My $500 Costar Endgame vs $100 Cherry Keychron - Who wins?

[KHAANNN]

Keychron.

I'm pretty amazed how far the industry has come in the years, to be honest I've never imagined Cherry stabs ever living up to modded Costar's out of the box, but it's better

I got a barebone kit to test, just wish I got the full package to experience that pre-made keyboard feeling once more that I first lived when I got my first WASD keyboard

[Rob27shred]

Yeah it's pretty surprising how far Cherry style stabs have come. If you found the stock Keychron ones nice you should really give TX stabs a try. They emulate OG Cherry PCB mount clip ins, but have much better tolerances & use a softer plastic for where the wire goes through the slider. They're IMO the best Cherry style stabs out there right now. Although honestly a properly tuned OG Cherry PCB mount clip ins have served me very well VS Costars in the past (the new ones got retooled molds & don't perform as well). Then Durock V1 & V2 PCB mount screw in stas are pretty good also IME. Plus there is a ton of supposedly improved Cherry style stabs out there that a lot of people like (OwlLabs, Gateron Ink, regular Gateron). With all those out I've personally stopped using Costar stabs in builds that will take both Costar & Cherry. Definitely worth trying some of those if you've been exclusively using Costar for the past few years.

[KHAANNN]

Thank you a lot for the suggestions and insight

[Rob27shred]

Thank you a lot for the suggestions and insight

No problem, let us know if you do try any of those out & what you think of them!

[Sup]

Costar stabs gave me such a bad experience. Filco MJ2 stabs stayed rattily even with band aid and lube. Interference with Cherry profile keycaps and swapping out keycaps was a pain in the ass.

OG Cherry stabs with band aid mod and lube is infinitely better then modded costar. And now OEM's are also making good stabilizers with 0 rattle.

We reached the point where OEM keyboards also use custom mounting with good stabilizers.

[Maledicted]

The Costars in the SMK 2nd gen Frankenforce 68 I cobbled together don't rattle at all with just a little dielectric grease wherever the wire contacts plastic. I'm not hypersensitive about stabs though and actually like them rattly when they are though.

I love Costars and find Cherry boring as hell.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Leslieann]

In a non-hot swap scenario, I'd take Costars.
They're easier to work on without desoldering and once stabs are working well they should be irrelevant. Good stabs are good stabs (though I'd argue all stabs are bad, some are just worse*).

In a hot swap, I'd take something with Cherry.
They're easier to tune (when you have access), more options for keyboards and stabs and while I don't expect hot swap to last as long as a soldered board they'll likely outlast your love of the board (provided you're careful) and hot swap is just sooooooooo much easier to fix when something has a problem. Better still, even generic Cherry style stabs have come a long ways*.



*Cherry and Costar were designed decades ago, I think we could do better today with a ground up redesign.