The king of steelless keyboard feel, hands-on experience with CHERRY MX3.0S TKL

Four years ago, I was new to mechanical keyboards when I was in college. As a student, I didn’t have a lot of money. With a monthly living cost of more than 1,000 yuan, I still gritted my teeth and bought the Rapoo V500 alloy version. Although the ABS keycaps are heavily oiled, and Rapoo’s own tea switch is indeed a bit lacking in texture, and the big keys are also fleshy, I really feel the charm of the mechanical keyboard.

After graduation, I had a lot of budget, so I bought ikbc C87 with CHERRY switches. The PBT keycaps are finally free of oil, and the original CHERRY switches feel very good. At that time, I thought that such a keyboard had reached its peak. It wasn't until one day that I tried my colleague's CHERRY MX8.0, and I realized that I was a frog in a well. The big keys feel so comfortable.

After using it, I can't forget this feeling, and ikbc is no longer fragrant. Always remember, there will be reverberations! While CHERRY MX8.0 is still so far away, but MX3.0S can always be arranged! The 87-key matte version is less than 500, which is my cherry. Taking advantage of the 520, hurry up and give the leader Amway this good keyboard, as expected, the 520 gift that the leader gave me is it!

The packaging box is matte black, with a pure black glossy logo, which is very atmospheric.

There is a huge CHERRY logo in the lower right corner of the front. The logo is printed in pure black and glossy, which can not only highlight the product brand, but also make it blend with the packaging box without being obtrusive.

The product certification mark is on the side of the package. From the information, we can see that the student chose the MX brown shaft. As for why I chose the tea shaft, I will tell you later.

Take out all accessories from the package, as shown in the figure below. From the picture below, we can see that there are not many accessories for MX3.0S. In addition to the main body of the keyboard, there is also a USB-A to Type-C cable, two height-increasing screws, and two paper manuals.

In terms of appearance, let’s take a look at the front part of the CHERRY MX3.0S mechanical keyboard. MX3.0S has three colors and four switches. There are three colors of pink, white, and black, and five types of switches: black switch, green switch, brown switch, red switch, and mute red switch, all of which are original MX switches.

The appearance of the MX3.0S wired version is consistent with the three-mode version, with a size of 355mmx135mmx35mm. I personally like this 88-key arrangement with a narrow frame and compact layout, which is very efficient for coding, and the keyboard will be handy when it is used with rich and comprehensive functions. For those keyboards that are purely compact and beautiful, many functions require multiple key combinations to complete, and it is uncomfortable to use.

The keyboard frame is made of gray anodized aluminum, so that the color of the keyboard frame is basically consistent with the keycaps, and the touch is very comfortable. Anodized aluminum has better scratch resistance, with a CHERRY logo in the middle and a trapezoidal opening below the logo.

The MX 3.0S designed by 89 Perry has a full-function combination key, which is very convenient to use.

The student's favorite is the cherry button on the right side of the ESC key. Press it to open the cherry driver interface. If you can’t find where to download the driver, you can press and hold this button for 5 seconds to open the driver download interface, which is very convenient.

The side frame of the keyboard and the base adopt a one-piece molding scheme, and it can be seen from the side that the curvature of the keyboard step is not large.

There is a Type-C interface on the top of the keyboard, which is used for connection in wired mode. Here is a small suggestion for CHERRY, hoping to make the wired connection interface into a buried wire design. Such a direct plug-in design is easy to drop the line when moving the keyboard, and the wire will be more beautiful.

Let’s take a look at the arrow keys again, the crease design is still the same as before. Above the arrow keys is the keyboard connection indicator, and the three indicators correspond to NumLock, CapsLock, and ScrollLock respectively. The keyboard frame is very narrow, much better looking than the popular Gasket structure.

The foot support design of the MX3.0S was mentioned earlier, so let’s talk about it in detail here. There are 4 non-slip pads at the bottom of the keyboard, all of which are dot-shaped and relatively small in size.

The anti-slip pads on the left and right sides above can be pulled out and replaced with higher pads to make the overall slope of the keyboard a little higher. At this time, it is more comfortable to wear a wrist drag, whether it is typing or playing games.

CHERRY MX brown shaft, everyone should be most familiar with it. Some people compare the tea axis to the autumn of CHERRY, which combines the characteristics of the paragraph axis and the linear axis. The brown color of the tea axis is closer to the color of the mature harvest of autumn fruits. ‍

2mm trigger stroke, 55cN trigger pressure. Compared with the green switch, the sense of transition of the tea switch is much weaker, and the feeling of bottoming is very good. Compared with the paragraph feeling of the green axis, the tea axis is more like Didi, which is a good news for me, a creator who prefers code words.

I think the most worthy of praise is the satellite axis. The satellite axis adjustment of MX3.0S is very good, the feel is crisp and neat, and the bottom is not fleshy. MX3.0S uses the original high-quality ABS double-color injection keycaps. The surface of the keycaps feels delicate and has a frosted effect. After using it, I can't help but sigh, the ABS keycaps are divided into three, six or nine grades, and the MX3.0S keycaps belong to the first grade in terms of workmanship and character design.

The CHERRY keyboard with no steel plate design usually adopts its own five-legged shaft body, which has two more fixed feet than the ordinary shaft body, which increases the stability when pressing. Since the shaft body is directly fixed on the PCB, part of the pressure will be offset by the deformation of the PCB board after the key touches the bottom. Compared with the keyboard designed with steel plate, the feedback is softer, and the shaft body itself can be felt most directly. Mechanical sense, which is much stronger than the Gasket structure. Because the full key has no impact, the key trigger and multi-key operation are very sensitive, which ensures the accurate and smooth release of skills in game battles. The original keycaps and the authentic steel-free feel make typing very smooth.

In general, I think that the details of CHERRY MX3.0S are well done, and the appearance looks ordinary, which may not be the most distinctive. Once you get your hands on it, you'll notice a lot of detail on this keyboard, and you'll love it for it. CHERRY narrow side without steel structure YYDS, feels Q elastic and comfortable. The design cost and craftsmanship of CHERRY MX3.0S are actually quite high. The 99.99% pure gold gold contacts not only ensure the feel of the shaft body, but also allow the shaft body to have an extraordinary lifespan, which is recognized by the industry. For friends who have a budget of four to five hundred yuan and want to start with a durable mechanical keyboard with a good feel, MX3.0S is very suitable!