I'll admit I was surprised when I first came across a PC peripheral branded as Cherry. To me, they were the folks that made the much beloved 'Cherry MX' switches for mechanical keyboards. I'm a bit of a keyboard nerd, I will admit, so when the chance came to review a couple of their products, I said yes fairly quickly.

In front of me, today, we have their slimline (yet full size) KC 6000 keyboard, as well as a nifty in concept authenticator mouse with an inbuilt fingerprint sensor (that goes by the name MC 4900). I'll admit that these aren't catchy or sexy names, but Cherry has never pretended to be a company that orientates itself toward gamers or those looking for flash. Indeed, I have often wondered why so many gamers gravitate so rapidly toward having a mechanical keyboard when, in reality, gaming on a decent membrane deck is perfectly fine and - let's be honest - much cheaper. I mean, I know why, of course. The feeling of mechanical switches is significantly improved over your average £10 job from Argos or Walmart, and if you are going to be gaming/typing on a board for a while, you may as well use something that feels nice.