Played around with these a little bit more this morning and I can now confirm that Halo stems do work with these housings very well. I think I like these housings more for these stems than I’ve liked them in any other housing; the sound is fantastic, the leaf provides nice tactility, and there is virtually no wobble.
Combining all those pluses with the fact these are cheaper to source (and you can do so through a variety of trusted sellers, as well as direct), I’d strongly recommend anybody who thinks they’re into Holy Pandas give the Holy Boba a try. I will continue to test these with any tactile stems I bring into my collection, for sure.
I want to echo this sentiment. I really love the tactile bump being at the top, but in conjunction with a very large bump, I have to change my typing style to be comfortable throughout the day. I typically type as you do with my fingers resting on the keys, gently depressing as needed – this is the best way for me to type on linears as well which increases my speed and prevents unwanted clack. When using a switch like a Zealios V2 I’m forced to start the srtoke above the key and it feels like my fingers are dancing, lol. Another switch that requires this bouncy approach is topre and its clones though I think this is due to the large amount of hysteresis I feel on the rebound (is this just me?). My wife took to a board full of Zealios V2 without any issue, but she straight up slaps down her fingers on any kind of switch (almost a whipping motion rather than a press) which should have been my first insight on how I would have to approach them.
I swapped the drop HP stems with the boba u4 stems. I found that the boba u4 housing + hp stem was higher pitched than the stock HP. the boba silent stem in the HP was surprisingly (to me anyway) super rattly and gross.
Yeah, the boba housing does have a bit higher of a pitch to it than the panda housings. Pitch sits somewhere between OG panda housings and modern panda competitors, to my ear, but it is that full round sound and the pluses I ascribed to these outweigh that one detail for me.
The lack of necessary filing away of leftover parts is a huge benefit. I have so many panda stems and springs lying around.
It’s really weird to have them in my keyboard and have the keycaps not wobble at all when I rest my fingers on them… makes any build rock solid. Plus, they’re probably what I’d categorize as the perfect office environment switch. Need to test a 62g now to see how they stack up with the 68gs that I have.
Cant decide whether or not i want to try these. The only tactile I’ve really tried is the Zealios 67g. and I have some T1’s too but I haven’t really liked Tactiles so far. Wondering if this would change my mind on Tactiles.
These definitely have a “big” tactility like T1s or Zealios do, but it’s rounder than either of them.
If I were you, I’d give them a try but I am going to caveat that: if you choose to do so, and you are in the continental US, don’t buy a full pack for your board or anything. Instead, reach out to their designer Gazzew (/u/hbheroinbob/) on Reddit because he will be extremely happy to send you a sample pack of a couple of his different tactile switches so you can get a feel for a wider range of tactile styles. He’s a really helpful, nice guy.
+1 to what @iaman said, definitely worth trying to get ahold of a few for samples before trying. Might also be worth trying to try some less tactile like a MOD-M or zealios V1, I find holy panda/zeal v2 to be very unpleasant but enjoy those ones.
thanks for the recommends. Was worth a try. Gazzew said they don’t do samples anymore unfortunately but…these switches might be worth the try regardless =D
edit: i grabbed a bag of 70 from 1up. looking forward to trying them. i put zealios back on my hotswap to get used to them…maybe i’tll help me appreciate the bobas more …dunno xD
Bobas aren’t nearly as tiring to type on for me as compared to Zealios V2. I already liked T1’s better than Zealios V2, and the Bobas are quickly becoming my favorite tactile, the silent nature of them totally aside.
I’m curious as to what lube you used. I’ll be experimenting this week with different options as my batch finally arrived (beyond the samples that I had). Also, did you bother to film them (since these are the tops with the hole in them).
I lubed the leaf and tactile leg of my 62g U4’s with 205g0. I don’t notice any drop in tactility, and there is an increase in smoothness and even less leaf ping than with unlubed. I can comfortably say they’re more quiet than Zilents I’ve used, but I did not lube the leafs or legs of them so keep that in mind.
Just to note with my lubing technique, I brush off almost all visible 205g0 - so the brush just looks shiny when shining light on it - before lubing the sliders; using an unused face of the brush for each side. Then, I spin around the bottom once using the bottom of the brush. Lastly, I brush each leaf with the remaining two unused faces three times. For the stem, I load my brush the same way and begin with the face with the legs, and three strokes on each tactile leg.
Coming from 62g Zilents (crisp, but a bit harsh), and spring-swapped 62g T1’s (too much tactility), I realized maybe I should start lubing the tactile legs to see if they would fit my preference. I’m pleased to say that they do! I’ll probably be lubing the legs of my Holy Pandas the same way. I hope this helped answer your first two points!
I’ve been using my Gazzew Boba U4 (62g) for about a week now and I’m a huge fan. I have Zilents and Gat Black Ink Silents on my other daily drivers, and the Gazzews are by far the quietest of the three. (note, I’m too lazy to lube or film any of my switches)
I strongly prefer the feel of the U4s over the Zilents; they don’t have the really obvious pretravel that the Zilents have (which drives me crazy), they’re far less scratchy, and they don’t have the mushy bottom-out that I never liked with my Zilents. I think the lack of pretravel makes the overall tactility feel tighter and more organic to me, as well. I will probably wind up ordering more U4s to replace the Zilents in that board.
Got my 68g progressive springs in and replaced the stock 68g springs to test on a switch. I think I might go with this for a build - one thing I wasn’t particularly happy with after lubing and filming with the stock spring was that the switch lost some of its liveliness even though it was much quieter. I think with the progressive spring it brings back some of the liveliness of the bump and return while maintaining the resistance after the tactile bump. Honestly I feel like with these switches they will be easier not to bottom out and rather finish my key stroke after the tactile bump rather than on bottom out.
