I personally am so grateful for the mass adoption of mechanical keyboards in the last ten years or so. No longer niche gamer devices, now everyone can enjoy the excellent feel of real switches bouncing underneath their fingers. One of the brands that started mine and many others obsessions here is Cherry and they're back with some new gear. The brand known for defining mechanical switches is launching its XTRFY MX 8.3 TKL Wireless keyboard and GP7 mousepad in the North American market.
The first thing to note from this cute little board from Cherry is its hot-swappable, so you can fully customise and change out the switches to suit you. The casing for this one is solid aluminium construction so it should be durable while still being lightweight. This is especially helpful as it looks to be a board designed for portability, fostering cable, Bluetooth, and 2.4 GHz dongle simultaneous connections.
The dongle delivers a 4000 Hz poling rate and communicates to the PC up to eight times per milliseconds, but if you really feel the difference you can go up to 8000 Hz plugged in for the direct connection. This will also help you power the RGB LED functionality, if that's your vibe too.
Naturally on top of this chassis are Cherry's MX2A hot-swappable switches, and a rotary knob, which we always love to see. The switches are the relatively new smoother upgrade to Cherry's usual design. They're less noisy than older switches, and boast durability for up to 100 million clicks. Of course, the colour of switch you go for here is up to you, and you can even change your mind.
Cherry's XTRFY MX 8.3 TKL Wireless is also not the cheapest board around, launching at $300 in the United States. Cherry's latest boards haven't exactly been angling at affordable generally speaking, but that's the price you pay for legacy, and some really smooth switches.
The board seems similar to Cherry's MX 8.2 TKL Wireless Xaga board I reviewed earlier this year. It used Cherry's new MX2A brown switches which felt great, and also delivered great results on its slew of multiple connections. It lacked one thing this one doesn't – Hot swappable switches. Hence I really like the idea of the new XTRFY MX 8.3 TKL Wireless.
The GP7 mousepad, I'm less sure about. It's made of graphene, and boy you know I do love that stuff and its never ending list of uses. I didn't expect gaming mousemats to be among them, but Cherry claims these help with precision and comfort while being really durable. I've never worn out a mousemat, so I kinda wonder what they're worried about there. Still at $30 USD for the mat, that's a price I'd pay to find out.
1. Best overall:
Asus ROG Strix Scope II 96 Wireless
2. Best budget:
Gamakay x Naughshark NS68
3. Best mid-range:
Ducky Zero 6108
4. Best rapid trigger:
Wooting 80HE
5. Best wireless rapid trigger:
Keychron K2 HE
6. Best silent:
Be Quiet! Light Mount
7. Best tenkeyless:
Keychron Q3 Max
8. Best low profile:
NuPhy Air60 HE
9. Best ergonomic:
Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB
10. Best membrane:
Roccat Magma
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