Kailh Box Brown (small review)

[Zom-B]

The other week I built a keyboard out of Kailh Box Brown (+ a few other colors).

Two reasons for this choice, separated in 'Box' and 'Brown':

I mainly went for the brown variant because I wanted tactility, after getting fed up with the linearity of reds and the amount of typos per minute. I read that the cherry browns are just very slightly tactile and the Kailhs are more tactile. I bought a 9-switch Kailh Box sampler and noticed the Burned Orange is also very slightly tactile but those are too heavy for me. (Unknown how the tactility compares to Cherry Brown.) The Brown is the next tactile one. I intentionally ignore the clickys (there are some with tactility in between those) because 1) I use teamspeak a lot and my mic records everything and 2) I work in a room next to where family members sleep.

I mainly went for the Box variant because they're IP56 rated. My Cherry switches are starting to suffer from dust (missing keystrokes and/or up to 5(!) characters per keystroke) after just a year of heavy use. With Box switches, the metal parts are 'boxed in' and, the box around the stem is just a visual reminder that they're 'box' switches. So 'box' has a double meaning, really).

As for the review part:

The Kailh were bought from MKZealots. They look and feel for all the world like the ones from the official Kailh store. I cannot find the slightest microscopic visual differences. I assume they are official.

They are more tactile than your average membrane keyboard and maybe even too tactile for my tastes. When I sampled them, the individual key did not feel that different from a membrane key. They're less less mushy and sharper, yet requiring the same peak force. But after using it for a week as a real keyboard, the difference is striking. Sometimes when I press the Q key for example, it almost feels like the key is a bit 'stuck' and I have to press through the stuck part to activate it. Reminder: I've only been using it for ~1 week. [Edit] After three years I can say I don't notice it anymore, despite using membrane and this mechanical keyboard interchangeably (at work/at home). I don't know when I stopped noticing but it must have been in the fist month(s).

The consistency is not ideal. Some keys have a slightly different feel and some keys have a different sound that cannot be just explained from the mounting location.

The difference in feel is that some are less or more tactile than the average. My Q key happens to be a more tactile deviation. The exact same can be said from a few Box Royal keys from the Kailh store, all from the same batch. So it's apparently a chronic issue.

The difference in sound is that the normal ones sound dull and the exceptions sound more, uhm... mechanical, a bit in the direction of clicky. You can hear some stuff going on while pressing them. Those are W, A, D, and V for some reason, so it can probably be attributed to running-in the switches. Time will tell.

Final note, I don't like how far I have to press them before they bottom out. Previously this was solved with o-rings, but the Box switches don't work with o-rings (unless you hack a bit further). [Edit] Link rot, so new image:

[Ilostmytoeinvietnam]

I gotta say, it isn't that hard to be more tactile then anything that is cherry mx related. try the apple m0116 with orange alps. one of the best tactile switches and the sound is amazing. right now as I am typing this, I am typing on an apple m0110 with alps skcc cream, a linear switch, and just because of the general mechanism, they seem almost as tactile as mx brown when pressing slowly. it truly is amazing how cherry in their infinite wisdom manufacture such a scratchy basically linear switch. if you want mx style tactiles, you are pretty much out of luck unless you wanna spend more on the switches then on the rest of the keyboard. black alps are nice, and are also very cheep, if you are willing to go the alps style slider way. I seriously recommend it. look up the dell bigfoot for those. if you have to swing the other way however, the kids are all into aliaz and zealios. another thing to try out is topre. very nice, and not the best of its kind (high quality rubber domes) but definitely the most available right now.

[HungerMechanic]

Very interesting, Zom-B, and reflects my experience somewhat.

I took a long time in getting around to BOX Browns, while testing tactile switches. And that was a mistake, because they are somewhat interesting.

There have been a lot of moves towards super-tactility, as you see in Zealios V2 and Holy Pandas. But many people, coming from MX Brown, are just looking for 'better Browns.'

BOX Browns kind of fulfill that need, although they are a fair distance from Cherry Browns. For starters, BOX Browns actuate right at the top, instead of part-way down like Cherries do. I find that top-actuation is more accurate for me, as some of my best typing has been done on Pro Purples, which are similar. Zealios also moved in that direction. It seems to be the best actuation point for many people.

The weighting of BOX Browns is fine, similar to MX Brown.

