When we were invited to meet Cherry at CES 2020, we expected more news on the >100 million actuation rating for their popular MX switches. CORSAIR had broken the news, in a manner of speaking, when they used the new MX Brown and MX Speed (Silver) switches in their new K95 RGB Platinum XT keyboard, and Cherry confirmed to us that all currently produced MX Red, Brown, Black, and Speed (Silver) switches are now rated to this higher count (from 50 million before) with no loss in quality. This improvement comes in the form of an increased gliding surface area on the front side of the switch stem, in addition to having eight guide rails inside for added stability, which Cherry calls "Hyperglide". The company claims to also have optimized the contact force for the gold cross-point contacts, which has now resulted in a reduced debounce rate of under 1 ms. They are working on having similar improvements done to their remaining MX switches, including the MX Blue.

What was unexpected, however, was them announcing a whole new mechanical switch series under the VIOLA name. Cherry is targeting the value-oriented keyboard market here (think well under $100) which tend to use adapted membrane switches to provide a tactile and clicky feedback under various names including mem-chanical, mechanical-like, and so on. The new VIOLA switch, which currently has a single linear switch member, is fully mechanical and uses a novel contact method that allows Cherry to get away with a lower price point. Read past the break for more on this.

Thermaltake Gaming, a market leader in eSports gaming peripherals, proudly presents the Level 20 GT RGB Gaming Keyboard, available now for purchase. The Level 20 GT RGB Gaming Keyboard takes performance gaming to new heights with premium aluminium top plate construction; it delivers 16.8 million true RGB color with a massive 13 front-side illumination for a truly personalized RGB experience. It is compatible with all Thermaltake TT RGB PLUS power supplies, liquid cooling, case fans and LED strip product lines, enabling enthusiasts to sync all RGB colors seamlessly. With the powerful iTAKE Gaming Engine, users can control all dynamic lighting effects effortlessly, complex macro settings, and TT SYNC across all compatible TT RGB PLUS products.

Thermaltake has announced another entry to their keyboard lineup, which takes the form of the TT Premium X1 RGB. This keyboard, as the name implies, employs copious amounts of RGB lighting (16.8 million color illumination with 12 dynamic lighting effects), and delivers users' option of tactile feel with the choice of either Cherry MX Blue or Cherry MX Silver switch options, in a 104-key ANSI layout. The keys are of the floating type, there's transparent housing for the switches to help all the RGB goodness better envelop the keys. There's a removable wrist wrest, and an added bonus of a USB and audio pass through, which means users can simply connect their chosen headset directly to the keyboard. There are also multimedia and RGB-specific buttons, with multiple profile presets support. There's also TT RGB Sync compatibility built into the keyboard.