Cherry MX switches have long been well-regarded in the keyboard community. They were first introduced in 1983, and since then have become commonplace in the mechanical keyboard market – which was the only keyboard market before the invention of rubber domes. Yet Cherry not only produces MX switches for other keyboards, but also produces keyboards – and claim to be the oldest keyboard manufacturer still in business.

One of the most recent additions to Cherry’s keyboard lineup is the Cherry MX 6.0 – not exactly the cleverest name – which aims to be a high-end keyboard meant to suit both typists (such as office workers) and gamers alike. It features MX Red switches, a moderately reserved style, red backlighting, an excellent build quality, Cherry Realkey, and a hefty price of $176.

For the first time in about 30 years, the mechanical switch market has a substantially new piece of technology instead of a modification on an old one. Cherry announced a high-precision switch targeted at notebooks and low-profile desktop keyboards. The switch uses a shallow design while maintaining the well-known characteristics of the standard MX Red switch. After meeting with Cherry, we learned that the company's R&D department had invested over 5 years to achieve the 11.9 mm design that does, after some simple side-by-side comparison, feel a lot like Cherry’s other MX linear switches, the black and red. The MX Low Profile RGB Red is about 35% shallower than the standard MX switches, which measure 18.5 mm. We also learned that the company was originally shooting for a 50-60% size reduction, but found that to be impossible if the standard Cherry MX characteristics were to be maintained. The switch was fully developed and built in Germany, which to der8auer’s approval, means that it fits the “German Engineered Perfection” mantra that we’ve seen in the industry.

Although the actuation characteristics remain about the same, the travel has been reduced from 4.0 to 3.2 mm. This leads to a shorter bounce time (typically 1ms) which results in higher switching frequencies for quick response gaming. Gold-Crosspoint technology is still in use to prevent corrosion or dust build up on the contacts, and the switch is rated for over 50 million keystrokes with no loss of quality. Contrary to what we were told during the meeting, one of the switch specifications is not what we originally thought. The IP rating is IP40, meaning it has no liquid resistance. This was likely just a miscommunication here due to the fact that the Cherry engineer we met with spoke German as his primary language.