I tried a laptop with Cherry MX switches and never want to go back

Summary

• Standard laptops are boring in 2024, but premium ones have unique features like mechanical keyboards.
• Dell's Alienware m18 R2 laptop features a fully mechanical keyboard with improved typing accuracy and a better experience.
• While mainstream laptops may not adopt mechanical keyboards, high-end gaming laptops include the feature for enhanced performance.

Laptops are in an interesting spot in 2024, because they're both more and less exciting than ever. If you're looking at standard laptops for business and personal use — like a basic ThinkPad or MacBook — they aren't all that interesting. However, in the premium sectors of the market, cool things are happening. We've seen dual-screen laptops, foldable laptops, and high-end gaming laptops debut. If you look closely, there are plenty of laptops available with one killer feature that stands out. After reviewing a handful of laptops this year, I found one unique feature I didn't know I needed: a mechanical keyboard.

Mechanical keyboards have long been a staple of desktop PCs, offering better responsiveness, feedback, and consistency than scissor-switch keyboards. Due to the bigger key switch mechanism, there are very few laptops that include fully-mechanical keyboards. Dell's Alienware lineup offers a few of them, and I tried the Alienware m18 R2 and Alienware x16 R2 with the optional Cherry MX keyboard upgrade. To my surprise, the mechanical keyboard on those gaming laptops was more noticeable in daily use than any of their other features.

You can actually use this keyboard for typing and gaming

I didn't feel the need to connect to a separate gaming keyboard

My first experience using a laptop with a fully-mechanical keyboard was on the Alienware m18 R2. You see, scissor-switch keyboards — the kind you see on nearly all laptop and office keyboards — are technically mechanical. When you actuate the switch, the movement of the scissor mechanism is mechanical in nature. However, most scissor-switch keyboards are membrane for their electrical connection, or how they interact with your computer. But, on the Alienware m18, I was able to try a laptop with switches that were fully mechanical with no membrane elements whatsoever.

Instead, Dell worked with Cherry to redesign the classic Cherry MX mechanical switches and make them small enough to fit in a laptop. The Alienware m18 R2 is a massive laptop, so there is some room to add the extra thickness of a mechanical key switch. A typical Cherry MX switch would've been far too large to be included here, though. So, we got a shortened Cherry MX switch mechanism with 1.8mm of total travel. The typing experience is rounded out with soft-touch keycaps and per-key RGB lighting.

Unlike some of the tricks found on high-end gaming laptops, the mechanical keyboard on the Alienware m18 R2 wasn't a gimmick. Compared to a regular laptop keyboard, my typing was immediately faster and more accurate with the Cherry MX keyboard. You can both feel and hear the feedback that comes from each key's actuation, and they're bouncy. Most importantly, the fully-mechanical switches mean that the keys will feel exactly the same no matter where you press them. There's absolutely no key wobble on the Cherry MX keyboard found on my Alienware m18 R2 review unit, and that's impressive.

Gaming laptop keyboards often feel better to type on than regular laptop keyboards because they offer more travel. The additional travel afforded by the Alienware m18 R2 keyboard does add to the experience, but it isn't the driving factor behind the improved typing experience. It's more about switch quality than travel quantity, in this case. The Cherry MX laptop switches offered on the Alienware m18 R2 have the least travel of any mechanical keyboard I've ever used. For example, the low-profile Lofree Edge is incredibly tiny, yet still has more travel at 2.4mm. Alienware's Cherry MX keyboard was still the best laptop keyboard I've tried, and I've tested many.

I wish I could use a mechanical board on every laptop

My daily-driver MacBook's keyboard doesn't feel nearly as good anymore

Of course, the Alienware m18 R2 is a gaming laptop, and having a mechanical keyboard makes a lot of sense for gaming. But after my review of the Alienware m18 R2, I couldn't help but long for the Cherry MX mechanical keyboard on other laptops. I use a MacBook Air and a Lenovo Yoga Book 9i as my daily-driver productivity laptops, and neither of their keyboards come even close to the experience of Alienware's Cherry MX laptop keyboard. We probably won't see mechanical switches come to mainstream laptops ever, mostly due to their size constraints. However, if you're in the market for a high-end gaming laptop, keep an eye out for a mechanical switch option. It's a feature you won't want to miss out on if you can help it.