Closer Examination

As we saw before, the Cherry MX Board 5.0 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 about average in size for a full-size keyboard. There are 108 keys here, and the key banks are also closer to each other than usual, making for a slightly modified US ANSI layout. These versions also have a Euro symbol pre-programmed, and for those interested, Cherry has a separate DE version from this English version. The keyboard has a silver finish trim on the sides, with "Cherry" on the bottom making for the visible branding on the keyboard in use. A monochrome color scheme and average bezels make for a keyboard that fits a variety of use cases, be it work or as part of your gaming setup.

Indicator LEDs are above the numpad and the extra four keys in the top-right corner, and we have a fourth LED for the brightness level of the backlighting. The numpad has secondary legends below the primary ones, with the alphanumeric section following suit, including with keyboard-specific secondary legends as in the Fn key row. All this and the 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 font typeface is large to allow more light to pass through, but also has looped legends owing to the doubleshot injection aboard this US English version.


Flipping the keyboard around, we see the usual certification sticker in the middle and another Cherry logo above. Six red rubber pads have been put along the side, as well as two rubber feet that jut out of the keyboard frame, which can be raised for a steeper angle for those who wish it. Also nice is that each foot has a rubberized bottom to further add friction against the resting surface and help prevent scratches. We also see cable-routing channels for the keyboard cable, with nibs to help hold it.


The keyboard cable comes out the middle from a recess and can be redirected through the left or right. It is a braided cable that is the usual 1.8 m long, braided in black, and terminates in a male USB Type-A connector. The connector is gold-plated for oxidation resistance, and USB 2.0 will suffice for power and data alike.


Mating channels at the back of the bottom click into place with the wrist rest and once done, we see it make for a fairly imposing keyboard that is a lot larger than the keyboard on its own. Indeed, the wrist rest is longer than the keyboard, which feels weird when looking at it, although there is a decent enough reason for it.


The wrist rest jutting out on both sides means the user can better access the four feet on the wrist rest, which, when combined with the two on the keyboard, provide for variations beyond just an elevation of the keyboard. Indeed, as seen above, you can have the keyboard sit flat or lift up, tented slightly, or elevated at different angles to better suit your typing experience. This is still not going to replace a truly ergonomic keyboard design, but it works well enough while being different enough to be worth talking about.


The Cherry MX Board 5.0 is among the very few keyboards available for retail purchase that uses the Cherry keycap profile consisting of the lower profile slanted rows and lightly concave surfaces on top for compatibility with a large number of aftermarket keycaps/sets. There is no keycap puller included, and the non-floating nature of the keycaps makes it harder to remove and install these by hand. The stock keycaps are interesting to talk about because Cherry uses PBT keycaps with doubleshot-injected legends for the five SKUs in the US English variant (one for each of the switch options), which is great to see for longevity. However, the sixth SKU in the German language uses keycaps composed of thin ABS plastic with laser etched legends, and these will wear out sooner rather than later. I presume Cherry felt the market for DE-only keyboards was not large enough to dedicate a new mold to those keycaps, which is a shame because I do like the stock ones on this sample. Note also that the keyboard-specific legends appear to be pad printed and are not compatible with backlighting, however.


There are five switch options for the Cherry MX Board 5.0, with the company obviously using Cherry switches or the MX type since the keyboard came out before the new Cherry Viola switch was introduced. The keyboard is available with the MX Red, MX Black, MX Brown, MX Blue, or MX Silent Red switch, with the absence of RGB backlighting meaning we have the older-style switch design with an opaque housing and an LED above the switch itself. My sample has the Cherry MX Red switches, as we saw on the packaging before. The larger keycaps adopt a Cherry stabilizer, although the Cherry profile PBT keycaps do help mitigate that mushy feeling usually associated with these.