CHERRY XTRFY K5V2 Compact

My serious gamer was tired of the clickety gaming keyboards that dominate that market and is so happy to have this much quieter and smoother option.

The media could not be loaded. This K5V2 compact keyboard is absolutely gorgeous with the RGB shining through the keycaps and top plate, it’s one of the most striking implementations of RGB lighting I have ever seen on a mechanical keyboard. The whole entire keyboard is a foggy white plastic, which acts as a diffuser for the LEDs underneath. It’s truly stunning, and this is coming from someone who has owned over a dozen mechanical keyboards with RGB lighting. The design itself is a high point and will be appreciated be even people who aren’t into keyboards with multicolor backlights.The keycaps feel very pleasant to the touch, typing on them, combined with the MX2A Switches is really a treat, the ones on my board are red/linear and super smooth with just the right amount of resistance. Everything about the shape and construction of this board just leads to a very accurate typing experience, I can reach as high as 70 words per minute (up from a normal 50-55) because I just don’t make any mistakes like on other keyboards with profiles that are too high or keycap materials that feel slick to type on. After about 5 minutes of using this, I knew it was replacing my Roccat Vulcan II mini as my everyday keyboard.The one thing about it that I don’t love (for the price charged) is that it’s wired only, I would have liked to have had the option to use a 2.4GHz adapter for $130. The other thing which could be viewed as either a negative or a positive feature is that there is no dedicated software for this. Cherry Utility does not support this keyboard, it is designed so that everything can be adjusted using various key combinations and shortcuts using the Fn key with other keys. But everything is intuitively marked with front-facing legends on the keycaps. So this might not be one that you would want to swap out for alternative keycaps, because some of the keys’ secondary functions are unlikely to be found on a third party set of keycaps. It’s possible that you could get this to work with various unofficial keyboard customization software, but just know that Cherry designed it to be controlled physically, not via software.I’m someone who most just uses keyboards for standard windows operation and gaming, I’m not sure how crazy you can go with programming multiple levels of macros and tertiary functions to this board because I haven’t tried it and don’t use those options on boards I have that do support the option.I think this keyboard is for people who appreciate Cherry’s premium build quality and want one of their higher-end products. It’s of course, meant for PC gamers who love RGB and want a keyboard that matches their desktop build (while also still getting an excellent typing experience and responsive gaming experience). I played Doom Eternal, Dusk, Nier Automata, and Cyberpunk using this board and the keyboard had excellent responsiveness and precision. I noticed no input latency or lag, it performed as well if not better than more “Gamer”-focused brands (without needing the companion software that ends up being one more application taking up resources in the background).

Pretty lightweight and quiet keycaps really small build so keep that in mind its stable on the desk when gaming it’s a good quality keyboard but the keycaps aren’t as good as they should be so they can get scratched if not careful when taking them off I grabbed this when it was on sale for half price so I feel I got an ok deal but for 140 or however much the original price is it’s definitely not worth as you could get another keyboard with more features and a better quality build.

Even if these boards were ever on sale for those prices I still wouldn't recommend to anyone, lackluster, unfinished, cheap, attention to detail lacking - some things that come to mind. You're paying for the name basically. Insta return.I'm not a hater but the scene adn quality for your dollar has drastically changed within the last 3 years there's easily 10-15+ keyboards that demolish this in every way possible for $100-150 or less.Problems I noticed out of the box and during teardown:1) Keycaps look like they were placed on a piece of cardboard and spray painted. The caps aren't fully coated white / black on all four sides - literally every keycap. You can visually see this as the board sits.2) Font location on the keycaps is weird and inconsistent. Every key has the letter on the top RIGHT side instead of the top LEFT and some are dead in the middle of the keycap. I believe this to be a QC issue along with the paint as mentioned above. all of the modifies the logo is in the middle. Overall just inconsistent keycaps.3) The "Cherry XTRFY" logo / badge above the arrow keys is magnetic....barely. They didn't add any sort of provision to make the logo piece sit in place so no matter what the logo will always become tilted or just sit crooked with the lightest touch or accidental bump.4) 3-pin switches. MX2A or not, there's just no benefit even with them being MX2A. Their so called "changes" to the molds and switches isn't noticeable at all. They changed the springs and massively donut dipped them, that's it. Buy original switches and a break in machine.5) I'm shocked the has PCB mounted stabilizers, that being said they use INTENSE amounts of weird thick lube in them. The most sluggish stab keys I've felt from a board pre-lubed.6) It's very easy to open the keyboard but there's not much to do. Daughterboard from the early 2000's, most thin piece of cheap foam at the bottom of the board, same matching pcb foam.7) Tray mounted, rigid.