Preface: I know I say this at the end of this review, but if you are using this as a reference for my thoughts, please also refer to my
Switch Try Bag review.
For those who don't know, I get asked a lot (Because of my Switch Try Bag and having gone to multiple meets I guess...or because I'm making this statement up
) how different switches feel. And I love giving my opinion. So this is a post meetup review that I told people in IRC I'd write so that they could find my thoughts.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
The Universal Switch Tester’s LayoutThe last two weekends have been spent staring at various highways as I traveled around to meet bros/sisses (whatever the plural of a sis is) and more importantly type on a ton of keyboards that I’ve never tried out before. People are forever asking what different switches feel like so I thought I’d write my thought down so that people can more easily and repeatedly see them.
Two weeks ago, I was in the Nashville and met up with mashby. Before our lovely tour of MechanicalKeyboards.com’s storefront, I got to play with the
Universal Switich Tester. Before I write this review, I’m going to just say that the ghetto switches feel the same as the regular switches. They are slightly more wobbly but that’s the only difference I felt.
First off, I re-confirmed that I still dislike MX Reds and Browns. They are both way too light for me. The Reds feel horrible, just linear and if I accidently hit one of the keys too hard, the entire board gets actuated. Browns take the feeling of Reds and add barely-felt bump. I think Browns are almost worse for me than Reds because sometimes they feel linear, sometimes they feel a touch tactile, and sometimes they feel like something got jammed in Reds. Bleh.
As my signature indicates, I love MX blues. It was nice to have the left alpha side be in MX Blues so that I had a baseline for the other switches on the board. On the left side are Browns which my thoughts are shown before. And then the infamous ergo-clears were in the middle. Honestly? I didn’t like them at all. The first time I pressed down on them I thought they were Browns. On paper, they sounded great. Clears are supposed to be a little heavy and the swap to lighter springs seemed like a great idea. A lighter actuation force with the heavier bump sounded like a dream. However, on the actual board, it felt like a Brown switch. When I pointed the ergo-clears out to Mashby, he said the same thing and instantly popped a cap to check the stem color. I wasn’t that impressed. But I figured I’d give the ergo-clears another try at the Chicago meetup, so more opinions on that later.
So I might have disliked ergo-clears, but the little cluster above with the MX clears was amazing. They felt a little like Blacks in terms of actuation force. And they have this HUGE bump. It’s not like the little one in browns where I get confused half the time if it’s actually there. This one is very very noticeable. They felt really amazing and were relatively quiet. Unfortunately they’re not as smooth as Blacks and Whites. They remind me of Blues in the action but instead of clicking, they have bumps. I don’t think Blues are smooth but they do have a fun mechanical feel which I adore.
Moving to the top left, this was the most interesting cluster to me. Because of my Switch Try Bag, I was really into MX Whites and I couldn’t wait to try them mounted on a keyboard. And I wasn’t disappointed. Imagine if MX Blacks were a touch heavier, were smooth, had a click, and the bottom out was almost cushiony. I really loved how they feel. So the white on the escape felt lovely; just as good as they felt even without being mounted on the keyboard. The two Whites in the F1 and F2 with the Black springs also felt great. They were lighter but still maintained the great feel of Whites. Then the ergo-whites on the F and V keys felt incredible. Unlike the ergo-clears, the switches had a lighter actuation but still had the rest of the feel of MX Whites.
On the F3 key, there was a MX Green switch which felt like super clicky Blue and a little heavier. I would say it was between Blues and Blacks. I got to confirm this later on one of the
Ducky DK9008G2 with MX Greens in the MechanicalKeyboards.com showroom. I really enjoyed them and I wish that I wasn’t so swept up with MX Whites. Greens definitely deserved their own attention.
Finally on the Switch Tester, MX Greys are absurdly heavy. Way too heavy. They were laughable on the Universal Switch Tester and then I tried them on the
Ducky DK9008G2 Red/Black/Grey hybrid board.
Other really cool keyboards I got to try out at Mechanical Keyboards are the Matias boards. The Tactile Pro felt exactly like the tactile Grey Alps I had in my Switch Try bag. Imagine clicky whites Alps but instead of having a click at the top, they just have a crispy bump. The Quiet Pro felt like a muffled version of the Tactile Pro. Both are a real delight to type on
and I wish that I had the chance to try the clicky Matias switches out. I've since discovered that the "clicky Matias" switches are the switches in the Tactile Pro. Lovely switches.
