Random Reviews: Switches
Recently I’ve been getting into mechanical keyboards. And I’ve been trying a few different switches. So here are a couple reviews of the switches I’ve tried. I might reorganize these into more in depth reviews with their own posts, but that probably won’t happen.
Some overall thoughts I have for switches I’m looking at:
Very much dislike the feeling of bottoming out on silenced switches (They are too mushy)
If I have a tactile bump, then it needs to be satisfying/well defined
Preferred spring weight is around 62g
Silent Tactiles or Linears for office settings.
Stem wobble sucks…
Novel Key Creams *
These are pretty expensive and in high demand, but surprisingly easy to come by. I like how these feel, and I’m a little weird in that I kind of like feeling the rubbing between the switch stems and the housings (as long as it doesn’t feel rough). NK creams fall into this category. After lubing with 205g0, they sound pretty good, and the feel is smooth. Recently I’ve been trying some tactile switches, which are around 62g. NK creams are around 70g bottom out, and because of this, going back to the NK creams feels pretty fatiguing.
Final thoughts. I really like how the stems and housings for creams feel, but I’d probably swap them to a lower weight spring. Otherwise it’s one of my top picks for linears.
C³EQUALZ X TKC BANANA SPLIT
Out of the box, these felt super smooth. I liked the slight factory lube, and I basically didn’t feel the stem rub against the housing when I was just testing them in my hand. Additionally the spring weight on these felt just right. When testing on my kbd67mkii however, they felt pretty unstable. There was a slight rattling sound of a few keys which seemed to be related to either stem wobble or the mounting method. This sound didn’t occur with any of my previous switches though so I’m inclined to think it’s from the switches. These were also higher pitched and made a lot of noise when sliding my fingers over the top of my keycaps. I think I prefer deeper sounding switches.
Final thoughts. Like the spring weight, and key travel was super smooth. I would use these if they had a lower pitch thock sound, and didn’t have the sound from stem wobble. These could maybe be fixed by lubing them myself and/or adding switch films.
Boba Silent Tactile U4
So these have been reviewed pretty highly by other much more notable and in depth reviewers in the mechanical keyboard community. I picked these up after reading those reviews, because I wanted to try a good tactile. However, I do not like these. The tactile bump feels very small, and the bottom out feel is mushy. the housing and stem look amazing though, and I am considering using these for a polycarbonate keyboard because of the rgb. I encountered some quality control issues, 2 of my switches were missing the silencers on one side of the stem (After testing, this did not really affect sound of the keys but I was worried it would cause scratching on the housing -> more rough). The stems were stable however.
Final thoughts. Housing is good for RGB. Mushiness of silenced switches feels bad to me, and the tactile bump isn’t very satisfying. I probably won’t be using any silenced switches going forward unless I need them for an office setting. Maybe I’ll try swapping the stems out?
Glorious (Holy) Pandas *
These are very nice. I got used to these pretty fast, and the bump is very satisfying to type on. I enjoy typing with these switches, but when playing games (especially osu!) these don’t feel very responsive. The actuation happens slightly after the bump, which causes a delay from when I expect my keypresses to actuate. Some QC issues that I’ve noticed are shared with some findings that TaehaTypes found (spring/leaf ping in a couple switches).
Final thoughts. Feels great to type on. Deep sound (on my Tofu65). Satisfying bump. Probably a little too loud for an office setting.