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Cherry MX Silent - retro old school USB keyboard - REVIEW
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May 30, 2025
Do you miss the glory days of the original IBM PC with its beige cabinet, green-on-black letters and big, loud mechanical keyboard and two-button mouse? Then you're going to love the remarkably well engineered Cherry MX Silent keyboard with its throwback design and key layout. Tech expert and old school computer guy Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ checks the keyboard out and finds that it works just fine even plugged into a Microsoft Surface or similar uber-modern tablet. It's fast, it's precise, it's big. But is it worth the money? Learn more: http://amzn.to/2qrXrLv
View Video Transcript
0:00
can an old school keyboard be just what
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you need to make your tablet work better
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let's find
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[Music]
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out Dave Taylor here and I want to talk
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about keyboards now you might be talking
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to your computer you might actually
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spend a lot of time dictating and
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actually using your voice very cool
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touch screens trackpads there's all
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these other ways to enter information
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but at the end of the day the vast
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majority of computer users are still
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using their keyboard now the problem is
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is that computers have gotten smaller
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and they've gotten multi-function two in
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ones three in ones I don't know nine in
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ones and those keyboards tend to be on
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the losing end of that Adventure so
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there are a lot of computers like the
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Microsoft service or its many similar
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systems out in the market and their
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keyboards are like that thick and
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they're also designed to be a cover for
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a tablet just like this h P here is the
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keyboard it's actually underneath the
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cover that's kind of crazy but the thing
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is is that I don't really like using
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those keyboards I'm an old school guy
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and I like an old school keyboard so
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when Cherry actually sent me what they
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call their MX silent that's this guy I
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thought well this will be interesting
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it's kind of big it's kind of an old
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school hardwired USB keyboard with the
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function areas and everything and I
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thought I'll give it a try and not only
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that I thought I'll give it a try with
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one of my most modern systems so this is
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my HP and you know it's designed to be
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super small but what if I want to use a
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big keyboard luckily it has a single USB
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connection now you want to talk retro
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Cherry includes a PS2 adapter you
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probably don't even know what a PS2
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adapter is so probably you don't need it
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but this is a straight USB keyboard this
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is something you could plug into to a
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1990s 9s era computer it would work
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great now this is actually based on
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their super popular let me get the name
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right
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g830 and Cherry has not only been making
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keyboards forever but they make the
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mechanisms that other keyboard companies
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use so they're really really good at
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this the thing of it is is that after
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all these years of using smaller
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keyboards this feels really big but you
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know you can certainly type fast
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you know is it quieter
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well it's quieter in the sense that as a
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mechanical keyboard it's not loud but
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there's still there's a physical
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mechanism going on here and so there's
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only so much quiet they can do now you
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can imagine if you're in a big room with
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40 other people using keyboards like
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this it's not going to be quiet there's
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still going to be lots of clicking going
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on but it is quieter Maybe maybe that's
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the way to phrase it now let me tell you
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some of the things about this keyboard
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first one is they have what they call n
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key rollover which is super handy
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because you can press 14 keys at once
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and it'll get all of them in testing
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most people see somewhere between 6 and
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10 Keys there's actually an N key
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rollover test you can download from
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Microsoft I don't know why you would
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need this honestly last time I've tried
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to hit like seven keys at the same time
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it was cuz I accidentally leaned on the
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keyboard so I'm not sure what that
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functionality is all about um they have
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gold contacts um what they call the Gold
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Cross Point contact technology you know
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these guys their layout might not be
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sexy but the keys themselves Cherry
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really knows how to make a keyboard
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that's going to last for like the next
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100 years and this really shows it now
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the funny thing is is that they make the
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MX silent in two colors and the
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difference between the keyboards is
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actually how much force you have to
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exert to get the the key to register and
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I I just love these sort of geeky
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science things so the red one you have
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to exert 45 Cen Newtons whereas this
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black one you have to exert a crazy huge
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60 Cen Newtons what's a sent to Newton I
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have absolutely no idea but what I will
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say is that this keyboard's pretty sweet
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it's a pretty nice feel to
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it and you know once I sort of reminded
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my fingers what it's like to be on a
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real keyboard board after years and
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years of laptops and all these other
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things then I can go really fast this is
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a really fast keyboard comes with a big
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long 68 in cord and this cord
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basically is a cord you know it's not
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nothing like fancy braided it's not made
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out of Kevlar you know the company just
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makes Straight Ahead gear and while
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we're talking about this let me give you
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an overview of the actual keys and you
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can see this really is a tradition
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additional keyboard layout with
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different function areas it's like you
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know again it's like the original IBM PC
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keyboard or something although it's not
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beige it's black so there is that um but
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this is a classic keyboard it doesn't
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have any of the cool stuff that you've
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come to expect on high-end keyboards
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there's no additional USB plugs there's
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no lightning dock to put your phone on
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to charge you know there's no
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programmable keys because it comes with
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a really cool software driver there's no
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backlighting or illumination or rainbow
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colors going along behind the keys
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because it's a gamer keyboard it's
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really not this is just your Straight
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Ahead keyboard that's going to work
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forever and is going to help you type
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quickly and accurately now having said
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that it's pretty expensive I look at the
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keyboard like this and I think it's nice
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and it definitely feels like a keyboard
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that's going to last a long time but
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Cherry wants 149 bucks for this now the
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good news is you can find it on Amazon
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for just a smidge more than 110 bucks so
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you can go to amazon.com and look for
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the Cherry MX silent but even at the
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$118 on Amazon that's a lot of money for
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an old school keyboard I'm kind of
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surprised they priced it up there but it
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is if I may say so kind of a cherry of a
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keyboard oh I know I had to go there and
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speaking of bad puns can I ask you to go
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ahead and click the Subscribe button
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cool thank you now so 118 bucks on
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Amazon for this Cherry MX silent
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keyboard is it worth
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it that's a hard one to say I got to say
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for most people I will think that there
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are other less expensive Alternatives
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out there and I know for me I rarely use
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an external keyboard in any system that
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I use and when I do I often want to have
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one that's Bluetooth because seriously
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cords wires this feels so like
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1997 so I'll let you decide for your own
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use but it is if you need a wired
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keyboard if you need something that's
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great for data entry or the typing pool
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speaking of 1980s um this is a rock
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solid keyboard and it has a really nice
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feel to it and it's not quite as
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clackety as a lot of other keyboards so
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all of those are factors you should
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consider this is Dave Taylor I'm getting
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back to my next novel and I'll catch you
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in my next
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video
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[Music]
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he
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#Computer Peripherals