Cherry MX Orange Switch Review

I really wanted to open up this article by stating that we’re all now officially in the peak of keyboard meetup season, but in reality is there even such a thing? Even though fall and summer are clearly the more popular of seasons to have keyboard meetups here in the US, I both swear that I have been to a meetup in all four seasons of the year and recognize that it’s probably different for those communities who host meetups in other parts of the world as well. Having never been, myself, I couldn’t begin to venture what time of the year countries like Brazil, Korea, or Australia have their meetups so maybe calling it “peak keyboard meetup season” is a bit of a bad choice on my part. Would any of you have meetups in like.. January? Regardless of this semantic parsing, my own keyboard meetup season is in full swing and I’m lucky to be headed back to Chicago on July 27th, the US’ National Day of Keyboard Meetups! If you have never been to a meetup before, and you happen to be near one of the locales listed below participating in this awesome day of meetups, I can’t recommend the opportunity enough. There’s nothing quite like going to your first keyboard meetup and getting flooded with choice overload upon seeing dozens or hundreds of keyboards, keycaps, and enthusiasts all clamoring to be typed on and talked to. (I should stress the typing should be on the keyboards and the talking should be to the people instead of the other way around.) Even 7 years or so down the rabbit hole into the hobby like I am myself, those feelings still remain and I’ve even gained the extra enjoyment of getting to see friends I’ve grown to know quite well via meetups over the past years. Getting to head out to meetups absolutely will never get old.

**Figure 1:** 2024's National Day of Keyboard Meetups participating cities!

In spite of this excitement for ‘That Windy City Keeb Meet’ in Chicago, I do have a decent amount of work to still put into the meetup only a week away. Rather than dragging out the full switch collection as is my common practice for meetups, the planning committee in Chicago granted me unfettered access for 30-45 minutes to drive a group of poor souls locked in a room with me absolutely crazy with conspiracies and monologuing about switches in a breakout session. That is mostly a joke, though only because my friend and sponsor SwitchOddities will also be joining in me in discussion about the switches and occasionally interrupting my rambling. The doors will in fact still be locked. While I’m still uncertain if it will be recorded and uploaded to the web for later viewing, at least those in attendance of the meetup will have an opportunity to hear us go on about the ‘Untold Stories of Unsold Switches’ – a presentation revolving around prototype switches, samples that never made it to wider audiences, and even some failed switch plans for one reason or another. In addition to the fact that we most certainly will be bringing along some of these rare switches along to pass around, we may even get to show off a switch or two that has literally never been seen by anyone ever before too, but only if everyone there first promises to keep it a secret. We’ll be forced to be sworn in as well, as not even we know what we are presenting. Both SwitchOddities and I will be presenting completely in the blind and it’s probably better for the both of us and you all if you set your expectations at that level.

**Figure 2:** I really do hope there will be a recording so even more people can see all the cool switches we'll be discussing.

Switch Background

When I had started writing switch reviews almost 5 years ago, if you had told me there would be some far flung time in the future where I’d have reviewed multiple new Cherry-made switches, I’d have assumed the majority of the world was ended in some topre-fueled rapture with Cherry being the last remaining bastion of hope for humanity. Contrary to that completely realistic predicition of the future I’d have had, the switch market has actually fluroished in recent years. Frequent new switch releases, new manufacturers and brands producing switches, and new technologies or aesthetic concepts are all plentiful and producing an ecosystem of switches completely foreign to the way that it was all of those years ago. In fact, some could even argue that we are among some of the best times ever right now for affordable, usable out of the box switches of a wide variety and its evident that every company has been vying for a spot in that limelight over that last half decade. Well, that is really with the exception of Cherry up until comparatively recently. As anyone that has been active in keyboards in the last couple of years can tell, it is pretty clear that Cherry has fired up their innovation machines again in an attempt to cover for ground lost to competition in the custom end of the hobby in spite of their historical avoidance of the community altogether for the majority of their history. For those unaware of what I’m referencing, just skim through the ‘Switch Background’ sections of my ‘Cherry MX New Nixie’ or ‘Cherry MX Purple’ Switch Reviews.

