I’ll preface this by saying I’ve only used cherry mx brown switches before.
Recently I decided to try Akko Silver linear switch, and while it feels great when I’m gaming, for work I’ve been getting the tips of my fingertips hurting. Is it just me or are they not for this sort of thing?
Very much personal preference. To me linears are bad for everything, including fps games.
I think so. There’s nothing telling your finger when a linear switch is active. That’s why you end up bottoming out, which means you’re using more force and incurring more impact in the finger. One can learn to like anything but typing without bottoming out on linear is playing on hard because you like it. The problem is that if you don’t learn to not bottom out, this does damage to your fingers and it’ll start complaining long term. With that said, typing using the 10-finger system might be more important for avoiding repetitive injury. I imagine overloading several fingers with all keystrokes would be worse than bottoming out. If you type a lot that is. So I’d learn to do that before changing the switches. In any case being able to reliably type without looking is magical. Releases the brain to fully focus on what’s on screen. Or off screen.
Could also add soft, thick o-rings to limit travel and absorb bottom-out force.
preference is always king. Some like tactile, some like linears, some heretical people like clickies.
Switching switches tends to come with a period of getting accustomed to the new feel, at least for me. I switched from cherry mx browns to durock L7’s (68g ones, iirc), so quite the jump and I absolutely love them. Types just fine, but the first week was pretty weird, ngl.
Heretic with Box Jades here. They’re awesome for typing and waking my neighbors up at 3AM.
mmmmmm clicky go clack
burn the (s)witch! /s
can’t argue what feels nice to type with. :)
Are you bottoming out with a lot of force when typing?
I think so but I’m not sure. I’ve been doing the mental effort to type lightly and it seems to be helping so far.
Yeah, it definitely seems like a more concerted effort to not bottom out super hard on linears, but, if you can manage it, hell yeah. As others have said tactiles give you some physical feedback to tell you when you’ve actuated the switch. If you continue to have issues and really want to stick with linears, perhaps a silent linear would alleviate the fatigue/pain. The bottom is dampened with some kind of rubber or silicone so it doesn’t feel as harsh when you bottom out
I like my oil Kings for typing. Never really liked other linear switches for typing.
It’s you!
As everybody writes here: How good switches work is highly subjective.
I feel the same and switched to early and slightly heavier tactiles, the Gateron Bananas Low Profile and the Gateron Baby Kangaroos. I like the Bananas and absolutely love the BKs! Maybe linears give you an edge, when you a really into competitive gaming, but tactiles are totally okay for that, too. The Browns don’t sound or feel nice in any way, but with their small bumb, they are perfectly fine middle-of-the-ground switches.
Just one thing: Clickies are NOT fine for gaming. Only crazy people use them for that.
I think it’s preference. I like to glide my fingers over the keys and rest lightly on them. On a linear board I’ll accidentally press many keys doing that.
I think linears are fine for typing, but if you don’t like them for that then that is fine. Swap the switches!
- VERY much personal preference
- and there are way too many options available for MX switches
- linear, tactile, clicky, silent, pre-lubed, long pole, strong tactile, weak tactile, click jacket, clickbar, clickleaf, light springs, medium springs, heavy springs, short springs, long springs, 3 stage springs
- Akko Silver has a light spring (45g) – so really easy to bottom out, simplest might be test with a heavier spring
- medium-light – Akko Piano (55g)
- medium – Akko Matcha Green (63g)
- if it’s just a matter of bottoming out
- O-ring mod – add a small O-ring around the stem of the keycap, softens bottom out on existing switches
- silent switches (ex. Akko Fairy) – internal dampers not only silence the clack but soften the blow
- ergo mech users !ergomechkeyboards@lemmy.world generally go for light springs but they also tend to hover their fingers rather than resting their fingers as well as optimizing layouts and keymaps to reduce finger travel which is a whole new discipline
