Hey everyone, I’ve got the boba u4t thocky tactile switches to review today.
If you’ve heard of the famous boba silent tactile switches designed by gazzew and
manufactured by outemu, these are the same switch, but without any silencing on the stem,
so you’re getting the full, rich sound of the switch. You’re still getting all of the same high
quality construction and satisfying tactile bump that you’d expect from a boba switch.
I got mine with 62g springs, but they’re also offered with 68g springs as well.
The springs and leafs are even factory lubed to reduce any pinging.
The top and bottom housings are made from a unique plastic that is supposed to be
softer than standard nylon, with the benefits of polycarbonate. Not exactly sure what that means,
so if anyone knows the exact specs of the plastic, please let me know in the comments.
The leafs are made of special Korean steel that is
supposed to increase tactility, while also reducing leaf ping.
The springs are also made of the same Korean steel. They’ve also
been donut dipped on one end in some kind of grease to get rid of any spring ping.
The stems are made of the usual POM plastic and are a touch longer than standard MX stems,
which we’ll get into more detail in a little bit.
In terms of stem wobble, there’s basically none
in the north/south direction and a tiny bit in the east/west direction.
Housing wobble is extremely minimal, so filming these switches won’t be necessary.
Anyways, let’s throw these on a board and see how they sound
compared to some other popular tactile switches.
A lot of what contributes to the thocky sound of the boba switch is the extra long stem,
which is similar to what you’d see in a halo stem in holy pandas.
You can see here that the boba and halo stems are pretty much the same height
while the standard mx length stem from the kiwi is about a millimeter shorter.
Because of the longer stem, the top of the stem doesn’t sit flush with the housing
or go into the housing all the way when pushing down on the switch,
just like holy pandas. If you ever have interference issues with GMK keycaps and
north facing switches, you won’t have a problem with these switches.
One thing that I noticed while using the bobas was that keycaps sit a little bit lower on them
then they do on other switches. It’s not something drastic and you probably wouldn’t
even know a difference in normal use, but it is noticeable when directly next to another switch.
When the switch is pressed down all the way, it’s basically the same height as other switches.
Now let’s get on to the part you’ve been waiting for: the sound test. I’m going to do 2 sound
tests back to back: the first being stock and the second with the switches lubed with krytox 205g0.
So no matter what, these switches sound and feel fantastic. There’s barely any
sound difference after lubing these switches and they feel just as smooth stock as they do lubed.
You just don’t see results like this on any other tactile switch on the market.
These are probably the only switches I’ve ever used that I can whole-heartedly recommend in
their stock form. If lubing these brings them out to 100% of their potential, I would say they’re
already at 90% in their stock form.
Well I hope you enjoyed my review of the boba u4t
thocky tactile switches and let me know if there are any other switches you’d like me to review.
Please consider subscribing if you haven’t yet and I’ll see you in the next video.