The trend of very high-tactility switches such as Holy Pandas (and clones), Zealios V2, etc has soared over the past year, but they weren’t really for me, as I found them to be quite “fatiguing” and “unpleasant” to type on.
I recently tried an old Corsair board, with MX Browns, and although the switch was pretty scratchy, I realized that I enjoyed the tiny amount of tactility right before the actuation, that signaled the press of a switch. The tactility wasn’t the “focus” of the keystroke, but it was rather the indicator of the switch being pressed. It almost feels like a linear switch, but with a tiny tactile bump halfway through as feedback, feeling much more different than Zealios, for example, which have very little pretravel, with the tactile bump taking up almost the entire keystroke.
What are your opinions on these switches? For me, they induce very little fatigue, and are very comfortable to type on, especially when lubed.
Lots of people like low tactility switches for the reason you state. The only drawback is that they feel linear when you type faster. I like MX Browns and Zeal V1s
Kailh pro puples/plums may be worth a try if you’re cool with the 3.6mm travel instead of a full 4.0mm. They less tactile than V1 Zealios even, but I enjoy typing or gaming on the them for their subtle amount of feedback. They’re kinda like an improved brown and take to lube well
Definitely try Aliaz switches with 60g or 70g springs, if you have not. The switch is low to moderately tactile. It’s pretty smooth in operation and it might be what you are looking for. I have them in two boards at the moment (70g + unlubed). Lubing them should reduce the tactility a bit more.
I’ll second Aliaz switches. I prefer heavy tactility, and Aliaz switches’ tactility is barely noticeable to me, almost like a cherry brown. They are quite quiet too, and are pretty smooth compared to stock cherry browns and equivalents.
Edit: I’ve only used 70g Aliaz switches. Cant speak for the feel on other weights and whether the spring affects the feel of tactility.
Well I was gonna say Aliaz, but many people beat me to it. If you want a regular non silent switch try Gateron or Greetech browns. They both have a nice light tactility like you are looking for & both are way smoother (especially the Gat browns) than Cherry browns. There is also BOX browns & burnt oranges for a smooth switch with a nice light tactile bump.
To me, this is exactly what the unmodified Halo True switch is. I like the light tactility and heavy weighting because it gives a very cushioned feel, which is in stark contrast with my holy chickies and Zealios V2 boards. I find the light tactility to be a really good change of pace from my highly tactile or linear switches.
These types of switches do tend to get overlooked. My thought on that is that it is a lot harder to market middle ground switches. “Smoothest linear”, “Extremely Tactile”, “Huge rounded bump” and the like do help sell switches (in my opinion). It is much harder to sell “Most in the middle tactility”, “Subtle bump”, or “MX Brown-like”. From a purely marketing perspective, it’s much easier to quantify a larger bump or smoother linear to consumers. Additionally, I think it’s difficult to figure out what exactly to point out in the middle of the road switches to consumers to make them really excited for them on a large scale.
I moved from a Pok3r with cherry browns to an Alt with Halo True (nums) and Clear (alphas), cherry brown for the space bar, Halo True with brown spring for my FN key and a mix of random clicky and tactile for the rest of the mods. To me it’s not the tactile bump but the overall switch weight of the Halos are just too heavy. I don’t have enough switches of any one kind to replace the Halos or they would be gone already.
The Halo True with the brown spring is my favorite, light overall with pronounced bump. Would love to try some 35 or 40 gram springs in them to see what they feel like.
Big fan in general. However I find that tactile switches in general are hard to evaluate in a switch tester, “mild” tactiles even moreso.
Cherry browns are a great example – they feel pretty good to me on a keyboard, but in a tester they feel like a mess. They do seem to lose tactility as they break in and if you type fast.
I will however generally recommend the Kailh tactiles: Brown, Pro Purple, and Speed Copper. I don’t like heavy switches so I can’t comment on their heavy versions (but the alternate stem colors are fun). Unfortunately I can’t stand the sound of them stock. But you also get some interesting frankenswitch opportunities with them, as long as you don’t mind clipping the bottom post of the slider.
BSUN browns and Gateron browns are pretty okay too. BSUN sounds just as crappy as Kailh, Gateron at least you can get milky tops (or ideally black tops if you search on Taobao). Greetech feels like a “miniature” Cherry Clear. BSUN and Greetech both seem to not take lube all that well.
Also the TTC orange stems feel pretty good to me except for the significant wobble. I put them in the opaque Outemu Sky housings as a joke, but with (a lot of) lube I imagine they’ll be very pleasant to use. I know other users have had good experiences with the non-orange TTC stems as well.
Also, note that switch films in my experience tend to increase tactility somewhat. So if you are finding that something like an MX Brown isn’t quite tactile enough, try it with a film and see.
I have to shoot down Aliaz, the dampening pad implementation is the worst I have felt in any switch. They can come loose from the stem and have a ‘squish-pop’ feeling on bottom out as the pad compresses and then slides out of place.
One of my favorite switches is the Kailh Pro Purple, love to use them; I even went wild and put them into Yok housings to kind of make the ultimate version of my favorite switch. I am also a fan of Ergo Clears for a nice round bump, and I have been meaning to try out Hako Violets in a full board sometime. I am also a fan of Halo Clears, but that is stepping up the tactility quite a bit.
They are crunchy as hell. They’re otherwise normal Gateron springs with a fairly normal force curve, but something about the black coating just absolutely wrecks the feeling of the switch.
I try to like Hako Violets, but they are pretty unrefined. Not terrible if you type fast, but slow presses don’t feel nice. I’m really enjoying my 67g zilents at the moment. Nice tactility but not overwhelming. V1
I like medium to low tactility sometimes so what i do is take a switch that’s normally high tactility and just lube it like crazy which decreases the tactility and makes it smooth and sound cool
Also one of my favorites is holy bsun Brown (bsun brown housing with Halo stem)
I just got a Mod-L tactile 45g and it might be my favorite so far. It has a nice ramp up to the bump and flows over it well but the switch is light to type on. Feels better to me than the Halo True with the brown spring in it, that switch feels vague in ramp up and flow over the bump.