Closer Examination

As we saw before, the Cherry MX Board 1.0 TKL comes in a plastic wrap to keep it pristine and free of dust out of the box. Removing it, we get our first good look at the keyboard, and it is on the lighter side of average for even the tenkeyless form factor, which is mostly due to the plastic housing even though it is a two-piece design and the smaller-than-usual footprint. In fact, aside from the bottom, the entire keyboard has minimal bezels. The sides widen as they get to the bottom, which is angled with cut corners to add some flair and distinguish it from the otherwise boxy designs keyboards tend to adopt. The product name is printed on to the right edge, and the Cherry name and logo are on the bottom, all in monochrome to add acceptable branding to the keyboard.

There is no numpad here, although there are full-size versions of the Cherry MX Board 1.0 which will look similar and just have the extra 17 keys. The entirety of this keyboard has secondary legends below the primary ones, including keyboard-specific secondary legends as seen on the function-key row. This and single legends being in the top center is indicative of where the backlighting will be more uniform, and those at the bottom may not end up as bright as those at the top. The typeface for the fonts is fairly clean, and overall, the keyboard will fit into a variety of environments, work or otherwise.


Flipping the keyboard around, we see the usual certification sticker, but in red and with a Cherry logo underneath. There are two rubber pads at the bottom to keep the keyboard from sliding around on the desk. Two feet at the top open up sideways to optionally elevate the keyboard, and these feet have rubber pads to ensure they don't scratch easily, and cutouts for provided rubber covers surround them, all of which makes for three different elevation options and ensures the keyboard does not get scratched on the back either.


The keyboard's cable is non-detachable and comes out at the left from the top. This helps prevent any tangling with the mouse cable typically placed to the right of the keyboard with most users. The cable is the usual six feet long and terminates in a standard male USB Type-A connector. USB 2.0 will suffice for power and functionality here, with a rated current draw of 150 mA, and there is a Cherry logo on the Type-A connector which is actually backlit as well—more on this later.


As has been the norm with all recent Cherry-branded keyboards, we see the Cherry keycap set profile employed here. As it is, there are still the differently slanted rows, and each keycap has a contoured surface that guides fingertips to the center naturally. The Cherry profile differs from the more common OEM profile for mechanical keyboards in that these are lower in profile. One thing absent on the keycaps is the notch on the F and J keys for touch-typing, especially in dimly lit environments. Backlighting support, at least on the versions which have it, will help mitigate this. As expected, the secondary legends lower on the keycap are not lit as brightly as the primary ones. The keycaps are also mediocre at best when it comes to build quality, using thin ABS plastic with laser etched legends that will show signs of wear and tear sooner rather than later.


The Cherry MX Board 1.0 TKL, as the name would suggest, only uses Cherry MX switches. There is an option of Cherry MX Red, Brown, or Black mechanical switches to choose from depending on region and availability, and my sample uses the popular Cherry MX Red switch. These are the older, non-RGB design that only support single-color backlighting at most. This means that the switches have a black opaque top housing, and as seen in these images, backlighting comes in the form of the exposed LED above each switch. The larger keycaps use Cherry stabilizers, which makes those keycaps easier to remove and install as well, but at the expense of a slightly mushy and unsatisfying feeling when depressed normally.