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- Verified Buyer
As this seller is not necessarily manufacturing the switches themselves, this first portion is more about the distribution of the switches. They are legit Kailh switches. None had any whacky bent pins or busted stems or anything. Switch puller tool is basically useless but is appreciated all the same. Cost per switch (~$0.51 each) is pretty much in line for what you'd pay at a retailer like Mechanical Keyboards or something similar. Only gripe I have is that I can't fully kit a 104-switch board unless I buy two of these 65-switch packs, of which I wouldn't have any use for almost half of the second pack. I do understand this comes down to unit pricing and moreover many people won't be using a full sized 104-switch board like me, but I would still like the option to purchase larger sized packs that could more reasonably fulfil different size breakpoints without too many extras (e.g., say 110, 90, 70, etc.).As far as reviewing the switches themselves, if you're buying Kailh Box switches you already pretty much know what you're looking for. I originally bought jades for my full keyboard but I found the jades to be a bit too stiff for writing code. I tend to sort of touch type -- not necessarily like a stenographer or any kind of educated professional but still with a light touch instead of pounding on the keys -- and I was finding I was misfiring and not fully actuating the jades, so I would end up missing letters I mean to type. I also found the jades uncomfortable to use for keys that required my pinky like backspace or shortcuts where my hand is more spread out (e.g., CTRL+SHIFT+F). The jades were also surprisingly fatiguing for gaming because of the extra force required to actuate, however this might be a me problem and is obviously up to preference. I never had any type of fatigue from a keyboard before but when gaming, the jade force to actuate gave me a bit of ache in my left wrist from having to really press on WASD for long periods.However I kept the jades for ancillary keys such as escape, function keys, navigation keys, numpad, etc. and I highly recommend mixing and matching switches for the type of feedback you want from different keys. I really like the heavier force required for those keys as I typically use them for something like navigating around code, debugging, or whatever else that requires a very deliberate action to proceed. I also tend to pound those keys for those function (as opposed to touch typing for general input) so the heavier jades are perfect for it. I also typically use the numpad for custom macros so again those are usually very deliberate actions which are nice with the heavier jades.The box whites by contrast are a dream for general input. They are super light for touch typing (no misfires after using for a few days) with still a subtle higher pitched click from the bar. The click is a bit difficult to describe, but the click bar produces a much higher pitched click than click jackets. However the click bar is less intense and you end up with a sort of deeper overall sound with higher pitched keypress accentuation. Compared to something like Cherry MX Blues or Gateron Blues, the rattle of the jacket produces a more full overall "click" which is the dominant sound of the keypress. You can try this out if you have a click jacket switch: put a keycap on it and rub your finger over the switch side to side, you will get a bit of a rattle -- that rattle actually contributes to the overall sound profile of the switch when you're typing as well. The box switch design doesn't have that rattle, and so it is a much cleaner but less intense click. The box switch style also has a lot less key "wiggle" for the same reason, since the entire stem rests against the walls of the housing (as opposed to traditional switch style where the cherry stem is the only portion outside of the switch housing).Because of the less intense click bar sound, with these switches you actually tend to hear more of the impact from your keys bottoming out that are slightly accentuated by the click, rather than the more predominant click+rattle of a click jacket switch. If you don't like key clacking you may actually want to consider keycap o-rings to dampen that bottoming out sound. Your case acoustics also will really affect the sound you get from these switches for the same reason (e.g., if you have a very hollow case you will have a much different sound than a foam padded/tight case). The box whites also do not have any tactile feedback bump as opposed to box jades which have a very noticeable bump. While I generally prefer tactile feedback, I was surprised that I enjoyed the light feel of the box whites so much for general typing.Additionally, the click bar design also does not have any type of hysteresis that most click jackets have. There's actually a lot of inconsistency as to what this actually refers to (e.g., some people will refer to this as the delay between actuation and click, whereas other people will refer to this describing the actuation point versus the reset point of the switch). Generally the box switches can be described as having no hysteresis, essentially meaning that all things being equal the switch actuates and resets at the same points in the vertical travel axis, and there is very little delay between the click and each of those points. I actually found with both the box whites and jades that the reset point is slightly lower than the reset click (e.g., your switch is "closed" or "fires" exclusively and immediately after the down click, but stops firing just slightly before the return click -- my guess is this is due to the play between the force required to move past the click bar on the way up vs. the electrical circuit actually being broken prior to that upward click). This is entirely up to your personal preference but I didn't have any issues with typing, writing code, or gaming.Overall both jade and whites are great switches for what I need and highly recommend them for their respective functions on the board.