BOX Browns are slightly more tactile than MX Browns, which I find a welcome change. We all know that the MX Brown's tactility is as 'token' as it gets. Just enough to let you know that you hit the switch. BOX Browns offer you a heftier, sharper tactility, although it is not anything extreme on its own.

The noise of an individual BOX Brown switch is not that great, but in concert they have a kind of rhythm to them. I find that it doesn't distract from my typing, and might even enhance it.

A special feature of the BOX Browns is that BOX switches can stabilize keycaps better than Cherry MX. So I find myself using OEM-profile keycaps with BOX Browns. With Cherry MX Brown, I prefer Cherry and DCS-profile, because these shorter keycaps wobble less. But OEM feels like Cherry/DCS on my BOX switches. This allows me to use the plentiful OEM sets that fit ANSI boards.

BOX Browns can be 'better Browns,' but they suffer from weaknesses in their current form. First, they haven't quite solved the stem thickness issue that was destroying keycaps. I had a 'retooled' BOX switch crack the stem on a Tai Hao ABS keycap, and I haven't bothered removing those keycaps since. The second, and more serious weakness, is that BOX switches lose their lube. The more you use a BOX switch, the more likely you are to deplete its lube. When that happens, BOX tactiles turn 'clicky.' This appears to have happened to the OP here, with the W, A, D, and V keys. I cannot recommend soldering in BOX switches until this is remedied.

The best setup for BOX Browns, in my view, is a hot-swap keyboard. That way, you can remove troublesome switches that become 'clicky,' maybe even relube them if you have the capacity. This is how I use mine. Someone on Deskthority, maybe one of the few people to successfully assemble an AoPo AP108, made a nice keyboard with the BOX Browns:

https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?p=455172#p455172

That, in my view, is the perfect BOX Brown keyboard. I'm not a big fan of SA profile, but Dasher/Dancer is likely to GB again soon, and I would happily use it if it came in MT3. I'm typing on the Tai Hao Dasher/Dancer right now, and they would probably make good keycaps for BOX Browns, if the stems didn't break them.

[Zom-B]

The keycap-breaking issue has already been solved. I can't find it anymore but on a reddit post of about a year ago people were testing the switches NovelKeys were selling then and they already concluded it's fixed. I can also vouch for that. The MX keycaps (by Ducky) fit exactly the same on these as on Cherry Reds. I can just barely pull an F-key from my board without a puller.

The A, W, D, V, and now E keys which are starting to sound clicky, started doing this after just 10 or 20 hours of gaming. Not at all what I consider 'after a while'.

I'm currently wearing out the Box brown from the sample kit by using it as a fidget object while watching movies etc. After a while I will post a detailed visual comparison between the used one and new one.

I also thought about a hot swapping keyboard, but the whole-switch sockets are kind of expensive (even on aliexpress) and it would also not fit on the PCB I repurposed and would require a new PCB. Maybe if I can find single-pin sockets I can just drill out the holes a bit, solder on both sides (to restore the 'via' functionality), and re-purpose the PCB that way.

[HungerMechanic]

The BOX keycap-cracking issue may be solved, I cannot tell you if my keycap cracked because of a BOX switch, or extremely cheap construction. It was a Tai Hao thin ABS set that cost like $23, so it was probably one of my most fragile keycaps. I haven't put anything expensive on the BOX switches, so I can't be sure about the cause. [All the BOX switches I'm talking about here are retooled.]

There are numerous reports of BOX Browns becoming clicky very quickly. In a couple of Youtube typing tests, the posters revealed their issues. For example:

[Zom-B]

Well, the upside is, if you're just typing casually, the new 'clicky' sound doesn't even come close in volume to that of the kepcaps (bottoming-out and topping-out). It's really only evident when you're purposely hitting a key very slowly.

[Kavik]

I haven't tried BOX Browns, but your descriptions sound similar to BOX Royals. At first, some of more peripheral keys felt stiffer, like Q, but it's not as bad now that I've been using the keyboard for over a year and worn it in.

The BOX Royals are a little too tactile for me though. I'm more used to it now, but, for a long time, my finger joints would be very uncomfortable, almost achy, from long typing sessions. My switches do have the "clicky" sound now, but I really don't notice it much, probably because I don't remember what they sounded like new.

[HungerMechanic]

Box Royals have been called 'too tactile' in some of the most prominent reviews.

BOX Browns are more moderate in tactility. I think there's still a larger market to be tapped in 'medium' tactiles. More tactility isn't necessarily better, despite the move in that direction after the success of Holy Pandas.