So my summary from the MechanicalKeyboards.com meet:- Whites are great; clicky, smooth, and quiet
- Ergo-Whites are super sexy as well
- Ergo-Clears feel like Browns and I don’t like them
- I still hate Reds and Browns
- Clears are the everything I wish Browns were
- Both Dark Greys (linear) and Greys (Tactile) are hilarious and heavy
- I really love the Tactile Pro switches and if the GH60-Alps comes out, I’d like those in the GH60 (Although I also hear great things about the Matias Clicky switches)
In Chicago/At the Great Lakes meetup, I got to play with i3oilermaker’s QFR again.
The infamous i3oilermakrer QFR with Ergo-ClearsSo yet again, I tried the ergo-clears and I really wasn’t impressed with this board. I know you love your new board Keymaster, but I wasn’t impressed with the sticky mods on the left side. When I pressed down on buttons like Tab, Caps Lock, Left Shift, and Tilde, the buttons seemed to stick. They wouldn’t return to their original position after I pressed down on them which annoyed me.
I also got to try out an SSK and a Model M. I really loved that mechanical feel when the buckling springs hit against the barrel. It makes that amazing ping and just feels so solid and mechanical. I would’ve instantly bought one of the Model M’s Tipo33 was selling but I really fell in love with the SSK. That being said, for the
Chicago Mod meetup, I’m going to get a Model M anyways. So Buckling Spring boards apparently all feel different and the ones I felt were a little crispy at the top, then the buckling action happens, followed but a bottom out that felt like a harder version of MX Blues. I really loved how tactile/clicky these felt. If anyone has an SSK, please let me know. I really would love to have one.
I think from the
Chicago meetup writeup, people know my thoughts about the Filco Zero but just in case people missed that *Ahem*:
I
NEED
ONE
OF
THESE
RIGHT
NOW
PM ME OFFERS
Seriously…I wish I was kidding but this is so cool. It’s go the build and looks of a Filco with the great clicky-ness of Alps. I know they were XM clones but I’m already salivating over the thought of having complicated blue Alps, clicky White Alps, or the Matias Clicky/Tactile switches in it.
I also got to mess with prdlm2009’s Kinesis and Maltron. The Kinesis was an exercise in futility since I could NOT figure out where to place my hands after messing with it on and off for 45 minutes. The blank caps coupled with the layout still boggles my mind. The Maltron was a bit tamer for me but I’m not sure what happened to some of the Clears in the board; some of which felt like they weren’t tactile or somehow lost their bump. I should’ve prefaced this part by saying that I think that the ergonomic layouts change my perception of switches because I didn’t hate the reds in the Kinesis or the Browns in deepthawt’s G80-5000 but I didn’t care for the Clears in the Maltron. Oh and deepthawt’s G80-500 had 2 Superblacks which felt like pushing against a wooden fence. There was a SLIGHT flex but really just felt super solid.
Some other thoughts I had were that the vintage switch and Korean spring debates might not be so far off. I tried the Blues in a Dolch PAC keyboard and they really did feel lighter and smoother than the Blues in my Filco or Leopold. And the 65g Korean springs in SmallFry’s Phantom made the Blues feel clicker, springier, and had a slightly cushiony bottom out.
Finally, I also tried a
HHKB Pro 2 with 45g Topre switches I believe an HHKB-S. I was already disappointed and found out I really hate Topre switches. In fact, they are now my least favorite mechanical switch. They feel like a rubber dome switch except that there is an actuation point in the middle and the bottom out isn’t completely mushy. Instead, it is more reminiscent of the bottom out in MX Whites: A little cushiony. For the price point, I’d prefer to keep using my Microsoft Ergonomic 4000.
So my summary from the Chicago meet:- Still don’t like ergo-clears
- Korean springs and vintage switches really do feel different
- Ergonomic boards like the G80-5000, Maltron, and Kinesis throw my perception of switches
- Superblacks are more hilarious than greys
- I really like Alps switches
Overall from the two meets I now know my favorites and what switches I don’t like:Favorites
- MX Blues
- MX Whites
- MX Greens
- Buckling Springs
- Clicky White Alps
- Matias Tactile
Dislikes
- Topres
- MX Reds
- MX Browns
- MX Dark Grey
- MX Linear Grey
- MX Super Blacks
You can combine this with my review on the
Mr. Interface Switch Try Bag to get a full picture of what I think of different switches. And since I'm using MX Blues as a baseline for all my reviews, I thought I'd point out that Best Buy carries BlackWidows which has the little cutout around the arrow cluster so you can try MX Blues pretty easily for free. MicroCenter also carries various boards in MX Reds, MX Blacks, MX Browns, and MX Blues. My local MicroCenter even carried Clicky White Alps.
