Cherry DW 9000 Slim: Eyecatching keyboard and mouse combo is pleasingly productive
Thin, durable, and customizable, the DW 9000 Slim is a worthy replacement for your daily driver.
The Cherry DW 9000 Slim is a modestly priced wireless desktop keyboard-and-mouse combo. With its full-size layout and comfortable keys, the keyboard can be easily swapped in for your daily driver without missing a stroke. And, though the mouse is a little on the small side, its half-dozen customizable keys allow you to tailor it to your productivity needs.
DESIGN
The Cherry DW 9000 Slim is quite a looker. The underside of my review model was done in bronze, with the top deck and keys in
black. (It’s also available in a very Apple-like silver-and-white color scheme.) There’s a bit of cutaway around each key to allow a sliver of bronze to show through, creating a nice accent trim. Despite the plastic casing, the keyboard weighs about half a pound due to a solid metal plate placed inside the chassis to increase stability. It feels very durable.
The keyboard measures 17.3 x 5.1 x .06 inches. That’s ample room for a full set of alpha-numeric keys; a dozen function keys; a number pad; scroll keys; and Windows lock, browser, volume up/down, mute, and calculator buttons. It runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and there’s a micro-usb port on the back for connecting the supplied charging cable.
The DW 9000 doesn’t include backlighting, but that’s a minor quibble. More surprising, given the lux look of the low-profile keyboard, is how it handles height adjustment. Instead of the integrated flipdown feet you’d expect, a quartet of individual rubber feet are included as accessories. To attach them, you have to peel off a sheet of plastic covering some adhesive and stick them on the bottom.
It works well enough, but it makes ergonomics feel like an afterthought. And unlike with retractable feet, which allow you to change keyboard postures at your whim, these adhesive ones require you to make a commitment. While I suppose you could peel them off and reattach them when needed, they will undoubtedly lose their stickiness over time.
CONNECTIVITY
The DW 9000 and its accompanying mouse can connect via Bluetooth or a 2.4GHZ USB receiver. Each of these connection methods is the same for both devices.
For Bluetooth, you slide a switch—on the back of the keyboard and bottom of the mouse—to BT, and press a button next to it to activate the connection, then follow the prompts on your PC to complete the process. To connect using the receiver, you remove the USB dongle slotted magnetically into the
bottom of the mouse and plug it into your computer. Then slide the switch on the keyboard or mouse to RF and the device will connect automatically.
TYPING FEEL
Surprisingly, for a company known for its iconic mechanical switches, Cherry’s DW 9000 uses a scissor-mechanism switch instead. Despite the keyboard’s thinness, the Chiclets-like keys have a decent amount of travel and deliver a snappy stroke with a satisfying thunk. I appreciated that tactile feedback because the keys are virtually silent when typing with normal pressure.
As a touch typist, I’m sometimes thrown off my game by wireless keyboard layouts. But with its roomy design and slightly concave keys, I had no problem with key discovery and was able to switch between it and my laptop keyboard without having to adjust my finger spread.
The accompanying six-button mouse weighs three ounces and sports the same bronze-and-black color scheme, plus a gray broken-glass pattern that isn’t on the keyboard. It’s a bit on the small side—my pointer and index fingers extended well over the edge with the mouse in my palm—but the buttons are responsive, and the scroll wheel has a nice incremental bump for more precise scrolling. Like the keyboard, the mouse buttons can be configured using the Cherry Keys software ( go.pcworld.com/chky).
BOTTOM LINE
The Cherry DW 9000 Slim doesn’t sacrifice productivity for its modicum of flair. Both the keyboard and mouse are well-made and comfortable to use, and its connectivity consistently held up over hours of use. Whether you’re looking for a new workhorse or just want to spice up your daily doldrums, the DW 9000 Slim will abide.