If there's one thing that you might have learned throughout my time on GBAtemp, it's that I like RGBs. Lots and lots of RGBs. Colorful lights adorn my mice, my PC, and especially my keyboard--just about anything that glows like a Christmas tree brings me joy. So when Corsair had not only a line of RGB towers, but fancy light strips that went with said towers, it was like my RGB dreams had come true. Some people might not be as excited as I am over the Corsair LT100 and LS100, but that's okay; it's obvious in stating that not everyone likes RGB, but it's equally obvious to mention that these products are designed for people who DO like gloriously glowing things. With that out of the way, let's find out how these fare from the perspective of someone who gets a kick out of RGB.

On paper, Corsair's two RGB offerings couldn't sound any better: the LT100, tall towers that connect together and cascade light up and down them, and the LS100, light strips that can be placed anywhere; under your desk, behind your monitor, to bounce lights at your walls. They're both also clear examples of "RGB tax"--the LS100's are $119.99 with expansions coming in at $29.99-$39.99, while the LT100's are $129.99 for the base units, and price their individual expansion units at $59.99. Unless you're getting these on discount, then the price for any of this stuff is pretty staggering. But before we consider the price further, let's see how they function as bastions of pure RGB joy. 

Upon receiving the LT100's, I was met with issues right out of the gate. Despite following the directions perfectly, the LT100 towers refused to turn on, sync to anything, or work in any way. It's been quite a long time since I've see a defective review unit, but Corsair was more than willing to fix the issue after working with me to understand what exactly went wrong. No clear reason was ever decided upon as to why the original LT100 unit didn't work, but once swapped for a new one, everything began to work flawlessly. I feel this is worth mentioning, if only to show Corsair's quick customer support, should this be an actual defect that others face as well. As for the reliability of the LT100's, I spent a month with them, meticulously making sure these would work for the long term.

The LT100 comes with a total of four pieces, two bases and two light towers, and all the needed cables (of which the RGB ones appear to be proprietary). I wasn't able to find replacement cables online, so while the ones that come with the unit are good quality and probably won't fail, it's unnerving to be unable to easily get a replacement should something happen. You can take the towers and plug them into the base units however you'd like, with the main light strip facing forwards or backwards. Being able to adjust them is nice, and it lets you make your light setup flexible in case you want to ever change how they look without having to undo everything. 

Neither the LT100 or the LS100 feel like traditional light strips. Both are well-made, with the LT100s sporting a thick and sturdy base while the LS100 could flex nicely and were wider than a normal cheap China-made roll of RGBs. They also have a thick covering on them that diffuses the light, without interfering with their brightness. The lights are solid all the way through, and don't have any inconsistencies, so when they're turned on, everything blends together perfectly. Only one thing stands out as a negative, and that's the very cheap headphone stand that it comes with. Some 3M sticky tape was attached to a very cheap piece of plastic, and it's supposed to act as something you can secure to one of the light towers and hang your headphones on. I'm sure it works, but it felt feeble and unnerving to hang an expensive headset on.

The LT100's are incredibly easy to set up. You can connect up to 4 towers total, including the base station, and the cables let you daisy chain them easily, giving you enough room to stretch them over a large desk. They'll cycle through random lighting effects, but to get the most out of them, you'll need Corsair's iCue program to control the lights and make adjustments. While extra software can be a pain, iCue is one of the few that works competently...for the most part. More on this will be elaborated below.

A little trickier to connect and set up are the LS100 strips. They're designed to connect to the back of your monitor through magnets and cord routers that stick to the back of the monitor. One set will be enough to fit a 27" monitor, but if you have multiple screens or an untra-wide, you might need the extensions to fit across all your real estate. This can become a problem, because if your monitors are slightly tilted inward, are curved, or just aren't directly up against a wall, the light cast by the LS100 won't look that impressive. These are at their best when pushed as close to a reflective surface as possible. For my set up, with three monitors, the LS100 looked faint and washed out. However, when I arranged the lights to go along the edge of my desk alongside the wall, that was when the true RGB power Corsair intended for was realized. 

Before (bottom) and after (top)

I couldn't be more impressed, to put it lightly. The range of color, the way the lights bounced off the wall; everything looked like the gamer RGB paradise of my dreams. Whether it was solid colors, a complete seizure-fest, or the fun Winter-y iCue presets of fireplace or Borealis, the lights were incredibly bright and very accurate to the customizable color wheel. Some of the effects aren't that great--I can't imagine using the rain preset, which looks somewhat like the LT100s are shorting out, and not trickling droplets of rain, but for the most part, they're wonderful, and sync perfectly with the LS100s as well, for the full lightshow effect.

However, one of the best features of the LT100 and what truly sets it apart from some normal light strips is the video or audio lighting effects. These let you sync up your lights to your music or what you're playing on screen. It's a fabulous mode, and it's where you really get your bang for your buck with these RGBs. Yet, I only got it to work once on my PC. I'm not quite sure why this is, or what is preventing it from working, but it worked flawlessly when I initially set it up, and then never again. When I tried to use the video lighting mode again, it would recognize that colors were on screen, but the LT100s would just dim, and refuse to light up. They dimmed to a nearly-imperceptible level and weirdly synced to only my current wallpaper on my desktop, and nothing else, even if there were other things on the screen. When you're shelling out this kind of money for a fancy product, you have the barest expectations that it should work without issue. Regardless, it worked fine on my other computer, so I'm willing to chalk this up to an issue with either my PC, or a random stroke of bad luck (or perhaps a message from God trying to tell me to stop my RGB obsession). 

Despite the issues that I ran into with the LT100 and LS100, I would still recommend them without hesitation. They're some of the best RGBs that you can get for the price, and with the visual sync effect, their only competitor is the Philips Hue Play Bar, which is equally accurate, but much less bright. You could get cheaper RGB strips, and perhaps that could be good enough, especially given the comparative cost, but you might also realize that they'll be far less vibrant or as smooth as Corsair's offering. Of course, as with most RGB products out there, Corsair's LS100 strips and LT100 towers do weigh in at a hefty cost, but if you're considering these, then you're a fellow RGB addict, and honestly, no price is too high for fun glowy lights! 

For your enjoyment: a video of the background sync function working for the short time that it did, and my cats highly enjoying that feature.