Attributes I’m looking for:
- Light key-feel, with smoothness highly preferred
- Actuation is high and early in the stroke
- Actuation coincides with the click/tactile event
- Clicky preferred but tactile also interesting
- The sharper the tactility the better
See, I've been typing on NEC blue ovals for the first time lately. I expected something a bit more like the above from them. Can't say they quite deliver for me, either though. They fail as badly as my otherwise beloved Space Invaders in the "actuation coincides with click" department! So easy to set off both switches with a gentle squeeze, without passing the click. Besides that, NEC blue ovals still fall a good bit short of Blue Alps SKCM for me in sound and outright feel. I do love OG clicky Alps, they're good and simultaneous and fire quite high, but what about something even lighter?
My all-time favourite clicky switch—IBM Model F—scores very highly indeed on smoothness and sharpness. Click is truly simultaneous with actuation, so perfect score there. But they actuate quite low down, though, and I know there are lighter choices too.
How effective are modern click-bar switches at all this? And what else am I overlooking? Don't tell me I must get into Omrons!
