Kailh Switch Series,which one is your favorite?

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jani80k

18 Mar 2019, 07:55

You guys are right and maybe what I wrote was not 100% accurate. I just wanted to shed a light on Cherry's current strategy and the reason why I believe (based on the guy in the interview) we will not see any box switches with clickbars (using this as a metaphor) from Cherry any time soon (even though they could do it and in an extremely professional manner).
They are a high volume supplier and they only react to the market demands in their market share (which is not the niche we are interested in). They even started building a new factory for switches just recently but it's gonna be the same old ones... not because they aren't innovative but because it makes business sense. And as long as Corsair or whoever is not asking for different, they will stick to that strategy and keep piling money.
So this whole "Cherry is not innovative" argument is neglecting real world conditions. Again, if extremely smooth switches would really influence the "average Joe's" buying decision in a way that it would matter to Corsair or other OEMs, Cherry would create some of the smoothest switches you could imagine. If box design or clickbar technique (again using this as a metahpor) were really required to keep their market share as a supplier for companies in the gaming / esports sector, they would develop these products with professional quality. The reason they are not doing it is not because they are not innovative, the reason is their present large scale strategy aiming at the large consumer market.
The guy in the video mentions that they have all kinds of innovations, just not letting anyone look at them.
Cherry are very successful with their strategy at the moment. No need for them to change gears. The fastest growing market for gaming gear is - like it or not - Asia and in that market you can make a lot of money with the "Made in Germany" quality perception.
When I go to one of the websites that is using the biggest price comparison database the EU tech market (forgot the name of the databse but most price comparison websites are using the same database), e.g. geizhals.eu the vast majority of premium keyboards has Cherry Switches in them and even mid-range ones do in quite a number of cases.
I don't know about the US but I could bet that Kailh Box Switch keyboards are also not the norm over there.
I am not sure, if Kailh is producing ALL of Razer's switches and I read that they want to switch to Greetech.
There are some market analysis on the internet but they don't show any number unless you buy the article ;)
Just my 2 cents.

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Telstar

22 Mar 2019, 21:13

Back to topic, I have yet to find which is my favourite Kailh switch, as my tester board is not in my hands yet and will update my post then.

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