Introduction

After a look at the Cherry MX Board 6.0 and even older Cherry MX Board 3.0, it is now time to examine a newer Cherry keyboard. This is the third of the three keyboards sent to me for review via Cherry Americas and, as the name suggests, it is all about raising the general public's awareness of Cherry's MX Silent switches. The MX Silent Red and MX Silent Black were developed in late 2015 with Corsair having a timed exclusive for a while, and after that ran out, we have seen a few other keyboards offer these. These switches are Cherry's answer to those who find regular mechanical switches too loud, and thanks to Cherry, we can now take a look at this keyboard to see how silent these switches truly are.


The MX Board Silent comes in a total of four options - two depending on the switch type (MX Silent Red or MX Silent Black) and two depending on the keyboard's color (black or light gray). All four come only in the US ANSI layout, which is surely a disappointment for Cherry's own local German user base and, as we can see from the image above, it has some fairly large bezels - especially on the top. There is a good reason for these, however, and we will explore this and more as we begin this review with a look at the specifications in the table below.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

Cherry continues with their usual black and red color scheme for the product packaging, as well as having minimal details on the front. Here, we see the company and product name along with the respective logos only, and it is again on the back that we see more details, including an illustration of the keyboard itself. Marketing features and specifications continue here and on the sides, and we also see a large seal covering a single flap in the middle to help keep the contents inside in check.


Open the box and we see the keyboard itself with the cable hidden in the compartment at the top. Removing it, we get to take a look at the accessories that are provided with the MX Board Silent. There is a multi-language manual that briefly describes the keyboard's functionality, although I dare say this is one product you can safely go about using without having to refer to it. Also included here is a user's guide on any hazardous materials used in the product, and this appears to be present more to satisfy particular requirements for sale in China than anything else.

There is another accessory that comes with the MX Board Silent; however, we shall see it on the next page as it concerns the keyboard's connectivity options. As it is, this keyboard is extremely barebones when it comes to packaging and accessories.