The Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 is a High-Performance Gaming Keyboard Just Shy of Greatness

There’s nary mode to speech astir mechanical keyboards without bringing up Cherry and their prolific marque of switches, which you’ll spot successful immoderate of the champion gaming keyboards passim time. Following the instauration of the caller procreation of power components past year, the accessory institution highlights its caller wares successful the Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 keyboard. In what should person been a superb showcase for the company’s caller merchandise lineup, those fantastic caller keys are marred by immoderate unusual plan flaws connected what’s different a alternatively pleasant-feeling keyboard.

Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 – Design and Features

Cherry packed a fewer frills into the XTRFY MX 3.1. It’s a wired full-size keyboard implicit with a afloat acceptable of Cherry’s caller MX2A Red mechanical switches. It’s disposable successful achromatic and achromatic colour schemes arsenic good arsenic a airy pinkish edition, though that’s lone disposable successful Asian territories. You tin spice up the look with afloat RGB customization and radiance done the keycaps and vents connected board’s sides. Inside the box, you’ll find lone the keyboard, a sturdy braided USB-A to C cable, and successful lieu of immoderate adjustable legs built onto the keyboard itself, Cherry provides a brace of screw-on feet to set the keyboard’s height. It’s bully that there’s an enactment of immoderate benignant to alteration the space astatine which the keyboard sits, but I privation determination were thing to marque that accommodation quicker and easier for users to power betwixt positions connected the fly. That’s conscionable the archetypal of my issues with the MX 3.1’s design, but thankfully, the bulk of my complaints are tegument deep.

Like different products successful the XTRFY line, the MX 3.1 isn’t a peculiarly handsome portion of tech. Its cardinal layout is crowded, eliminating the gaps betwixt the main keyboard and the fig pad area, leaving abstraction lone for a trio of notification lights supra the arrow keys. However, portion it should beryllium redeeming space, it’s inactive astir arsenic wide arsenic the full-sized Logitech G413 SE, which manages to springiness each conception much country to respire than the MX 3.1. Thankfully, successful practice, the MX 3.1 manages not to consciousness arsenic cramped arsenic it looks.

The framework is comprised of a coagulated chunk of aluminum that’s machined into an angular basal that houses the recessed switches and folds into feet connected the beforehand and rear edges. It’s flanked with dotted RGB broadside plates with a dotted signifier that aren’t rather flush with the framework – though it creates a benignant of textured look, it makes the full look of the keyboard unsmooth and unpolished. The physique prime is great, however, and doesn’t consciousness flimsy adjacent if determination are inactive a fistful of edges that could usage immoderate cleaning up successful its plan philosophy.

Cherry is intelligibly aiming for the gaming assemblage with the aesthetic of the XTRFY MX 3.1, going with a pseudo-futuristic look, but it feels similar it’s surviving successful the past. The banal keycaps are emblazoned with a crisp sci-fi-inspired font, making the portion arsenic a full look similar immoderate of the try-hard fund keyboards connected merchantability implicit a decennary ago. It’s not a implicit eyesore, but it’s 1 of a fewer questionable choices Cherry made with the MX 3.1.

However, determination are much confusing choices, specifically however immoderate of the punctuation keys are depicted connected the banal keycaps. When a cardinal has aggregate functions, the represented characters are oriented vertically, with the apical quality being the default and the bottommost requiring a property of the Shift oregon Function keys. It’s a beauteous modular configuration for astir keyboards, but Cherry has decided that immoderate of the punctuation keys person the aforesaid vertical orientation, portion others are displayed horizontally. Here’s the kicker: there’s nary consistency connected whether the near oregon close quality is expected to beryllium the default. For example, the bracket keys and guardant slash, which are successful enactment adjacent to each other, are flip-flopped connected each sequential key. It is genuinely a UX disaster.

Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 – Software and Customization

When it comes to making things colorful, the adjustable RGB lighting is 1 of the champion aspects of the MX 3.1, and brings the wide aesthetics backmost from the brink of being irredeemable. Using the Cherry Utility software, the keyboard tin beryllium customized with a assortment of pulsing, waving, oregon static lighting styles, including connected the broadside plates. For those who privation to get granular with the look of their setup, each cardinal tin beryllium individually lit with bespoke colors, which thankfully is becoming much common, and is particularly large to spot here. The lighting, which illuminates the characters connected each key, gives a neat underglow to the recessed basal of the device, with bright, colorful luminescence pouring done each crevice.

The Cherry Utility allows for aggregate profiles to power up the lighting arsenic good arsenic changing the functions of idiosyncratic keys. There are options to remap keys, make macros, adhd circumstantial multimedia functions, oregon benignant retired a pre-written 1000-character tract of substance with a azygous keystroke, which is large for mapping your passwords to a key. The inferior itself is simplistic, splitting customization up into “Lighting” and “Actions” segments, which are casual to navigate and use. There’s not a batch to do, but it’s large that Cherry has a cleanable interface for users to easy marque the MX 3.1 much their own.

Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 – Performance

The XTRFY MX 3.1’s redeeming grace is that it’s wide a pleasant keyboard to benignant with, particularly for agelong periods of time. This is my archetypal acquisition with Cherry’s MX2A Red switches, and I’m reasonably impressed with however they feel. The switches necessitate lone a airy interaction to press, lone 45g of actuation force, which is connected the little extremity of what Cherry offers with its assorted switches. As is beauteous standard, each cardinal has a full question region of 4.0mm and an actuation constituent successful the nonstop halfway of that astatine 2.0mm. Cherry boasts that this reduces strain and fatigue erstwhile playing games and portion I wouldn’t spell arsenic acold arsenic to afloat endorse that statement, aft a mates of weeks utilizing the keyboard arsenic my regular operator astatine enactment and portion playing games, I haven’t travel distant from agelong sessions feeling similar I needed to remainder my hands and wrists.

Cherry claims the MX 3.1 is built to dampen the dependable of its switches, and successful practice, they’ve done a beauteous large job. The MX2A Red switches are already designed arsenic a linear power which means it doesn’t person the clickiness of different Cherry switches, and erstwhile typing connected the MX 3.1, it’s noticeably quiet. They aren’t wholly silent, caput you, but they supply a satisfying dependable similar a mates of integrative measuring spoons mildly tapping 1 another. There are layers wrong the keyboard to assistance dampening which isn’t disposable without taking isolated the chassis, but immoderate it’s doing works truly well.

The ABS keycaps themselves are mostly unremarkable successful look and feel, though they are comfy capable to use. Laid retired successful the modular Cherry tallness and formation, the keys consciousness creaseless erstwhile pressed. A communal ailment astir ABS keys is however they deterioration implicit time, and with Cherry suggesting these caps are abrasion-resistant, I gave them a insignificant accent trial to find out. Lightly scraping a cardinal with a tiny flathead screwdriver is evidently not a mean usage case, but the instrumentality hardly near a people connected the plastic. Pressing somewhat harder did permission a much noticeable abrasion, but it’s hardly disposable astatine a glance, and invisible capable to walk my speedy trial flying colors.