Gadgetory

key switches come in all different shapes and sizes but we're focusing on mechanical switches in this video the four most common types all denoted by color red blue black and brown they're all slightly different by design each with a different user and preference in mind blues are generally the most tactile and consequently the loudest while Reds on the other end of the spectrum are much quieter and require little to no force for activation most people claim that it just comes down to here's my favorite word preference gamers should consider it reds or blacks and typist should most definitely consider blues or on a few cases Browns Browns are typically a fair middle ground my favorite switches are blues for both typing and gaming I love the tactile feedback and appreciate the actuation force required but what about when it comes to different manufacturers there are multiple companies who produce mechanical keys most of us know of cherry a german-american peripheral manufacturer they design and produce these kinds of colored mechanical keys and are highly regarded all other switches for the most part are considered knockoffs and are compared to Cherry MX switches as the sort of standard I'm pitting Cherry MX blue switches in today's video against Altima blue switches both are designed almost the same but when it comes to keystrokes subtle design differences can mean big differences for the user I'll give you my impressions of using both the first player fire rose sporting Ottomans which I reviewed right here and the new g.skill km 570 a fairly affordable keyboard from g.skill sporting authentic cherry blues I chose to compare blues because they're my favorite kind of switch and I expect I'll be more sensitive to tiny changes overall let's start off first with how each one sounds testing testing ok that's my voice from about a foot away from the blue Yeti and the keyboard is a little under a foot away from from the top of the Yeti but we will be keeping this here and we'll just swap the keyboard for the G scale km 570 after we run our first test with this one here so let's see I guess the goal here would be to to be the quietest despite the fact that both of these are blue switches I expect that one of these will be quieter than the other I kind of already have an idea which which keyboard will come out on top in that regard so let's go ahead and start typing and we'll do a sound comparison alright so now I have the 570 right here in front of me I haven't inclined it or anything like that so it's pretty much the same distance away from the blue Yeti as the fire rose keyboard was and let's go ahead and start typing I'm going to type the exact same thing I type previously by the way so here you'll hear the same amount of clicks unless I mess something up in the process this is something I did not expect now in terms of just how loud each one sounds I think that the km 570 comes out on top authentic Cherry MX blue switches are considerably quieter than their I guess off-brand counterparts these are altima blue switches here but in most cases the authentic keys are going to be a bit quieter even though they are the loudest in terms of you know the fact that they're blues so not they're not Browns or Reds and those are all going to sound different and the off-brand versions of those are going to sound different as well but for this keyboard here even though it's sporting authentic cherry blues I noticed that it's not as tactile as the autumn accounter part and we explain what I mean by that so there's a definite actuation point blues are very popular because they do have a very very specific point at which actuation occurs that's the point at which the key is engaged and the computer registers the keystroke so if I push this key down past a certain point enough weight will be on the key to actuate it and when that happens you do hear that click you do feel the click it is responsive but when I hop over to something like the autumn ablute here the click is just more defined there isn't as much weight required by the key to push it down to right above the actuation point and then when you finally get there on this keyboard it's just it's not as it doesn't feel as satisfying it almost feels mushy not like a membrane keyboard we're not even close to that but it doesn't feel as clicky that's that's really the only way I know how to explain it something like this just feels you just know okay so I've pulled the key caps off of both switches and this way we can get an idea of just how different the actual keys are themselves and not the key caps and how they interfere with the the rest of the key so when I push down the authentic Cherry MX switch definite point of actuation but you can't really hear it okay so that's what I want you to pay attention to at this point try to listen for the actuation point you'll hear that loud click sound that's iconic with blue switches okay that's with the Cherry MX now we're going to over here to the autumn ablute which you can almost get an idea for how tactile each of these is just by listening to how each response so I'm going to alternate between the G scale and the fire rose keys here something else I notice is that it actually requires more force to actuate the Cherry MX key than it does for the autumn ooh blue key there isn't a substantial difference but it's definitely noticeable and I think that's what makes this keyboard seem a bit mushy er I'm actually pushing harder on each key so I don't feel just the subtle click sound I'm actually pushing the key harder past that actuation points so it seems mushy er overall because the key requires more force to actuate now this does almost completely come down to preference you might prefer the Cherry MX blue switch but if you ask me and a lot of you might disagree with me a lot of you probably will disagree with me I prefer typing in the case of blue switches here with the off-brand keyboard the reason why is because it requires less force for actuation per key which means that I can type this is just coming from my own experience here I can type more words per minute on this keyboard than I can on this one this one requires more force per key actuation and that just takes away from my ability to type more words per minute again you may respond differently to this style keyboard this might be better for you you might be able to type more words per minute with this keyboard than this one but if we're looking at just how each key responds to a keystroke this one is just a district wires less energy I guess is what I should say here and because it requires less energy I can waste less time typing each letter or number whatever I'm doing and as a result I can type more words and I can just well it just doesn't feel as stray Gnaeus on my fingertips it I can just glide over each key whereas in this case I'm pushing harder I don't feel as satisfied when I push the key because the actuation isn't as distinct even though it does sound better and it does sound quieter that's a trade-off I'm willing to make for the sake of typing more words per minute there you have it not what you expected was it to be completely honest I'd almost prefer Cherry Browns over cherry blues just because they're brown actuation forces similar to those found on autumn abused it becomes very clear once you begin typing with both keyboards at the same time it's a weird feeling but there's a distinct difference here one I can't relate via video but you'll have to experience first hand to fully understand if you're interested in purchasing either of the keyboards I've tested you can find their links in this video's description or you can just click the car that I revealed a bit earlier if you like this video be sure to give it a thumbs up give it a thumbs down if you do feeling a bit opposite or if you hate everything about life be sure to click the subscribe but if you have already to stay tuned for a build featuring an AMD CPU and an AMD GPU this is Salazar studio thanks for learning with us