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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Luke_A_P on Tue, 23 October 2012, 09:49:52
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Can anyone give me a subjective comparison of Chicony light blue clickys vs. Cherry Blues?
I have an old clicky Chicony I like certain aspects of it but not others. I have never tried Cherry blues and I’m trying to work out whether I would like them. Basically what I would really like is a backlit buckling spring tenkeyless, but I am pretty sure that is not going to exist in the near future. So I would like to know whether Cherry blues would be a good stand in.
I like the light touch of the Chicony but find it a bit too clattery and “loose feeling” compared to buckling springs. Are the Cherry blues more or less like buckling springs?
Luke
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The only way you will "work out whether I like them" would be to use them for some reasonable amount of time side-by-side.
The 2 blues are fairly similar, and while the Chicony (Monterey blue) may be a little "looser" to the feel, I find the sound and overall sensation preferable to the Cherry.
I recommend the O-ring modification to the Cherries, it makes the whole experience more "warm and fuzzy" and helps with the tinniness of the sound.
However, after using a battleship like a Model M/F, you will never find anything else that does not feel cheap and plasticy in comparison.
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The 2 blues are fairly similar, and while the Chicony (Monterey blue) may be a little "looser" to the feel, I find the sound and overall sensation preferable to the Cherry.
Clicky Alps = Tom Jones
MX blues = Tiny Tim
;D
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I've used both and like both a lot. The loose feeling you get with your Chicony is due to the build quality of the keyboard itself, not the switches. A modern plate-mounted keyboard with MX blues (e.g., Filco, Leopold, Quickfire Rapid) is going to feel much more solid.
As for which switch feels better, that is entirely subjective. If I could have the solid feeling and standard layout of a Filco with the Monterey blue switches from my Chicony, I think I would prefer that to an MX blue keyboard. I guess I would say that MX blues feel closer to buckling springs than Monterey blues do ... but tbh all three feel very different from each other.
Ultimately, you gotta catch 'em all to know what works best for you.
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Thanks for the responses guys.
Out of interest, anyone know if the Monterey blues are still made?
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Thanks for the responses guys.
Out of interest, anyone know if the Monterey blues are still made?
They aren't but you can troll Ebay for Chicony 5181 boards. They show up fairly often.
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pretty accuate quip.......by hash
i have a chicony 5181 with monterey blues, a chicony 5161 with cherry blacks & a couple blue and a plate mount with blue cherries.
plate mounted blues are more clicky, rigid-- while the chicony 5161 blues are less clicky (but still tactile).
the chicony 5181 with monterey blues is tactile, while very light clicky.......less than the cherry blues. probably like it the most, but i think the 5161 weighs the most? good thing about the 5161 is it will take mx caps......
I've used both and like both a lot. The loose feeling you get with your Chicony is due to the build quality of the keyboard itself, not the switches. A modern plate-mounted keyboard with MX blues (e.g., Filco, Leopold, Quickfire Rapid) is going to feel much more solid.
As for which switch feels better, that is entirely subjective. If I could have the solid feeling and standard layout of a Filco with the Monterey blue switches from my Chicony, I think I would prefer that to an MX blue keyboard. I guess I would say that MX blues feel closer to buckling springs than Monterey blues do ... but tbh all three feel very different from each other.
Ultimately, you gotta catch 'em all to know what works best for you.
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Dunno if it’s a good idea to necro this thread, but..
The cheap feeling of the Chicony has to do with the awful plastic case and the equally awful keycaps. I’m also not a big fan of the layout. Just pulling the plate + pcb out of the case entirely and setting it on a rubber mat for stability, and putting some keycaps from an Apple M3501 (this leaves some funny gaps, but just for the sake of trying the switches [and leave the original shifts and spacebar, since without stabilizers those are kinda terrible]) makes it feel quite dramatically better. With some better keycaps and a custom plate/case, these SMK blue-alps-slider switches should make a really nice keyboard.
Comparing to the Cherry MX blue.. the SMK-alps blue switches are slightly stiffer at actuation point, and the actuation point takes a bit less travel than the MX blues. Then force drops dramatically after actuation, so that it's quite easy to type lightly/springily on these switches. The original Chicony keycaps are thin, wobble a bit, and add a cheap hollow kind of sound to typing. With better keycaps added, the sound and feeling is very satisfying, a bit sharper sound and sharper tactility than the MX blue switches. I like it better.
[Though, my main criticism of the MX blue switches is just that the activation point is too low for my taste. This probably just boils down to personal preference.]
As was said upthread, if you compare a nice plate-mounted Cherry MX blue keyboard, with a solid case and nice thick keycaps directly to the Chicony 5181, it’s not unlikely that you’ll prefer the MX blue keyboard.
Note: I wish someone at Geekhack had (access to) the proper equipment for measuring force throughout the keypress accurately, so a few copies from different batches of each various type of switch could be consistently measured on the same equipment and proper graphs could be put up showing force on the way down/up, with actuation point marked. Ideally also showing the variance among same-model keyswitches, and the differing action of switches once they’ve been “broken in”, etc. You’d be able to very clearly see the differences between cherry MX blue and these SMK switches.
I’d really love to see the force graphs of all the various Alps & clone switches over the years, since there seems to be quite a broad range.
Edit: actually, that’s not quite right. I just tested again, and as it happens the click on the SMK “Monterey” switches happens about halfway through its range. It’s the genuine complicated Alps switches (e.g. tactile orange ones) that have a much higher activation point. I compared to some vintage MX blue switches again, directly, with and without keycaps, and the point of actuation is relatively similar between MX blue and Monterey blue. The real difference between the two is the sound, the tactile bump on the SMK switches is much sharper than on the cherry switches, there's less plastic-on-plastic friction throughout the keypress, and after the tactile bump/actuation point, force required to keep pushing the key drops to a very low amount. Also, the force required to push the keys to the start of the tactile bump is pretty low, just a bit more than the force exerted by resting the fingers on the switches. Maybe that's why they feel like the activation is nearer to the top: it takes less total work to get to the activation point.
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There were chicony keyboards with Cherry MX Blue switches though... 5191
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Note: I wish someone at Geekhack had (access to) the proper equipment for measuring force throughout the keypress accurately, so a few copies from different batches of each various type of switch could be consistently measured on the same equipment and proper graphs could be put up showing force on the way down/up, with actuation point marked. Ideally also showing the variance among same-model keyswitches, and the differing action of switches once they’ve been “broken in”, etc. You’d be able to very clearly see the differences between cherry MX blue and these SMK switches.
I’d really love to see the force graphs of all the various Alps & clone switches over the years, since there seems to be quite a broad range.
There's two people working on this project on GeekHack right now.
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Cherry MX Blues:
* are less tactile than SMK blue clicky "Monterey" switches (http://deskthority.net/wiki/SMK_Alps_mount) and buckling spring
* have hysteresis like the buckling spring, which the SMK don't have
* tactile mid-way, like SMK
* just as light as the SMK switches overall, but I suspect that the force curve is steeper on the SMK because of the shorter spring
I have a Chicony 5182 and it has a very creaky case, but the switches are in a steel plate. I rebuilt a Cherry G80-3000 case to host the innards (took a lot of plastic surgery to fit the plate), and it feels much better.