Cherry MX-Board 3.0 Review – A Fully Customizable Experience!

DESIGN

This keyboard is designed in the standard QWERTY format with additional controls located above the numeric keypad, as well as an extra windows key located just to the right of the right ALT key. This extra windows key cuts the length of the right Control key by half but we found this never caused any trouble when typing at all.

They implementation of a removable USB cable is a fantastic simple addition. This lets us choose exactly what cable we want to use that best fits our needs. From braided to plastic, short to long, copper to gold, the possibilities are endless. As another bonus, with the ability to remove the cable, we can prevent any possible damage from transporting the keyboard around for LAN’s or even moving.

The Cherry MX-Board 3.0 is not an illuminated keyboard; only the Cherry logo and the three green LED’s light up. The top logo is a clean white while the three LED’s located on the Window and Num keys glow in a soft green. When toggled off, the LED’s of their respective keys will turn off as well.

As stated previously, this keyboard does not come packaged with a palm rest. While not a necessity, after using this keyboard for long sessions, roughly four hours or more, we did find our wrists starting to become fatigued. With many other cheap third party palm rests on the market today, we can’t wonder why Cherry didn’t simply package their own rest with this board.

For those extremely committed to their keyboard and its performance, Cherry’s MX-Board 3.0 comes with linear switches. For those unfamiliar with the different type of key switches Cherry offers, let us take a quick moment to explain these to you.

The Black and Red switches are Linear keyswitches. While very similar, the Red switch requires less pressure to push down and activate. The term Linear in this sense means that there is no “give” to the key when pressed. Essentially, with constant even pressure, the key will go down into its resting position at the bottom of the board, and return without any break in movement. Simply put, there is no “click” or give in the key. It’s a constant, smooth motion.

The Brown keyswitch is known as a Tactile keyswitch. While not necessarily requiring any more or less pressure to activate, the main feature of this key is the noticeable bump when pressed. This gives the user the feeling of a register key press, like most keyboards use today.

Lastly we have the Blue keyswitch. This keyswitch is a Tactile keyswitch just like the Brown keyswitch but with one added feature. This keyswitch has been designed to have a much louder noticeable “click” when pressed. There is an internal mechanism that activates when pressed pass the “bump” to release a much more noticeable “click” when pressed. While this does increase overall typing feedback, in a smaller or clustered working area, this extra noise may be more of a distraction than anything else.

In the end every keyswitch has their own set of advantages and disadvantages. It’s completely up to the user to find out which one works for their needs the best.