Mechanical keyboards are technically superior to the average membrane keyboards found on store shelves or the built-in keyboards on most of our favorite Chromebooks. Mechanical options are designed to last you much longer than the rubber dome and scissor switches on laptops, and the longevity of the former is not tied to other components, making laptops look dated after a few years.
Most of our favorite mechanical keyboards come with switches that can last for years of heavy daily use. However, one of the industry’s most well-known brands, German brand Cherry (with roots in the US), has taken the keyboard lifespan to eleven years with its new KC 200 MX keyboard and MX2A switches, which are rated to withstand up to 100 million actuations. That’s double what most switches are rated for, and it’s also reason enough for us to try the board out for ourselves.
Cherry KC 200 MX Mechanical Keyboard
The Cherry KC 200 MX is a basic mechanical keyboard that gets the job done and promises years of service, but that doesn’t mean it’s the keyboard you should settle for, especially with its sticker price.
- Built to last
- Useful tips for Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock
- Well built with no concerns about fit and finish.
- South-facing keys support more keycap profiles without interference.
- Non-detachable cable
- No programmable keys
- Thin keycaps with printed legends may not last long.
- No backlight
Pricing and Availability
Too much money for what is offered
From the outset, the Cherry KC 200 MX mechanical keyboard is aimed at one of the largest segments of mechanical keyboard buyers outside of the enthusiast community — enterprise customers. This is evident in several quirks we noticed in the keyboard’s design, but more on that later.
The new keyboard is priced at $90 and is readily available on Amazon. This model has a dedicated product page on Cherry Americas website, but you can’t buy the keyboard directly from there. However, the keyboard is readily available on Amazon.
Cherry offers this mechanical keyboard in a range of language versions, including French and German, as well as a UK layout with a massive Enter key. However, at $90, the enthusiast market is full of attractive options for compact aluminum-framed keyboards from the likes of Keychron. The KC 200MX commands its sticker price on its advertised reliability alone, and there’s little competition from the average custom mechanical keyboard maker in this department.
What are the good features of the Cherry KC 200 MX mechanical keyboard?
Plug it in and forget it.
You may recognize Cherry as the brand that developed the Cherry MX mechanical keyboard switch design, which has since spawned an entire industry of similar switches from brands like Gateron, Outemu, and Kailh, which are often called clones, despite their immense popularity. Well, Cherry also makes a range of mechanical keyboards under its own brand, and the KC 200 MX is one of the latest additions to its catalog.
The board comes with a copper-colored panel and black keycaps or white keys with a silver-colored keyboard. You can buy the keyboard with either the new MX2A Brown switches or the MX2A Silent Red switches, the former offering a tactile typing experience while the latter offers quieter keystrokes. I tested the black version with brown switches that are guaranteed to last at least 100 million keystrokes like the original MX Brown, but you should know that Cherry only rates the Silent Red switches for 50 million keystrokes. Meanwhile, the company heavily promotes the durability of the switches on its packaging, though their rated lifespan is the same as regular MX Browns, so there’s not much to brag about.
New Cherry KC 200 MX Keyboard with MX2A Switches
Among the original Cherry switches, the mechanical keyboard community considers MX Brown to be the standard for tactile feel, so much so that the color has now become synonymous with tactile switches within keyboard circles. And just like the originals, I was happy to discover that the new Cherry MX2A switches retain a pleasantly light tactile feel mid-keystroke despite featuring a redesigned stem, spring, and cap.
I would call it a “tickly” tactile switch, but the new design feels smoother out of the box than the average MX Brown switch, probably because it’s factory-lubricated with the community-trusted Grade 0 Krytox 205 lubricant. The MX2A Brown switches still make a rattling sound and aren’t comparable to the switches I’ve tested, but performance is consistent across the board and not as push-dependent as the original Brown switches.
Indicator lights shine bright and clear.
