My coverage of Computex 2019 is sponsored by Tecware.
Providing quality computer and gaming products.
Let’s take a break from the actual keyboards, and look at some keyswitches.
There were a couple of keyswitch manufacturers at Computex, including Gateron, Outemu, and
some others, although Cherry wasn’t there, so that left Kailh with the standout booth.
Kailh probably have the largest range for mechanical keyboard keyswitches, and the most
variation.
And a lot of the keyboard switches is because of their work with Novelkeys.
Let’s start off with the Box series.
These were the original 4.
They’re supposed to be more dust and water resistant, as the internals are housed within
a box, as the name suggests, as well as having a closed top housing, and the shape of the
stem.
And they’ve given these an 80 million cycle lifetime because of that.
But the standout with these are the clickies, because they use a click bar, rather than
a click jacket that is seen in Cherry MX keyswitches.
So the click is much more crisp and sharp, and just more satisfying in my opinion, as
click jackets can be a little rattly.
However, there are now 2 clicks, rather than 1.
They then added a bunch more variations of the Box switches, with different weights with
the springs, different shaped sliders, and also different click bar thicknesses for the
clickies.
The Box lineup has been an amazing introduction to the custom mechanical keyboard scene, as
it was mainly Gateron before.
But that’s the thing.
It’s mainly in custom keyboards, and we don’t often get to see these switches in
prebuilts that you can just buy from a shop or online.
The Speed series is much like the Box series, but without the resistant properties.
And as the name suggests, the total travel distance and actuation distance is slightly
shorter.
Much like the Cherry MX Speed switches.
There’s also quite a few variations of these switches, which also include click bars, and
click jackets for these.
The traditional series is basically just MX clones, so nothing special about those.
The Mid-height series is hardly seen in mechanical keyboards, at least from what I’ve come
across.
They were in the Tesoro Gram Spectrum I checked out ages ago, and yeh I don’t think they
really caught on.
They’re just smaller switches in every aspect, so even the footprint is different to normal,
so you’d need a different PCB and plate, keycaps, and all that, and you’re not really
getting any benefit out of it.
If you wanna go low profile, you gotta go for the real low profile switches.
And that’s where the Chocolate series comes in.
These are loosely based on the Cherry ML low profile keyswitches, so they look pretty similar
at first, but they’re quite different.
Again, they have some good variation, including click bar clickies.
And in my opinion, they are the ones that stand out to me the most for low profile switches.
The total travel distance is only reduced by 1mm from a full sized switch.
And a bit less than a Box or Speed switch.
However the overall height is reduced drastically, being nearly half the height.
Going even lower, we have the X series for notebook keyboards.
And to be honest, I didn’t take any notes, and it was such a long time ago, that I don’t
have a clue how they felt.
So yeh, my bad, terrible reporting, my apologies.
But as we can see, they’re very low profile.
They were available in tactile and clicky, and there were 2 types.
Both have scissor switch designs, but the 1442 series has a light pipe to enhance lighting.
The 1425 series doesn’t have that light pipe, and is a slightly smaller switch.
It’ll be cool to see laptops with these switches in them, although the clickies will
make laptops loud which won’t be for everyone.
They had their Sun switch, which was shown last year I think.
This one has a centred LED for better and more equal lighting.
This is done by having the LED in the centre of the base, and then having the spring go
around that.
And then you have a clear housing and stem, and you end up with the Sun switch.
But again, it’s problem is that you have to accommodate for it on the PCB, so adoption
is low and we don’t really ever see them on keyboards, as of now.
Kailh have been such a great competitor and alternative in the keyboard switch market.
They have such great variety, providing a whole lot of different switches, with variations
of their clickies, tactiles, and linear switches in each series.
It’s just a shame that we don’t see enough of them in prebuilt keyboards.
Cherry have such a firm hold still, and they have that rock solid name.
And I have nothing against Cherry at all, but it’s obvious that Kailh’s lineup provides
way more choice and I can easily say that there’s some much better choices as well.
And then like all budget mechs go towards Outemu, which are very similar to Cherry MX,
so they all end up feeling pretty much the same.
Leaving Kailh and Gateron kind of to the side, even though these 2 are probably the guys
on top, in my opinion.
But yeh, happy to see them at Computex.
There’s only so much you can do with keyswitches, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they
come up with in the future.
Big thanks again to Tecware for supporting my coverage of Computex 2019.
More stuff to come, so stay tuned.