Reading through the comments, this is what I’ve discerned:
These are Gateron switches (based on the new “Gateron X” line)
They are called Holy Panda b/c Drop has made a lot of money on that name. However, reading through the comments I see that their attempt to trademark the name “Holy Panda” never happened (failed to get TM)
They are in the spirit of a Holy Panda but a bit less harsh.
Probably should have called them Gateron X Panda
The deets from Quakemz:
After a year of prototypes, we’re excited to put out a worthy successor to the Holy Panda name. As a lot of you might know, I loved the Holy Panda, but feel like it’s a bit outdated compared to some of the other much newer options, these days. With that said, the HPX have been a joy to use in my rotation lately. It has a similar feel compared to the original, but much smoother and more refined. The large bump is situated right at the top and encompasses a good portion of the press, making it quite snappy. Personally, that’s the way I like my tactile switches. To top it all off, they’re manufactured by Gateron, and I’ve been in love with many of Gateron’s newer offerings lately, so I was stoked to give these a try. I can’t talk about all of the details yet, but I’ll try to answer any question I’m able to, since I’m one of the few folks that actually has these in hand right now and have been using them for a bit. Drop’s launch announcement is coming up this week.
Maybe these are a mix of Gateron CJ, Gateron X, Gateron Kangaroo
Looks like a recolor of the CJ housing setup with Ink top and Gateron X bottom. Gateron X supposed to have more polished parts and less wobble (Mine feel not all that different from other recent Gateron switches, nothing obviously better)
I’m guessing it’ll have a long spring like Kangaroo, but we don’t know that yet.
Reading a bit more, the post is funny.
Seems like Drop’s Holy Panda sales are taking a dive and they’re desperately trying to keep the Holy Panda name from dying, sending this user to take the hit for them getting roasted alive.
Honestly, the stink about the name is a waste of everyone’s time. There have been tons of “panda” switches created at this point, not to mention the revisions of holy pandas from Drop already.
How is this different than Gateron Tangerines vs JWK Tangerine V2?
Keycult slapped “Rev. n” on the No.1 when they changed the design and switched to making it in house. Again how is this any different?
The only reason people are being dramatic is because anything involving either Drop or Holy Pandas gets people’s knickers in a twist.
Theres a YOK White Panda switch with black stem and white housing, I think thats a plausible match for the panda color scheme. I only found it because I was looking for Red Panda switches as they seem woefully underrepresented in the conversation about pandas.
Fun reads. I would be so happy if the reddit community would simply stop supporting GMK. Maybe then we could return to 4-5 quality sets per year instead of 4-5 per month that are based on someone’s favorite snack with sublegends.
With all that being said, please feel free to ask me any questions you may have. As we are an industrial manufacturer, we generally don't give out information about individual orders as we let the vendors provide that info. So just be aware I may not be able to give detailed information about specific sets/orders out of respect to our vendors. Nevertheless I'm happy to share as much information as I possibly can with the community. If you have a question please feel free to ask me here, I'll try to answer as many questions as I possibly can directly.
and I still haven’t seen a comment answered.
C’mon Andy, people just want to be reassured.
Edit: Andy started answering questions 8+ hours later
That could be the case although a bit odd considering the setting. Typically when you say "“please feel free to ask me any questions you may have…” in a public setting, the assumption is there will be a public responses
I feel like im one of the few people whos okay and understanding about waiting for gbs. I commission art all the time and the artists i go with have queues so I’m used to waiting for products. ¯\(ツ)/¯
It definitely won’t stop yet, not until GMK actually demonstrates higher production capacity. As it stands they haven’t actually sped anything up, and it doesn’t help that they’re blatantly lying about lead times currently being 14 months.
If they start shipping out 12 sets from their backlog every month I’ll gladly eat my words, but that just isn’t happening.
Doubt it, have you seen the lengths people go to defend GMK’s honor? post is like a war zone.
I’m honestly surprised people actually believe he’s a GMK employee taking his free time answering questions out of care and love for the community.
“GMK doesn’t care”, I remember people parroting after youtubers like Taeha, it’s barely an income for them and they could shut the custom production without batting an eye.
For a community considering themselves enlightened and woke, they’re sure as gullible and immature as the people they tend to mock, but I digress on Reddit…
Yeah even at the explosion that this community has reached, we are still a drop in the bucket with GMK.
I remember at a meet-up, Signature Plastics told me that the majority of their business was like numpad/keypads on gasoline fuel pumps. Heck of a lot easier to crank those out then anything our community presents them…
GMK can just go back to just WoB sets for cash register keyboards or whatever. Seems so much easier!
I don’t understand what the appeal is for the same keycaps over and over again but in different colors. Sure they’re great quality but kind of boring by now.
I want to see some GBs for Tai-Hao ALPS sets in various retro-inspired colors.
Also normal keycaps for Kailh Choc that aren’t ugly backlit “gamer” keycaps.
He might work for GMK and be doing damage control, but this dude has been around for years. This is livingspeedbump. He has designed multiple sets, hosted meetups, used to be an r/mk mod. He definitely has a personal investment in the hobby.