The typing experience is pretty standard – the new stem design keeps keycap wiggle to a minimum, the key legends are clear and easy to read, unlike similarly priced gaming keyboards, and the Scroll Lock, Num Lock, and Caps Lock keys get individual indicator lights that shine through the said keycaps. Even the spacebar gets a unique design on the longer edge facing you, featuring a rounded edge in the middle and sharper corners on the sides. The stabilizers on the larger keys work well and don’t wiggle or wobble noticeably. You get handy shortcut keys for the calculator and volume controls just above the number pad. N-key rollover allows for multiple simultaneous keystrokes to be registered without issue, and the keyboard’s anti-ghosting feature ensures error-free typing without missing any inputs.
The space bar has a uniquely rounded edge.
However, the durable keys are the KC 200 MX’s unique feature. To put it in perspective, a typist who consistently types five-letter words at 100 words per minute for eight hours every day, five days a week, will get a full 16 years of use out of a new KC 200 MX keyboard before the keys start to fail. This feature alone helps the Cherry KC 200 MX keyboard appeal to a very specific buyer – businesses looking for affordable, efficient peripherals that minimize the associated replacement and maintenance costs.
What’s bad about the Cherry KC 200 MX mechanical keyboard?
The keycaps are so thin that they rival the paper the keyboard comes with.
As you can see, the KC 200 MX is by no means a mechanical keyboard for gaming enthusiasts. Typing experience and reliability are the only aspects worth praising, and user experience is woefully neglected in everything else, perhaps hoping that the Cherry branding will suffice as an excuse. It starts with the unboxing experience, where the keyboard comes wrapped in thin black paper with a manual and nothing else. The cable is non-detachable; you miss out on wireless connectivity options, software customization, macOS support, and per-key backlighting, which is the first time we’ve seen a plain old yellow PCB in a long time.
A closer look at the keycaps
Most of these missing features could be ignored, considering the KC 200 MX is a desktop keyboard, but its cheap keycaps made me lose my temper. The ABS keycaps feature laser-etched legends that are alarmingly thin, and offer no audio benefits. More importantly, ABS plastic is prone to corrosion, and the keycap legends will be polished to a shiny finish before the keys start failing. While this keyboard is compatible with most aftermarket keycap sets, we doubt companies will go that route. At the very least, it would have been nice to see double-shot injection-molded ABS keycaps or sublimated PBT keycaps at this price point.
Should you buy the Cherry KC 200 MX mechanical keyboard?
Redesigned keys do not guarantee switching.
The Cherry KC 200 MX is definitely a decent office keyboard that you can use for years, but I wouldn’t recommend it to mechanical keyboard enthusiasts. If you’re looking for a keyboard that promises to keep you using it for years without worry, this keyboard definitely ticks all the boxes. It’s also a great keyboard if you just want to get acquainted with the new Cherry MX2A switches without introducing a bunch of other variables to the custom keyboard scene.
However, if you’re looking for the new MX2A Brown switches, they’re sold in packs of 110 or 35, with the former being a better value at just $45 — half the cost of the KC 200 MX. As much as we love them for their simplicity and minimalist design, the $90 sticker price left a bad taste in my mouth. Sure, the cost of making a new mechanical switch adds up, but there are plenty of sub-$100 mechanical keyboards with much longer feature lists, and the KC 200 MX simply isn’t in the same league.
If you’re looking for a more compact keyboard with more features but have concerns about durability, I’d suggest going with a keyboard with hot-swappable switches so you can replace the keys if they start to wear out. This option doesn’t make sense in a workplace either, but the Cherry KC 200 MX isn’t worth the money in my book unless you’re the exact type of office manager this keyboard is aimed at.
Cherry KC 200 MX Mechanical Keyboard
The KC 200 MX has a lot of potential, but it’s not aimed at gamers who prefer limited options. However, if you have $90 to spend on a keyboard that you don’t want to replace every few months, this is the one that will last.
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