82m; the port is customized with the same design as we have seen with the latest iCUE peripherals:

 

 

 

A plastic removal tool is also supplied, for uninstalling the supplied brackets from the keyboard:

 

 

 

Speaking of the brackets, we do have three available, each for a different keyboard layout:

 

 

 

On the back, the brackets have adhesive tape, so they will stay properly fixed onto the surface:

 

 

 

The screen itself is quite small (154 x 35 x 16 mm) and weights about 60 grams; the touch interface is initially protected with a transparent plastic film and the bezels are thick on the sides. It displays with a resolution of 640 x 48 pixels and has a 5‘‘ diagonal size; it is RGB and can display up to 262K colors:

 

 

 

 

In the back of the screen we will note of the CORSAIR logo but also the mounting areas:

 

 

 

The display installation into the docking can be done in just a minute, being a straight-forward process:

 

 

 

Right after plugging the display on our test computer, we noted the prompt for installing iCUE in order to use the product properly; firing up iCUE does allow us to create new buttons, configure preset ones, work with hardware monitoring widgets and more!

 

 

 

The 24FPS seem fine for the general usage of the product and the touchscreen is quite responsive; one thing we did note is that the colors are not so well represented as on regular IPS displays and the viewing angles are quite mediocre:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iCUE NEXUS was detected right away by the software and we were even prompted to perform a firmware update as well:

 

 

 

 

The GUI allows working with the initial screens, defining new ones, working with widgets, creating new buttons and more. Depending on the detected iCUE compatible devices, more CORSAIR preset screens will appear:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we do need to define a new button, we have the option to choose its size, action type, display text, font, font size, the background color or photo/animated GIF but also the icon color, model and size:

 

 

 

We have plenty of button actions to choose from:

 

 

 

Macro

Text

Media

Launch Application

Timer

Profile Switching

Remap A-Z Keys

Remap Num & Symbol Keys

Remap Function Keys

Remap Enhanced Keys

Remap Numeric Keypad

 

Remap Modifiers

Remap Language Keys

Remap Mouse Button

Remap Keystroke

 

Plenty of text fonts are available for choosing:

 

 

 

In case we do choose to work with a widget, a different menu will appear:

 

 

 

Depending on the hardware of the PC, we will have other widgets to work with:

 

 

 

Identified non-iCUE hardware components will be listed under System Info:

 

 

 

It is quite easy to work with the widget areas, as soon as they have been selected, and their update rate is resonable as well:

 

 

 

For more customization, the widgets will also appear in the designated menu on the left:

 

 

 

The Temp and Fan sensors (widgets) are available for our RX 5600 XT; in order to identify them better on the screen, we can rename them into RX5600XT Temp and RX5600XT Fan with just a button click:

 

 

 

Same thing goes with the other sensors:

 

 

 

The modifications performed in iCUE software will be immediately seen on the screen, without the need of pressing an „apply“ button; we can create any combination of widgets and button we’d like if we do not exceed the total space for one screen:

 

 

 

CORSAIR does also allow screen import from other creators; a set of demo screens are available on their website as well:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The screen settings can be also accessed from the GUI; here we will be able to choose the background which can be animated or static but we can also choose from a color palette:

 

 

 

Finally, we do have the Device Settings area, from where we can adjust the LCD brightness, the display timeout, but also restore the display’s default settings:

 

 

 

iCUE NEXUS is a quite unique and useful accessory which takes very little space and can be mounted as well right onto compatible CORSAIR keyboards. It packs a 5‘‘ 640x48 resolution screen which has a decent color reproduction (6 bit), while additional functionality is offered via the touch capabilities. The touch interface is quite responsive and we can easily create custom buttons for accessing various game/software functions and for eye candy we are also able to set custom backgrounds for it.

 

The buttons can be mixed with hardware monitoring widgets or we can use it exclusively for hardware monitoring as well. By simply swiping in both directions (left/right), we can access more than 200 programmable screens, which can be customized from the iCUE unified software. If iCUE is not resident in memory in order to drive the display, the iCUE NEXUS will enter demo mode, by cycling through some animations.

 

The level of customization is quite impressive because we can choose each and every button aspect including fonts, font sizes, add different pictograms and more; this opens a window for the community, which can build impressive screens for both games or other software, a feature that adds a lot of eye candy to your current setup.

 

In case we do own other iCUE-compatible hardware, pre-programmed screens will appear right away, with helpful buttons for control, such as:

 

-H100i GTX – button for profile selection, coolant temperature and core speeds

-COMMANDER PRO – button for profile selection, for Lighting Link and hardware monitoring widgets

-H115i RGB PRO XT – button for profile selection, button for Lighting Link and other monitoring widgets

-DARK CORE PRO SE – button for DPI selection, button for Lighting Link, mouse battery indicator

-K70 RGB MK.2 LP – button for Mute/Unmute, Volume control, Lighting Link, G-Keys button

 

Hopefully the iCUE NEXUS will be supported in the future with other hardware monitoring tools such as AIDA64!

 

Pros:

 

-tiny but well-readable screen, 24 FPS is quite enough for most applications

-touch screen adds a lot of functionaity to the product, is quite responsive

-6 bit color display looks nice when the pre-programmed current screen includes animations or is simply used for displaying hardware monitoring info

-the level of customization is quite massive thanks to iCUE unified software and modifications to the current screen can be seen in realtime

-the inclusion of the base allows the screen to be used with keyboards from other brands as well

 

 

Cons:

 

-mediocre viewing angles

-the screen comes with thick bezels and we would have liked to see a bigger screen or an even more compact chassis

-a bit expensive

 

CORSAIR iCUE NEXUS Companion Touch Screen is Recommended for:

 

 

 

We would like to thank again to CORSAIR for making this review possible!