Unlike other companies such as Gateron or Kailh which are attempting to innovate their way to the top by building and expanding upon their core technologies, Cherry appears to be making a move to relevancy in the custom keyboard switch market by a different strategy altogether – a leveraging of nostalgia. Including the Cherry MX Orange switches inspired by Cherry MX Hirose Oranges and that have brought us here today, this is now the third switch released by Cherry in the past two years that attempts to mimic or draw heavy inspiration from switches that have deep community ties or relevancy. (The other two being the ‘New Nixies’ and the MX/MX2A Ergo Clears) Aside from Cherry’s other efforts related to the MX2A platform and the content-creator related release in MX Purples, this seems to be the way they are best trying to market to and cater to the still largely MX-driven enthusiast. However, there isn’t really a clear understanding as to what switches in the intersection of Cherry’s and the custom keyboard hobby’s histories might fit the bill for being the next inspired switch design. Since I very poorly timed the drop of my short article on ‘The Hirose Cherry MX Rainbow’ where I discuss the history and switch background of the Hirose Orange switches to be released two weekends ago, perhaps I’ll get some use out of pivoting this background to a contextual backdrop that talks about other Cherry switches that could fit in with the group of Nixies, Ergo Clears, and Hirose Oranges as the next “revamped” switch designs. So without much else to it, here’s a brief list of some Cherry made switches that (I’ve not covered really at all in content before) we could see pop up sometime in a remake here in the future (and that I could definitely leverage for some new content here in this background)…

Cherry MX Locks

**Figure 3:** My personal 3- and 5-Pin Cherry MX NOS locks from my collection.

Cherry MX Locks are, without a doubt, the single best potential candidate in Cherry’s MX history that would make a splash if they were to be re-designed and re-released today. I’m not just saying this because of Cherry’s marketing team teasing this as a possibility by posting about them on their various social media platforms a couple of times over the past year or two, either. The Cherry MX Lock is by far one of the best known examples of a ‘rare’ switch to the majority of the community, and their demand has skyrocketed aftermarket prices of these switches from $8-10 when I first started collecting to upwards of $30-40 today if they even are available at all. While there have been three known and documented variants, including an all-black version common in some Hirose-made keyboards of the mid 1980’s and a black housing, clear-stemmed variant that was documented but strangely unavailable starting in 2015, the iconic MX Lock color is that of the ‘NOS’ grey top housings and black stems that were sold between the early 2000’s and 2015. A release of these again would not only be exciting for the community at large, but also historically interesting to people like me as it would signal the first MX-style switches produced in nearly a decade to feature Cherry’s special star-wheel locking mechanism. Unique to Cherry’s platform and first patented all the way back in 1972 under Cherry’s M6 platform via the name “Alternate-Action Switch Actuator With Pawl Stop Plate Also Providing A Guide For Stroke-Control Means” (US 3,770,923), these are an absolutely fascinating design that I’ll let the picture below speak for.

