This mechanical keyboard is just as good for work as it is for gaming – and it’s on sale

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The Cherry Xtrfy MX 3.1 mechanical keyboard is available now for $120.
• It’s a sleek and well-designed RGB keyboard with a handful of customizable lighting effects and durable, mechanical keys.
• It’s not hot-swappable and it’s not exactly cheap

At Amazon, the Cherry XTRFY MX 3.1 with the Red and Silent Red switches is on sale for $99. The keyboard with Brown switches is even lower at $90.

As one of the premier manufacturers of keyboard switches, Cherry’s components appear in a wide range of gaming keyboards, but the company also makes its own line of products. The Cherry XTRIFY MX 3.1, for example, is the German brand’s latest mechanical keyboard with RGB lighting and a host of customizable options in premium aluminum housing.

The XTRIFY MX 3.1 is a wired gaming keyboard with Cherry’s MX2A crosspoint switch technology that gives each individual key an impressive travel distance. It’s extremely responsive, with a snappy and satisfying 1ms response time that results in accurate typing in both gaming and productivity. 

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The physical design is compact, with the keys going right up to the edge of the device, with a nice slope that positions the keys in an organic, accessible design. Despite the compact design, it’s still relatively chunky, weighing 2.5 pounds and measuring 17 inches long from end to end.

The bottom of the keyboard features rubber stops that keep it planted firmly in place on the desk, a much-appreciated feature for those of us who find our keyboards pushed around in awkward positions after intense gaming moments (or bursts of inspiration during focused writing sessions).

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The extensive RGB lights on the MX 3.1 are the board’s call-out feature. It’s an attractive keyboard in its own right, but the lights are well-balanced — illuminating both the individual keys and the surrounding edges, making it pretty but not overly garish. 

The keyboard supports all the typical lighting effects, from a “breathing” rainbow washing over the keys to explosions of color emanating from each key press to Pac-Man-style lights following the length of the keyboard row by row. Alternatively, you can just pick a static color to illuminate the keyboard.

There are several different ways to select lighting effects on the MX 3.1. The most immediate is to familiarize yourself with the built-in hotkeys (listed in the included manual). If you’re new to this, it’s not exactly intuitive, and a streamlined cheatsheet with the most commonly accessed functions would be a nice future addition.  

Hitting Fn + F12 on the keyboard cycles through the preset lighting effect profiles list. Once you find the one you want, hit Fn + Space to bring up the color palette and customize the color. Just hit the key corresponding to the right shade, and voila. The icons on the Function row correspond to other commands to increase or reduce brightness or turn off the lights altogether with Fn + F4. 

The other way to customize the lighting effects, create macros, and update the device’s firmware is in the Cherry Utility app from the website. It’s pretty barebones, but it’s functional and easier to use than scouring the manual for the right key combinations. 

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Mechanical keyboards have a reputation for being noisy, and although the MX 3.1 is guaranteed to be louder than your laptop, it’s not as bad as you’d expect, with internal dampening inside the MX2A switches that keep things to a consistent level. This also makes it a solid keyboard for folks who switch between gaming and productivity on the same computer, as it is practical enough to support long typing sessions. 

The concave shape of each individual key and the closeness of the spacebar make for a comfortable typing experience that allowed me to acclimate very quickly, as most new keyboards have a lag time for the mind/muscle connection before you can truly feel “used to” it. The setup on the MX 3.1 feels universal and predictable. 

For that reason, this keyboard feels good to use for long days at work, as I forgot just how much of a difference it makes over the long run. Although you might not notice it immediately, the impact of individual keystrokes adds up on lower-end keyboards. 

Regarding some of the drawbacks of this keyboard, the keycaps are made of ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), a more common form of plastic found in keyboards for its low cost. I would have liked to see the XTRIFY MX 3.1 come with PBT (polybutylene terephthalate) keycaps instead, which are a little more premium and textured, and resist the “shine” that develops on keyboards over time from contact exposure.

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Secondly, this keyboard isn’t hot-swappable, meaning you can’t remove or replace individual keycaps yourself. This is a niche feature for keyboard enthusiasts, sure, but it can come in handy if a certain key starts sticking or a piece of debris gets caught, allowing for a quick fix instead of completely replacing the board. 

ZDNET’s buying advice

Enthusiasts might miss a few of the keyboard’s niche features, but for most consumers looking for a customizable, sleek mechanical keyboard, the Cherry XTRIFY MX 3.1 delivers the experience. 

Gamers will appreciate the near-instant response time and durability of some of the best keyboard switch mechanisms in the industry. Other users seeking reprieve from their laptop’s mushy keyboard with comfortable key travel will appreciate the MX 3.1’s compact frame and sturdy, attractive form factor. 

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