Glorious Gaming - Kailh Switches for Mechanical Keyboards

Find everything you need to get the most out of your mechanical switches. 

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Product Guide 

Push Feel

-Linears:

Spying the force curves and data from the initial release, the Chinese Red linear switches were listed as having a 45g actuation roughly 1.8 mm into the 3.7 mm travel distance of the stroke, with a bottom out of around 60g. On the heavier side, the Ancient Greys featured a 95g actuation force with a 120g bottom out force at the same distances listed as the Chinese Reds.

Both of these switches feature a noticeable amount of scratch, though it comes in the form of a consistent scratch along the entirety of the stroke rather than a grainy feeling of other scratchy switches, such as recent Gateron linear recolors. The Chinese Red switch definitely has the lesser appealing bottom out feeling of these switches, hitting with an almost hollow plastic-y type feel. The Ancient Grey switches, on the other hand, bottom out with a very firm and resolute thud and actually feel pretty nice as a bottom out. While I remember these Ancient Grey switches impressing me initially in terms of feel and their relatively high bottoming out weight, I can honestly say that I am still impressed with how these feel as a switch, regardless of the minor scratch. The weight of the Ancient Greys really reduces the hollow and airy feeling of the switch and leave it feeling like a decent linear option.

-Clickies:

Spying again to the force curves from the initial release, both of the clicky switches feature a clickbar set to start around 1.6 mm into the stroke and finish around the 1.8 mm range of the stroke. The Noble Yellow switches featured a click stroke of about 65g with a bottom out of around 45g while the Glazed Green switches featured a much more subtle 50g actuation with 45g bottom out force.

The most immediately striking difference in the feel of these switches comes in how the weight of the activation click being so different between these switches makes the click actually feel as if it is activating in two different places. The large weight of the Noble Yellow activation force and immediate ramp up to 65g as the switch stroke begins makes the click feel much earlier on in the stroke than the Glazed Green clicks. Overall, though, these switches do suffer a bit from the scratch issues seen in the Chinese Red and Ancient Grey switches as well as relatively hollow feeling of the bottom out, though the hollowness is not as pronounced as in the Chinese Red switches.

Sound

-Linears:

Much like in the comparison drawn in the Push Feel section, the Ancient Grey switches are definitely the runaway option here. The red switches not only sound hollow to match their bottoming out feel, under high speeds of activation they have a bit of a ‘popping’ sound that is definitely unique among the switches I’ve recalled writing reviews for and/or closely analyzing. As well, these switches suffer heavily from a ping in the spring that is audible even under light activation speeds. While certainly as a result of the light spring weight more so than anything else, these switches sound quite light and high pitched for a linear switch.

The Ancient Greys, on the other hand, sound firm and solid throughout their stroke and have a decently satisfying ‘thud’ sound to their bottom out. In complete contrast to the ‘light’ sounding Chinese Red switches, these have a much deeper sound to them and feel much more solid. Like the Chinese Reds, though, there is a slight bit of a hollow plastic note to the upstroke as well as a ping in the spring, but these are significantly less in magnitude compared to the Chinese Reds and under normal activation force don’t become as noticeable.

Kailh Box Jade

- Being notorious as having one of the higher pitched click noises among mechanical switches, the Box Jades sound is comparable to these switches in terms of depth as Box Navies are comparable to other clicky switches.

- The bump in Box Jades are much crisper and stronger both in terms of feel and in terms of actual sound than the China Box series, with the Noble Yellow being the most comparable of the two.

- While there is still a comparable amount of wobble in the Box Jades in the N/S direction, they have distinctly lesser E/W wobble than both the Noble Yellow and Glazed Green switches.

Kailh Box Navy

- While Box Navies are definitely the peak of the ‘deep and solid’ sounding click noises, the Noble Yellow switches aren’t a bad opposite to these with a relatively light and airy downstroke click as compared to the Box Navies.

- The same wobble notes can be made for the Box Navy as for the Box Jade switches in comparison to the China Style series.

- In my opinion, still the absolute king of clicky switches in terms of both overall feel and sound.

Gateron Ink Blue

- Not even a fair comparison due to the fact that clickjacket style clicky switches have a much worse mechanism for producing good click sounds.

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- These have an almost insane amount of spring ping compared to any of the China Style switches, even including the Chinese Red switches under super high activation speeds.

- While these are a much prettier color in terms of switch housings, they are definitely a worse option in terms of a clicky switch than the Noble Yellow or Glazed Green switches.

Novelkeys Sherbet

- While the actuation point in Sherbets still weirds me out like they did in my initial review of them, they definitely do have a relatively sharp and crisp feel to the bump compared to the China Style clickies.

- Definitely have a much quieter overall volume to them as compared to the Noble Yellows and Glazed Greens.

- There is actually more E/W wobble in these switches than in all of the China Style Box switches, throwing a bit of a wrench at my initial guess that the clickbar arm on the stem reduced the wobble.

