As a keyboard lover who spends too much time thinking about, buying, and modding switches, the search for the perfect switch is neverending. After the better part of a year lubing up and trying as many MX style switches, and finally finding one (or rather a small group of similar switches), let me tell you that’s not even close to the end of it. Next on my list to check out are supposedly very nice tactile Orange Alps from old Apple keyboards, from the days when Apple made mechanical keyboards. I’m also giving Topre another, more fair go of it. I will still experiment with MX and see explore some clicky or linear options, venturing from my tactile wheelhouse, but I have found my favorites for the time being, and they lie in the category of light tactile.

As anyone who has had a similar search probably knows there is no such thing as a personal perfect switch. You hopefully get to the ballpark of switches you prefer, or multiple ballparks of switches for different tasks. Tastes eventually change and there is the everpresent urge to try one of the numerous new switches that are constantly coming out. It’s nice as hell when you find a switch you enjoy using over a protracted amount of time. For me, the most enjoyable switch is not always the one you type fastest or most accurately with.

I’ve always been a “tactile-gang” member, if such a club exists, since I joined the hobby. My phases of trying linear switches never lasted. It felt like something was missing, and I came away feeling unsatisfied. Funny enough, my story lines up with the story of the first computer keyboards. Many of the first mechanical computer keyboard switches were linear. Then some people who were not satisfied with those made switches that were tactile and clicky, like the IBM Beamspring switches. Clicky switches and tactile switches are obviously enormously popular in today’s keyboards, whereas linears are without a doubt back in popularity among many mechanical keyboard enthusiasts.

For me, as an MX-style switch with a relatively rounded bump increases in size of the bump, my accuracy increases. After a certain point, though, my speed decreases, and the Boba U4T is past that point. This is on the somewhat subjective spectrum from linear to too tactile to even use. After a certain point (probably around the point where my typing speed starts to decrease), the switch becomes tiring to use for long periods of time relative to other switches with the spring weight held constant.

Hugely tactile switches, like the Boba U4T (big rounded bump) and Kailh Box Royals (sharp clifflike top-travel bump), were fun to try and sounded good but for prolonged typing they are too tactile for me, where typing became laborious and not ideal for typing fast. The Kailh Box Royals are also very tactile, but instead of rounded, the tactile event is sharp at the top, and very large in this regard. The feel is not to my taste. I also don’t prefer how they sound, which is loud and unrefined or harsh to my ears, even when lubed. People have said that they approach the volume of clicky switches, especially after being broken in, and though I can’t say I broke in these switches for lack of love for them, but I can say that they are about as irritating (which after all is, let’s be honest, not that irritating in the scheme of noises in life) Cherry MX Blues. I honestly prefer Cherry MX Blues to Box Royals. I used Cherry MX Blues for years, not knowing something better existed. They are useable. That is my spicy take.

The Durock T1, a common tactile manufactured by JWK, seems to be about average for what most keyboard enthusiasts expect from a tactile switch. It’s JWK’s (or specifically Durock’s) flagship tactile, so to speak. It’s considered a good switch at its mid-tier price of around 55 cents per switch. On the other hand, Cherry MX Browns at the time of writing this, going for about 45 cents per switch, is basically considered to be a switch not worth the premium you pay for switches from the OG, Cherry, the original creator of MX style switches. Let me get something out of the way: I’ve never tried Cherry MX Browns, so I can’t speak to them directly. Gateron Browns, on the other hand, are extremely cheap at 24 cents a switch, but they seem to get just as much shit.

Usually, the argument given to prove that Gateron browns are bad, is that you might as well buy a similarly priced linear, which, they point out, you can. Just buy Gateron Yellows, they say. It’s true that in the Gateron lineup, Yellows and Browns have the same MSRP. My initial impression is that the two switches are the same save for the very light tactile bump on the Brown’s stems. For tactile-enjoying (specifically light-to medium tactile-enjoying) people like myself, those people who find that linears are missing something, the Browns are more usable (I know loads of people like Gat Yellows. the Yellows are unusable, or might as well be, for my purposes.

There is something weird I have noticed with the descriptions on vendor websites used to give people an idea of what they are buying. Again, we see references to Cherry switches. It seems to be common practice to denote tactile switches like the T1 as Ergo-Clear type switches. I have not used Ergo-Clears but from the switches I have used that have been described as very close to Ergo-Clears, an Ergo-Clear-like switch is one with a spring weight in the 60-70 gram range, with a substantial but not huge rounded tactile bump, with small pre-travel and medium post-travel. The thing I found weird was the variety. I found long-pole light-medium tactile switches like the new Bolsa Supply Corsa described as Ergo-Clear-like. I will have to try Ergo-Clears one of these days just to figure out once and for all who has been closest to replicating them.

There are distinctly fewer light tactile switches released than these supposed MX-clear-like switches. If those switches are like MX-clears, then the light tactiles are like MX Browns. Of course, as I have already said, this is overgeneralizing things. On one hand there is a huge and ever expanding variety of linear switches. Then, if we take the Pewter Switches by Parallel studios as a prototypical less-linears, it’s enough to refer to these as light tactiles. The experience is in my opinion categorically different and should not be lumped in with the Boba U4Ts or Box Royals as tactiles.

The Pewters are a compromise between tactiles and linears, and a very satisfying one. I really like how they sound as well, due supposedly in part to their UHMWPE housing. It’s higher pitched for sure, as many have noted but I don’t think they sound plasticky or bad in any way. Some people complained about a weird scratchiness between the stem and the leaf. After being lubed, I can say that it is mostly gone away but I can see what they mean. There is a slight leaf scratch but it’s not unpleasant. I tried them on a gummy O-ring Bakaneko with FR4 and a Mode SixtyFive with Aluminum. I like how they work with the Aluminum plate on the Mode, and produce a pleasant metallic clack. I find it’s a little difficult to tell with the Bakaneko, as it sounds great with any switch, but kind of makes switches sound very similar to each other.

The Pewters are very easy switch to like. The 58.5g spring combined with small tactile bump are not too demanding on the fingers, making for a poppy and fun typing experience. They are the first MX-style switch that just clicked for me.