CHERRY MX Board 3.0 S - Wired Mechanical Keyboard - Aluminum Housing - MX Red Silent -Black - QWERTY

I broke down and bought this keyboard because three low-end models in a row had been pieces of crap, and this model was rated #1 on a "best of 2023" list for silent keyboards. So far, I love it, but it's taking some getting used to. All keyboards are slightly different, but the font on the letter keys is a sort of "NASA" space style font which is a little harder to read than your standard sans-serif keyboard letters. Even more different are the numbers and symbols on the number keys being reversed, so the symbols on each (! on the 1 key, @ on the 2 key, etc) are below the numbers rather than above. There are indicator lights for caps lock, scroll lock and number lock, but talk about subtle--I just found them! But I love the feel, I love the solid construction, I love how quiet the keys are, and I can type really fast on it. It's heavy and it doesn't slip or move while you work. I'm not using it for gaming, but I'm a writer and publisher, so I really need a good keyboard. The keyboard not only glows in rainbow colors, the colors continuously cycle in a slow pulse, which is definitely funky. When I get stuck on writing something I can take a break and watch the keyboard change colors while I think. :-) It works fine with my older Lenovo desktop, I just plugged it into an USB expander and zoom, it was good to go. The delivery was blindingly fast, it arrived the next day. The packaging...not so great. The keyboard had just been tossed into quite a large box with a couple of packing pillows. It arrived just fine (it didn't spend very long in transit!) but the manufacturers might want to know that Amazon is being a bit casual with their product.

If you like quiet, linear switches with a tight, high-quality feel, you won't do any better than this at the price point.

The keyboard is sturdy and easy to use. Would recommend.

pros: - as the name advertised, very quiet keyboard, the linear key switch does not make noise when fingers touch the surface; this mechanical keyboard makes less noise than Cherry's own membrane version - the linear switches have right amount of resistant, do not require too much force to press down - fancy key labels, they look too pretty that I don't want to use customised key caps, but a few of them are not aligned very well (e.g.: brightness up and down, not sure if that's intentional but very ugly) - backlight, and fancy reflection of RGB LEDs from each key to the aluminum frame having a cyber feeling - full sized arrow keys - wired! keyboard (and the USB head has a keyboard mark to distinguish this device without tracing the wire) - wired keyboard with onboard memory! -- both backlights and key maps are stored onboard, persistently -- backlight setting can be configured without software -- the Cherry Utility Software ONLY changes the onboard memory configuration, no Windows background process nor registry alternation (however, the software cannot load the onboard memory, meaning if you delete the software, or running the first time, it will overwrite the existing configuration) - having all these features I care, this keyboard is surprisingly cheap cons: - minimum brightness is still too high; it's possible to use the software to change the HSV to dimmer the colour, but the main problem is the gap between key caps - there is a lighting mode called Single key, which turned off all backlight, and light up whenever a key is pressed, meaning the hardware is capable to adjust each key's brightness, instead of only the HSV value; also wish there is a mode works similar but keep all keys light up but changing their HSV or even only the brightness on press - pretty much the only real annoyance of this keyboard is the Cherry key's location -- between ESC and F1. My left hand looks up F2 and F4 by searching the gap between ESC and F1, so this was almost a blocker issue, but I found three workarounds: -- 1. first I take the Cherry key's cap off and mounted it upside down, so my finger can recognise it, downside of this method is there are more light leaking from the other side of key cap -- 2. mod the keys so Cherry key can act as F1, then F2 ...... but then there is no gap between ESC and F1 -- 3. good thing the Cherry key switches support key caps customisation, a low profile cap can help my finger to navigate around that area, and still keep the functionality of that key neutral: - there are 3 very bright LED indicators (for CapLock, ScrollLock, NumLock), located between DELETE END PAGE and arrow keys, cannot be disabled, cannot adjust brightness; I have to tape them to save my eyes, but to be fair, most keyboards have these annoying indicators - rectangular RETURN; and the label is just an arrow, how can we tell which one is RETURN which one is ENTER? - FN key is not at left bottom, but right to ALT key; mixing feeling of: volume controls are F1&F2&F3 (cannot mute with a single hand for average people), but CTRL is the left bottom as it should be; I mod the key right above NUM to mute and unmute(no idea that label meant for and don't care losing that function), so it's acceptable - the alternative function of keys are labelled counterintuitive (! is below 1, ; and : on the same line, where is the ? mark) - profile linking with applications does not work very well and require the software being running, I rather to manually switch profile than having a hidden Windows process

I absolutely love this thing. It's got a great spring-back but is easy enough to press down that I can type really fast. It's the quietest keyboard I've ever had. The colors are really nice, too. My ONLY feedback for the creators would be: -Please make the font bigger on the keys, including the symbols -Make the home key nubs a smidge...nubbier In no way do these detract from the quality, but I WFH as well as run a business and am on the keyboard 60+ hours per week, large fonts and good home nubs are a must. These nubs are just good enough, and the font is just large enough, but if they could add those in that would be amazing. Still 5+ stars for the product. It's solid, non slip, quiet, nice and heavy, and I really like the amphitheater style curvature. It's a subtle curve, but nice and unique to my previous keyboards.