Cherry MX Green Switches - First Impressions with CM Storm QuickFire TK Keyboard
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,371 words · ~6 min read
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welcome to a re-unboxing something we don't do that often this my friends is
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the cooler master cm storm quickfire tk
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fully backlit mechanical keyboard it has an extremely clever layout so it
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delivers pretty close to a 10 keyless size so so for those of you who aren't
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already sort of familiar with the terminology that goes along with
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mechanical keyboard shopping 10 keyless refers to keyboards that don't have a
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number pad but this one does have a number pad so what they've done is
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they've used the number lock to either enable number pad functionality or
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arrows num law or rather well print screen scroll lock pause insert home
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page up delete end page down all that functionality you can choose whether you
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have a number lock or those things which is actually kind of cool it's available
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with a variety of cherry mx switches including the very reason that we are
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redoing this particular unboxing because there is a new option for the quickfire
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tk cherry mx green switches so the
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keyboard includes a removable braided cable as well as a keycap puller and
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we're going to use this as an opportunity to show you guys just
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exactly what a cherry mx green switch looks like ah yes it looks like pretty
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much any other cherry mx switch except for the fact that it is indeed green but
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before we get into the typing impressions from both me and slick let's
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do a quick recap of the overall features here so it has function keys which give
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you your media playback play pause stop backwards forwards mute volume up and
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volume down you've also got a Windows key lock which can be enabled by holding
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function and clicking on that one you can see ah yes it has a backlight so you
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can use the function key to control various types of backlightness so you
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can turn it on and off you can adjust the brightness between five different
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levels and it actually gets extremely bright at
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the brightest level looks very very very vibrant looks quite nice and you can
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choose three different modes for it so you can have it in breathing mode you
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can have it in fully backlit mode and you can have it in just illuminate the
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wasd keys mode the other thing to watch out for is when you press the number
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lock those arrow keys illuminate that indicates that you are not number locked
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which is a little bit counterintuitive i wish the num lock illuminated or
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something like that when you pressed num lock and when you're in numb lock mode
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it has a removable cord as well as a nice set of ergonomic options back here
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so you've got nice little rubber feet on the top and bottom of the keyboard as
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well as rubber tipped feet that can flip
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up in order to elevate the keyboard a touch it does not come with a wrist rest
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unfortunately and that is something that i would have liked to see included
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however it is a fairly value conscious option in terms of pricing so you got to
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just kind of remember that that comes with the territory last thing is with
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function held you can press the escape key and either six or n to choose
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between six key rollover which is compatible with macs and all pcs so
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compatibility mode or n key rollover which allows you to press
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all the keys and have them all register even over usb but not compatible with
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mac and can cause some pcs to fail to boot so you can just change that mode
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back if that's not working for you the last thing to cover before we get into
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the typing experience is the cable management on the bottom so the
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detachable cable can be routed either straight out the top or to either the
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right or left side this is great for keeping your desk tidy now typing
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experience let's start with the big thing about cherry mx greens i mean why
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are they so rare well because they require a lot of force
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to press at 80 grams of actuation force
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at the actuation point that is nearly double what is required for cherry mx
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browns which are a light tactile switch and cherry mx reds which are a light
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linear switch so both of those are around 45 grams and it is a full 60
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percent higher than the 50 grams required for cherry mx blues which are
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considered to be a relatively heavy cherry switch so
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with that said how does it feel for typing well for me it was too heavy just
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right out of the gate i'm gonna give it a shot in the longer
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term here and uh you guys can stay tuned on twitter or on the forum or whatever
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else and i'll let you know if i change my mind but i found that it was just
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flat out too heavy for anything but my index finger and my middle finger so for
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my ring finger and pinky finger it was very unnatural for me to type on it now
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i am not a great typist i rarely use my
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pinky so it wouldn't have even mattered if it wasn't too difficult for me to
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press with my ring finger without it feeling a little bit weird so i'm not
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necessarily the best person to go okay well he had trouble typing on it so therefore it is difficult to type on
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because slick tried it too and while he
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didn't find it as fast as cherry mx blue switches not even by a long shot he
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didn't find the typing experience physically difficult because he just has
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plain old heavier stronger fingers to start with so right now we're kind of
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going okay results are a mixed bag it is a different experience and it is
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certainly very unique i mean it's probably the
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closest we can get with a cherry mx switch to something like a buckling
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spring or even more like a typewriter feel where it really feels like there's
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a long sort of resisting
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press before you reach that actuation point but we didn't find it to be dramatically
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better than some of the other more available and less expensive switches
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that are out there now i have seen reports of people saying that they
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bought cherry mx green keyboards and got used to it over time but i think that'll
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depend on a little bit of a long-term testing session now speaking of getting
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bring it up again the movie is likely to be awesome but stop me if you've heard
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head on over to audible.com Linus for our free trial and to sign up for a
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monthly audiobook from again that is audible.com and 10 points if you can
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figure out how many times i said audible.com in the last minute or so of
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this video i think we're done here guys as always
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like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment and let me know what you think if you'd
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like to try out cherry mx screen switches and as always guys don't forget
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