**Figure 4:** Cherry's 'star wheel' switch locking mechanism as seen in their 1972 patent for the M6 lock switches.

Cherry MX Pale / Dark Blues

**Figure 5:** Photo of Cherry MX Dark Blue as seen in Blaise170’s keyboard from Deskthority.

If you’ve already browsed through the ‘Hirose Cherry MX Rainbow’ short article that I linked to above, I’m sure you’re well aware of what the words “quality control” meant in the 1980’s. Cherry, like many other switch manufacturers of the time, weren’t particularly concerned much about the consistency in coloring and tone of the switches that they produced. At the time, markets for keyboard switches were purely OEM driven, and if a batch of switch stems were to accidentally have a fraction of a colorant or pigment left out in their production its not like anyone on the user end would likely either notice or care. As a result of this, there has been quite a spread of blue tones present in Cherry MX Blue switches produced over the years. The two extreme ends of the spectrum, in particular, are special enough to custom keyboard enthusiasts as to have earned the nicknames of Cherry MX ‘Pale Blues’ and ‘Dark Blues’. While still functionally similar to that of MX Blues, these variants are mildly sought after as they were seemingly only present in a few keyboards such as the late 1980’s made Chicony KB-5191s in the case of Pale Blues and Bondwell B310 or Unitek K-158s in the case of Dark Blues. What makes the Cherry MX Pale Blues especially interesting, though, is that the Chicony KB-5191’s have a history of having faux-Cherry switches in them in the form of Aristotle-made “Cherry MX Yellows”, which means they may not even be genuine Cherry after all…

**Figure 6:** A full keyboard's worth of Cherry MX Pale Blues as shown off by r/mk user u/ayybasketballs.

Cherry MX ‘Jailhouse’ Blues

**Figure 7:** Demonstration of the 'jailhouse' mod for clicky switches as shown on the blog Coffee with Robots.

In terms of being a Cherry-made switch with direct historical relevancy to the custom mechanical keyboard hobby, there’s hardly a case to be made for a better switch than Cherry MX ‘Jailhouse’ Blues. One of the first DIY switch modifications ever to percolate through the community alongside spring swaps and switch stickers, ‘jailhousing’ clicky switches involved taking complete or severed rubber o-rings and inserting them between the upper blue and lower click jacket parts of the clicky stem to prevent them from rattling around and clicking upon actuation. Resultingly, something between a mushy, silent clicky and a Cherry MX Brown-like tactile bump was achieved by these strange modifications and while they weren’t exactly a community-wide favorite, they were relevant enough to still be remembered by name by many of us here today. A reintroduction of this likely wouldn’t be able to carry the name of ‘jailhouse’ for marketing purposes, though seeing homage paid to these DIY tactiles in the form of another light tactile by Cherry with some separation in design from existing MX Browns would be a nice historical touch.

Cherry MX Greys

**Figure 8:** Particularly pale Cherry MX Linear Grey spacebar switch in keyboard as shown by Broadmonkey of Deskthority.

While more scholarly switch collectors reading this article may immediately jump to point out that Cherry MX Greys did come in tactile, clicky, and linear variants over the years, the linears are what I am particularly pointing to here with this entry. In spite of most people not wanting for more linear switches in this day and age, I wholeheartedly think that we as a community are suffering a drought of heavy linear switches like the original MX Greys. Originally designed to be stiffer, heavier spacebar keys for OEM boards built with Cherry MX Black switches, MX Greys were introduced in the 1980’s with a reported actuation force ~ 80gf and a measured bottom out force that could top out over 110 gf. We simply have not had switches like this virtually at all in the last handful of years. In fact, over the thousands of releases in recent years, I can only really recall Kailh’s Box Ancient Greys and Novelkeys’ Cream Arcs as going anywhere near this true heavy linear bottom out mark. Even though I could just as well advocate for Cherry to go the extra mile and release a new variant of their Mega Black switches with springs that bottom out well in excess of 200-250 gf depending on where you find information about them, I at least would like to be able to use a modern day recreation of a heavy Cherry linear.

Cherry MX “Yellows”

No, this entry is not referencing that one ultra-rare Hirose switch that I’ll almost certainly never be lucky enough to encounter in my life. When I’m talking Cherry MX Yellows, I mean the completely unsubstantiated rumor-mill from collectors who posted photos over a decade ago of a black Cherry housing with a strangely different logo and a yellow colored stem. Is it completely possible (and most likely probable) that these were clones made by Aristotle and/or a hoax by collectors to serve as a sort of ‘paper town’ to determine who has or hasn’t been following their work? Absolutely. Does that mean I want them to be real any less? Absolutely not. Given the popularity of the yellow-stemmed linear as an idea first started by Gateron and since propagated to dozens of other switches over the years, I think its about time for Cherry to give their stab at this iconic color for linear switches of their own. Though this time, they should actually produce them and also keep the stems straight…

**Figure 10:** The closest Cherry has come yet to releasing an 'MX Yellow' switch. April Fool’s Day prank from nearly 5 years ago.

