Cherry DW 3000 review

Considering its low price, the Cherry DW 3000 keyboard and mouse combination has a surprising amount of class. Both the low-profile keyboard and the mouse have a dark grey plastic finish, which is far smarter than the shiny black plastic of the rival Microsoft Desktop 800 set.

The keyboard is reasonably no-frills, with just four shortcut buttons to launch the calculator, email, default web browser and to put the PC to sleep. These are over above the numeric keypad, so there’s little chance of hitting them accidentally.

In fact, the entire keyboard has a luxurious feeling of space, with good-sized gaps between the number row and the function keys, the arrow keys and the number pad, so it’s simple to hit the keys you want. The keys themselves have an impressive action considering the set’s low price. They have a good amount of travel and a definite over-centre action for each keypress to activate, but the fairly weak spring action means this keyboard isn’t ideal for the fast key action you’ll need in games.

The mouse also has a number of good points. Its simple shape fits well in both left and right hands, the buttons have a crisp click with little hint of sponginess, and the wheel has a much more pleasant rolling action than the mouse provided with Microsoft’s similarly-priced Desktop 800. There was one big problem with the mouse, however; its wireless range. If we plugged the tiny wireless receiver into our PC on the floor below the desk, the mouse would struggle with reception,and would occasionally lag in its movement before shooting across the screen. This didn’t affect the keyboard, but we found we were unable to get satisfactory mouse performance unless the set’s wireless receiver was plugged at the same level as the mouse and less than a foot away.

As long as you are able to plug in the wireless receiver close to the keyboard and mouse set, the DW 3000 is a pleasure to use. However, those needing more range would be better off with the Microsoft Wireless Desktop 800.