Great tool to get a practical feel for switches. Switch reviews are like reading perfume reviews, more of a poem. It's hard to get a sense of what 'tactile' and 'clicky' means to different people.
The product really should come with just a cheap printed map of which switch is which; referring back to the image here works but shouldn't be necessary.
Admittedly, the first thing I did was mash this tester against my face. And yes, it was satisfying.
I really appreciate the sheer number of switch options. You can really get a feel for the variance of similar switches (ie the milky vs the standard gaterons), plus you get to see a lot of switches you have never heard of before (ie the aliaz switches). Highly recommended.
They appear to be fully functional switches with the connections on the back. I don't have a hot swappable board to test it out with to get you a definite answer. It would be nice to test the actuation points... they could be hooked up to a simple LED that lights up the clear base-but this switch tester is expensive enough as it is. This is good for feeling the actuation weights, there's a lot of variation in this set. Some feel like they'd be tiring to type on, and some (clears) like there's barely any weight and i'd mistype on them - but I've no idea really. End of the day you'll still need to type with a full set of switches for a while to see how you like it, but this switch tester helps narrow things down and give you a view of the overall switch landscape.
Admittedly, the first thing I did was mash this tester against my face. And yes, it was satisfying.
I really appreciate the sheer number of switch options. You can really get a feel for the variance of similar switches (ie the milky vs the standard gaterons), plus you get to see a lot of switches you have never heard of before (ie the aliaz switches). Highly recommended.
Simmons572I just had to say -- I was looking at this and thinking "If I got this, I could press my face on it to see what it's like." I decided then to click on reviews to see what people were saying, and this was the very first thing.
I guess I'm buying it!
Great tool to get a practical feel for switches. Switch reviews are like reading perfume reviews, more of a poem. It's hard to get a sense of what 'tactile' and 'clicky' means to different people.
The product really should come with just a cheap printed map of which switch is which; referring back to the image here works but shouldn't be necessary.
Great tester for the most common, and not so common, switches on the market. Really wish there was a way to identify the switches, however (e.g. description of the switches and map to where they are by default). Reverse engineering took a couple of hours...
The switches are NOT properly secured, so by the time the tester arrives to your place, the switches will have already fallen out of the board. There is no way to tell which switch is which, so now I have 63 useless switches I can't tell apart from one another.
PhlaDid you request a replacement or did they see your post? I had the same problem, though not as many of mine fell out in shipping. Roughly half of mine did.
Every single switch was loose from the acrylic frame when it arrived. There are zero markings on the now loose box full of switches to indicate what they are, so it's kind of pointless as a platform for testing switches.
Doesn't have the labels, has redundant cherry/cherry rgb switches, doesn't have halo true/clear, doesn't have speed silver, honestly I don't know why I bought it, really wish I could return it. Some switches weren't in the base when it arrived. I think massdrop had a better super tester with the legends on it and with more variety, wish I'd gone for that one.
Didn't come with Switch puller or rubber pads as advertised... Go for the 72 switch tester from kbdfans, it's probably worth the extra money for the legended caps and extra variety.
A community member
Jul 12, 2019
d.hbbsThanks a lot for the review bro, I was thinking along the same lines. It's good to have confirmation.
Disappointed in the acrylic base, it appears to be rather low quality. Of the four sides, only one appears to be square, the other three are enough out of square i can tell by simply eyeballing it. Holes for the switches appear to be out of square as well, but the switches seem to seat ok. edges themselves are rather rough and not at all smooth. I don't know if thats just the nature of machining acrylic, i've never worked with the material myself. The switch holes do have cutouts for switch-top replacement which is nice for using this as a switch mod/lube station.
Theres no cutout at 1.5mm for the little switch tabs to lock in but maybe thats intended; it does make removing switches a lot easier since you can just push them out. As someone else mentioned, it does make the kailh switches deform a bit since they dont have much material supporting the bottom tab, but otherwise i dont think has any effect on switch performance.
I tried to follow the provided chart in the description for all the switches but at least some of them dont match up. In particular the switches in the box black/red/brown slots in the chart are certainly not box switches at all, but appear to be gaterons (and from the sound of them, likely just duplicates of the silent gaterons in the row below them). the box white is supposed to be clicky but appears to be missing its little clickbar. I havent gone thru to fully verify all the switches, these were just the ones i noticed (and the rest appear to be correct from what I can tell, i might get more pedantic on it later).
Some of the switches were unseated (likely due to shipping) but otherwise suffered no ill effects, which is in line with what i'd expect. The unseated switches were still in their correct places, just had to be reseated, and were not free floating in the package or anything, which is good.
The description claims rubber feet and a switch puller, both were absent from the package I recieved. I'd completely forgotten about them but after re-reading the description here i doublechecked the box but to no avail. Its not a big problem but annoying to not get what is listed in the description.
Overall i think a good selection of switches (tho most linear switches are not particularly interesting so perhaps a bit of overkill there). disappointed in the craftsmanship of the acrylic plate but thats mostly about how it looks, it appears to serve its function just fine. I saw this drop as a chance to get a bunch of the switches i havent had a chance to test out yet, and a decent sized switch modding station. For those purposes, it seems to have done ok.