Best keyboard switch 2014

[webwit]

Please suggest nominees for the Best keyboard switch in 2014. You have to give a short motivation for each suggestion.

By voting in the third round of this category, you can win a NovaTouch TKL and Reaper from Cooler Master|CM Storm!

In this round you can earn multiple entries in the draws for voter prizes: if you are the first to suggest a particular nominee and the suggestion gets at least 5 votes in round 2, you get an extra entry in the draw for the prize by the sponsor of the related category. If your suggestion is voted as an official nominee and makes it to round 3, you get another extra entry.

The first round ends on Thursday 27 November, 00:00hrs UTC.

Current suggestions (this list is frequently updated):

• IBM beam spring
• Vintage Cherry MX Brown
• IBM Model F capacitive buckling spring
• Mitsumi miniature
• Logitech Romer-G switch
• Cherry MX Black
• NovaTouch TKL - Topre hybrid capacitive switch
• Matias Click
• Amber Alps
• Marquardt clicky “butterfly” switch
• Alps plate spring
• Alps SKCMAG blue (since bhtooefr already got the amber ones)
• SMK clicky switches (“Monterey” blue Alps-mount, white MX-mount)
• Matias quiet-click
• Kaihua brown
• Microsoft Surface type cover switches
• Futaba switches
• Cherry MX Green
• Nixdorf black

[scottc]

Nomination: Beam spring, yet again.

Tactile. Chunky. Ancient. What more could you want?

[photekq]

Scott beat me to it

I nominate the vintage [or old, whatever you want to call it] MX brown. For me, it's the perfect switch [that isn't too loud for practical use]. Slightly tactile, smooth, lovely sound, and not scratchy like the modern ones.

[andrewjoy]

i nominate capacitive buckling spring ( model F)

its the second best feeling switch ( after beamspring) and it is chrisp and not scratchy at all , its the switch we wish they had stuck with for the 101 model m style layout some of IBMs finest work.

[Muirium]

Mitsumi miniature for me. Just discovered them, thanks to Mr. Beardsmore, and they are little stunners!

[scottc]

Scott beat me to it

Sorry about that, I'm having loads of fun with these and am feeling quite enthusiastic about them.

[matt3o]

I already nominated the keyboard, but probably the switch also deserves to be nominated. The Logitech Romer-G switch is a nice attempt to reinvent the wheel.

[Findecanor]

I already nominated the keyboard, but probably the switch also deserves to be nominated. The Logitech Romer-G switch is a nice attempt to reinvent the wheel.

Have you actually tried it?

[IanM]

MX Black, call me unfashionable but this is the one I've used since discovering mechanical. Other keyboards have been and gone but my aged Raptor-Gaming K1 is the keyboard I haven't been willing to part with.

Also, if it counts as a nomination in this catagory: the Novatouch flavour Topre. I liked the Topre for the brief time I got to try it, interchangable MX keycaps is a winning concept and Cooler Master deserve as much regonition as possible for doing it.

[matt3o]

I already nominated the keyboard, but probably the switch also deserves to be nominated. The Logitech Romer-G switch is a nice attempt to reinvent the wheel.

Have you actually tried it?

only briefly

[Nuum]

The Mitsumi miniature mechanicals, that Daniel sent to Muirium and me, already have been nominated, but I want to add my own motivation for that. Their tactility is really nice and I love the activation mechanism, also they have a Cherry MX mount so their keycap compatibility awesome. They feel a bit scratchy, though.
They were a real surprise for me and I'd like to have a full keyboard of them.
Thanks again to Daniel Beardsmore for sending me some!

[andrewjoy]

I would nominate liner space invaders but i have never used one

[jacobolus]

Most of these switches are from >20 years ago. (Adding a new keycap mount on the NovaTouch is pretty weak as a claim on being a “new” switch.) How come this category allows old stuff, but the categories like best keycaps, best keyboard, etc. do not?

Also, there’s no way any vote here can be fair, since almost no one has used more than a few of these switches. It ends up being a popularity contest that has almost nothing to do with the switches’ merits.

If we’re nominating old switches, here are my suggestions:

Clicky:
- Marquardt “butterfly” plate spring switches, as found in certain old Olympia typewriters: these are the same basic concept as IBM beam spring switches, but they have a more tactile feel and a much more satisfying click sound
- Alps plate spring switches, as found in Japanese IBM keyboards as well as the IBM P70/P75 luggables: the P70/P75 keyboards are pretty bad, with flimsy cases and super thin keycaps, but the switches are actually really nice. I find I can type faster and more accurately on them than any other keyswitch I’ve tried. If transplanted into a nicer context with a better case and better keycaps, they’re really nice to use. The sound still isn’t my favorite, but you can always add a solenoid.
- Blue and amber Alps: both very smooth, blue Alps is a nice soft click, and amber Alps is a stronger and more tactile click. These switches just feel classy to type on.
- SMK clicky switches (both the blue “monterey” Alps-mount type and the white MX-mount type): a clicky switch with a really nice tactile feeling, basically the same concept for the force curve as MX blue but better executed: much nicer feeling and sounding.

