Closer Examination

As we saw before, the keyboard comes in a black Cherry sleeve that can be used to cover the keyboard, and it is sturdy enough to take along if traveling with the keyboard. It is slightly elastic, soft, and thick enough to offer some protection - especially against dust - without taking up too much room. Remove it and we see two separate plastic wraps around the keyboard's body and cable to further keep it pristine and dust-free. This is a high-end keyboard, and Cherry is making certain you get a good unboxing experience with it.

The Cherry MX Board 6.0 is a full-size, larger-than-average form factor keyboard with an extremely thick powder-coated aluminum frame and top that is chiseled with angles galore on its exterior edges as well as near the arrow-key cluster. This contributes to the massive 65+ mm height of the keyboard as-is, but it does not weigh a lot. In fact, the use of aluminum, despite its thickness, keeps it in a weight class similar to stainless steel frame keyboards that are much thinner. This thing is built like a tank and does not budge a bit.


There are four extra keys here at the top-right corner - a Cherry key and three media playback control keys - that make this sample differ from the ANSI layout. No discrete indicator LEDs seen anywhere on this keyboard, and as we will see soon, this is where the dual-color LEDs come into the picture.

Secondary legends are below the primary ones on the Num Pad and the alphanumeric section. This and the positioning of the primary legends at the top of the keycap surface combine to indicate that the LEDs are on top of the switches, given the non-RGB-backlit nature of the keyboard. The typeface is clean, and there is nothing aggressive in the design to where this comes off as unprofessional if you were to take it to work. There is a subtle Cherry logo here too, and we also see multiple secondary functions associated with the function keys, from the volume and on to the LED-brightness controls.


On the back is a large label in the middle with the certification stickers, company logo, and the unit's serial number. There is another logo sticker above it that serves as a warranty sticker to show signs of disassembly, as we will see on the next page. There are cutouts in the ABS plastic bottom panel to allow for cable routing with three options to choose from. This is good to see and will help account for cable management on a desk with other items around the keyboard, and there are nubs on the routing options off to the sides to help keep the cable in place too. The keyboard has four rubber pads on its corners and, also given its size, is not going to budge at all on your average desk surface. There are two case feet that can be raised to elevate the keyboard if need be, and we see that the feet have rubber pads to prevent scratches and provide more friction when used.


The keyboard's cable is non-detachable and comes out of a cutout in the middle at the top by default, although it can be routed elsewhere as seen above. The additional routing options help especially in this case since the cable has thick braiding, which adds to its longevity, but makes it harder to coil/route around otherwise. The cable terminates in a standard male USB Type-A connectors. USB 2.0 will suffice for power and functionality here given the non-RGB backlighting, and the 500 mA current draw rating on the label supports this. I would have liked to see a USB pass-through or hub on this keyboard since Cherry is also marketing it as one for office professionals. For those curious, PS/2 operation is possible here via an adapter, and Cherry actually recommends it to get the most of the RealKey technology, which is one of the big features advertised with this keyboard - more on this later.


The keycaps follow a Cherry profile which is different from the usual OEM profile we see in terms of using low-profile keycaps, with the bottom rows having a more pronounced, angled top surface as seen in the images above. The keycaps are made out of ABS plastic (average wall thickness of 0.94 mm here), and the legends are laser etched, so expect wear and tear sooner rather than later. Cherry should have gone with better quality keycaps here on a keyboard that otherwise oozes great build quality, so this is a disappointment. Backlighting favors the legends on the top as expected, which bodes well for the primary legends, but makes the secondary legends light up less uniformly. In a keyboard with only red (and blue in some cases) backlighting, the lower brightness on the secondary legends can make them appear orange to the naked eye. The bottom row is "standard" in that you have a lot of replacement keycap sets to choose from if you so desire, although I will note that the Cherry profile of the stock keycaps is a feature many enthusiasts tend to prefer as well.


The Cherry MX Board 6.0 naturally uses Cherry MX switches, and all of them use Cherry MX Red switches. It would have been nice to see other switch options here, if only for Cherry to have a product that shows off the less common switches in the market. I do understand that Cherry is trying to also target the gaming keyboard market here, where the linear, lower-force MX Red switches are especially popular. Given this launched in 2015, the newer MX Speed and MX Silent switches were not an option at the time either. Cherry should have updated the keyboard with the MX Speed (Silver) switches in my opinion, which would again have gone much better with the keyboard's main theme.

As it is here, these MX Red switches are not the RGB switch variants and thus use the black, opaque housing. The LEDs are mounted separately and at the top, which is as expected as well. The larger switches have Cherry stabilizers as well, which again is no surprise, and this does make removing and installing them easier even with the lower profile keycaps.


Here is a look at the wrist rest in action. It simply clips into place via magnets near the middle and is fairly secure under usual operating conditions once installed; however, this is also dependent on how massive your hands are and the force applied, so consider this a your-mileage-may-vary situation. When used, the wrist rest covers the Cherry logo on the keyboard's body, and now, the presence of that same logo on the wrist rest makes sense. The keyboard with the wrist rest will take up a lot of space on your desk, so cluttered or space-saving desk users need not apply.