Cherry Americas launched the MX Board 1.0 in November 2018, and it has been a confusing launch of sorts depending on the region you are in. Indeed, even in the Americas, retailers are struggling to list SKUs because there seems to be no easy way to find out what is available where. A survey of purchasing options in the USA, for example, showed some online retailers selling the DE version instead of the US ANSI layout, and nearly all had this version in the TKL form factor with backlighting. It appears that the full-size version is not going to be available in the USA anytime soon, and neither is a non-backlit version coming to this market. At an MSRP of $99.99 and very limited retail options in the USA as of the time of writing, the Cherry MX Board 1.0 TKL is effectively not going to be much of a competitor to anything at all. This is even before we get to the feature set, so if you happen to be from a country where the keyboard is more readily available, do read on.

The pros do outweigh the cons when in a bubble with only the MX Board 1.0 TKL. There are some features—the Cherry keycap profile, for example—that are not going to be found elsewhere easily. Knowing that you get genuine Cherry MX switches is a plus, too. The MX Board 1.0 was designed for writers, which makes sense with or without backlighting given I have found it easier to adapt to touch typing with the Cherry profile keycaps. The availability of the Cherry MX Black or MX Brown switches also aids in typing, especially if you get used to the switches. White backlighting comes in handy, too, as does the active status indicated for modifier keys. The form factor coupled and relatively lighter weight of the keyboard also help make this a more than decent keyboard for typing aplenty.

Unfortunately, there are many, many keyboards in this price range outside of said bubble. A lot of these, including some we saw very recently, use the same switch options in an overall better package. Be it via a better build quality using a thicker plastic case/metal frame or PBT keycaps with longer-lasting legends or support of a well-programmed software driver for key mapping if you want to try out Dvorak or Colemak for more efficient typing, there are other keyboards that do what the MX Board 1.0 wants to, but better. Making things harder, quite a few of these are also available for less. The MX Board 1.0, as with most Cherry MX Boards today, suffers from Cherry wanting to price it higher than the market can accommodate.