Final Conclusions

Overall, after having actually spent some time sitting down to review these switches, I understand much more clearly why they fell off of the Earth in the fashion that they did. While the Glazed Greens were upsetting even before touching one of them, the switches all have a culmination of characteristics that made them a questionable option among the switches out at the time and an even more questionable one given the quality of pieces coming out now. That being said, though, I do feel that the Ancient Grey switches deserve a little bit more attention than the rest of these switches, as I feel that they aren’t that bad of a linear option and a relatively unique one given the high actuation and bottoming out force. While I’m certain that the fact that these are box switches likely puts the final nail in the coffin for these pieces, I honestly think it’d be interesting seeing more high weight linear options like the Ancient Greys in the future.     

A Bit About My Process

Due to the fact that I receive quite a few DMs from individuals as well as hold plenty of conversations with people about switches daily, I’ve been asked more than a couple times as to how exactly I test switches for my reviews that I complete. Thus, as a result of this I’ve chosen to give a little bit of a ‘peek behind the curtain’ to explain how I come to some of the conclusions that I do. While I am aware right away that this may not seem like a perfect system to everyone, it is the best I am able to do with my current setup and am seeking to improve it whenever I can.

Deciding on a Review

The first step when it comes to any review is typically deciding what exactly I will be writing about since not all of my writeups, such as this one, are about new and emerging products. Typically, I try and do writeups of new and released pieces when they come out, such as the Gateron Merlot review I did within a week of their release through Novelkeys and the western markets. However, if switches don’t necessarily have any unique differences about them relative to things currently in the market, such as when the Mauve switches released, I choose to not do reviews about those. If I am able to secure samples of prototypes of pieces prior to release – such as with H1s and Marshmallows – and am told I am allowed to write a review from the vendor, I am almost certainly going to jump on the opportunity when I can.

When I don’t have new switches to write about and want to put out a review, I choose to explore alternative discussions either about my switch collection or about switches of the past. Being that this is the second installment of the ‘From the Vault’ style reviews, I plan to do a few more of these as time progresses, though I also have other things I am considering as well. As per my discussions in both Meta Reviews, for example, I have some level of interest in revisiting the GSUS Panda drama at some point in the future.

Testing Switches

All of the testing I do for my reviews is done well in advance of actually approaching a keyboard to type up the review. The main categories I aim to evaluate first of all are appearance, wobble, sound, and push feel – which are all the standard discussion points for my reviews. After reviewing each of these, I then move on and compile a list of comparison notes to other switches of the same type using my collection testers. Once completed, I typically refine all of these and trim down the comparison notes a bit. For details about testing each aspect, refer to their category below:

Appearance

Obviously, this is the most self-explanatory of the categories listed above. While taking notes about the pieces on their own, I typically try and compare their component colors with already existing switches in order to compare and contrast their differences. Additionally, I check for noticeable differences in texture such as glossy vs. rough on the housings and factory lube on the stems in order to try and make guesses as to their production and/or material types.

Wobble

I typically test wobble in two stages – first in hand and then in an acrylic tester using keycaps of various profiles. In hand, I tend to try and ascertain both if the stem wobbles as well as the top housing of the switches. I test wobble in terms of both potential axes of movement and refer to them as N/S and E/W, where North is the switch plate if looking top-down on a switch.  Then, placing them in an acrylic tester I typically test the wobble with different cap profiles – such as DSA, GMK, and MT3, all of which are sets that I regularly use in my daily boards. In the future I am adding KAT, HSA, and SA sets to my testing means, though I try and take a wholistic estimate of wobble with all of these caps rather than separating them by cap type.

Sound

Sound is by far one of the hardest aspects to test and report back in the form of non-onomatopoeia words. While it’s easy to just say things like ‘Thock’ to describe the sounds of switches, I don’t feel they do a great objective matter to clarify what a sound sounds like. As well, so much of the sound of builds is based on factors outside of the switch, such as plate material, case material, cap profile, foam, films, etc. For this reason, I think that while typing tests are certainly interesting, they do occasionally mislead people into thinking switches always sound that way in any case.

To try and circumvent this, I test switches for sound both in hand as well as in my acrylic tester in order to develop the sound profiles I write about. With the tester, I try and test them at normal typing arm’s length away, and in hand I test them both at arm’s length and right next to the ear. While you don’t type with your ears immediately above your board, things like cases and plates can amplify those sounds in full builds and make them more noticeable to someone typing.

Push Feel

Push feel I do in a total of nine different ways – three speeds by three locations. With respect to locations, I test them in hand, in my acrylic tester, and then in one of the hot swap boards I own – either my KBDFans Tofu or my Planck EOTW. With respect to speeds, I test them extremely slowly to try and tease out differences in scratch or spring inconsistencies, at normal typing speed for the obvious reason, and then extremely fast to tease out any differences in bottoming out or upstroke feelings. As mentioned before at the start of this, if I have more than one of the switches for review I will typically test more than one of the switches in these fashion in order to both confirm consistency across switches as well as help better flesh out my ideas.