Tactile:
- Burroughs opto-electric with torsion springs (not my personal favorite, but very interesting)
- SMK tactile switches (both the white “monterey” Alps-mount type, and the inverse cross mount type)
- Orange, brown, and tactile green Alps: orange Alps is my favorite tactile switch, and the other two are interesting because of their sort of “rounded” feeling force curve, similar to the Burroughs opto-electric

Linear:
- Green Alps: just the perfect spring weight for a linear switch
- White Hi-Tek “space invaders”: also a nice weight, though I’d prefer just slightly lighter, and very smooth and stable
- Alps Magnetic Reed (HaaTa calls this “Super Alps”): ridiculously stable and smooth when pressed from any angle
- “Vintage” Cherry MX black, lubricated and with aftermarket lighter springs: stock MX switches all kind of suck, but if you mod the hell out of them, you can get something pretty nice

* * *

If we’re nominating recent switches, how about:
- Kaihua brown
- Kaihua “Razer green”
- Kaihua light-in-the-middle switches (not sure anyone’s making keyboards from these though)
- various Gateron switches (I’ve only tried these as loose switches, couldn’t tell you what a full set is like in a keyboard)
- Matias quiet-click (most tactile quiet switch I’ve tried, really nice consistent tactile leaves)
- Matias quiet-linear (this might not get real production until 2015)
- Logitech Romer-G (already nominated)
- Apple aluminum-keyboard scissor switches (anyone know who the manufacturer is for these?)
- Microsoft Surface type cover switches (not half bad, considering how little space they take up and how low travel they are)

[webwit]

You can nominate both old and new switches here. Please trim your list down from 20 to your favorites and I'll add them.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

How come this category allows old stuff, but the categories like best keycaps, best keyboard, etc. do not?

Also, there’s no way any vote here can be fair, since almost no one has used more than a few of these switches.

Restricting the category to only new switches wouldn't help. Granted, we've seen a lot of new switches spring up just recently, but few people have used them, so the voting problem would not be solved. Someone was asking about Gateron switches at geekhack, and hardly anyone has ever tried one. I'd never even seen one until I read that topic a little earlier.

Half the time we can't tell what's going on — the switches imQi claimed are Gaote (based only on conversation in China, not hard evidence) looked nothing the ones on their website, and if Gaote only do final assembly of switches, some other company would have commissioned them, just as how Gaote still pass off Matias switches as their own (now with colour photographs). Having just checked, though, Gaote do now list clear-top MX-like switches (like Nixdorf, not like Gateron/MX RGB), and they do now depict something that appears to be the ones imQi claimed were Gaote. Some of these that they depict are still unbranded, while some are branded as something like "UUTEMU" (too hard to read).

The amount of well-understood new switches on the market is pretty slim; the rest are all a chaotic vortex of Chinese whispers.

I haven't even tried Matias click yet — the Tactile Pro for PC was supposed to be arriving in Britain in late September, but mine hasn't arrived yet and we're racing headlong into December. (Not that I even wanted it, but the Mini Tactile Pro doesn't even exist for PC! It's a bit too bulky to replace my Majestouch at home, where currently I still have a full-size keyboard.)

[jacobolus]

You can nominate both old and new switches here. Please trim your list down from 20 to your favorites and I'll add them.

The old ones listed here are mostly my favorites.

Do you have a rule about number of nominations allowed?

[webwit]

No hard rule, but if everyone nominates such an amount I'd have to add one

[jacobolus]

No hard rule, but if everyone nominates such an amount I'd have to add one

Okay, well let me wait until some other folks have gotten their nominations in, and then I’ll add some that haven’t been nominated by someone else.

Also, is there a list of which switches have won this award in the past? Seems like a waste to have repeat winners when there are so many great switches out there.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Also, is there a list of which switches have won this award in the past? Seems like a waste to have repeat winners when there are so many great switches out there.

You're not suggesting that we bias the results, are you now? ;-)

[webwit]

http://deskthority.net/archive-f31/

[bhtooefr]

Matias Click, it's my favorite current production switch. Low spring force, high tactile force, and actuation early in the travel.

And, I'll go ahead and nominate amber Alps, it's my favorite switch period. It's like a Matias Click, but somehow having more of a well-oiled machine feel to it.

[jacobolus]

http://deskthority.net/archive-f31/

So okay, we have Cherry MX brown, Cherry MX clear with springs swapped out, and buckling spring (pictured was a Model F hammer) as our past winners from 2011, 2012, and 2013, respectively.

As I said before: popularity contest.

So okay, here is my shorter list of nominees.

Old switches:
1. Marquardt clicky “butterfly” switch
2. Alps plate spring
3. Alps SKCMAG blue (since bhtooefr already got the amber ones)
4. SMK clicky switches (“Monterey” blue Alps-mount, white MX-mount)

(I’ll leave linear switch nominations to someone else; I like clicky switches. I would suggest someone add amber Omron B3G-S switches, black Hi-Tek “space invaders”, and NEC blue-oval-slider switches, but all three have the actuation point above the click point which results in double actuations, and that bothers me considerably.)

Current switches:
1. Matias quiet-click
2. Kaihua brown
3. Microsoft Surface type cover switches

(I wouldn’t consider 2/3 here to be favorites of mine, but they’re worth nominating at least.)

[matt3o]

I like futaba can I nominee futaba? to me they are the perfect soft tactile/clicky switches with the added benefit of being mx compatible.

and cherry MX green, the only half good cherry switch (well blacks are not bad either)

[Muirium]

Futaba's worth a shot. Just needs that crazy video of someone typing on a board full of them to prove their crinkly awe to all!

MX green is a good old favourite, that's still alive and well. But Nixdorf black is the supreme vintage black, and therefore the mightiest MX of all. Let's just rally around that one to make a statement to the Cherry MX world: bring back your best switch!

[webwit]

Is that talk or a nomination?

[Muirium]

Go on then: Nixies nominate.