Only time will be able to tell if any of these switches stand a chance at being Cherry’s next attempt at reviving or redeveloping a switch with historical noteworthiness to live another day. While all of these switches do stand a mildly better chance than the rest of them now given that I know for a fact that some Cherry employees read these reviews, I’m going to pretend like it’s a complete mystery that I’ve not influenced in the slightest with this article. Moving back to tangible reality, the Cherry MX Orange switches were first announced via press release on June 4th of 2024 as inspired by the “old classic [Hirose Orange switches] from the 1980’s.” Rather soon thereafter available across a wide range of markets, the Cherry MX Orange switches were poised for a wide release similar to that of the MX Purple switches before them and are assumed to be available in all markets of the world and effectively in perpetuity moving forward. While prices can and do fluctuate depending on where they are purchased from, as of the time of writing this review the MX Orange switches range anywhere from the $0.50-0.70 per switch mark. As well, it is worth mentioning that while these switches are referred to as “MX Oranges” officially, they were created on Cherry’s MX2A switch platform and thus carry a specific part number of MX2A-LC3W.

MX Orange Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Cherry MX Orange switches look exactly like what you would expect a Cherry MX Orange switch to look like. These medium weight linear switches come in an iconic Cherry all-black, 5-Pin housing with opaque, citrus orange colored stems and packed with a normally wound silver spring. Inspired by Hirose Cherry Orange switches produced decades before them, less familiar readers may have concerns about differentiating between these new MX Oranges and the Hirose Oranges of old, though rest assured they are much more easily differentiable at a distance than old and new Nixie switches. Hirose Orange switches, as can be seen below in Figure 11 not only have smaller keycap stem mounting posts, but also have orange colored stems have a glassy, milky translucent appearance to them whereas Cherry MX Oranges have an opaque, matte orange finish. As well, it’s worth noting that MX Oranges have only been produced since the introduction of Cherry’s latest logo, meaning the logo seen in the nameplates throughout this review would never be present on original Hirose Orange switches. All other details worth noting in the appearance of these switches occurs at the sub-part level and may be found in the paragraphs and photos below.

**Figure 11:** Stem color comparison between modern Cherry MX Orange (Left) and vintage Hirose Cherry MX Orange (Right).

**Figure 12:** Cherry MX Orange switches and their components.

Looking first to the opaque black nylon top housings of the Cherry MX Orange switches, there’s not really all that much that makes them separable from what has been covered on this website of the MX2A switch platform. Externally, the MX Oranges feature modern, upright Cherry nameplates as well as a rather restricted LED slot design that has only a thin rectangular cut out within a circular indentation to allow for a specific style of through-switch lighting. Like all other Cherry switches, a single capital letter mold marking can be found on the left-hand side of this LED slot as well. Internally, the MX Oranges again feature pretty standard design elements for Cherry switches, though with two details worth noting. As was seen in the Cherry MX2A RGB Black Switch Review, the mold markings for the top housings are located on the left-hand side of the outer rim of the top housing, seen below here in Figure 14. Unlike the MX2A molds shown there, though, the north side guider rail of the housings is actually curved like that of the MX platform rather than straight like the MX2A platform. While I doubt this means that these switches are not of MX2A molds, it does remove this detail as a potential identifying differentiation in future Cherry MX2A releases.

**Figure 13:** Cherry MX Orange top housing external design showing upright, modernized Cherry nameplate and heavily restricted LED slot access.

**Figure 14:** Cherry MX Orange top housing internal design showing mold marking on left hand side of the upper lip and curved north-side guider rail similar to that of the MX platform rather than the MX2A platform they were built upon.

Moving next to opaque, citrus orange POM stems of the Cherry MX Orange switches, these fall almost perfectly in line with expectations of an MX2A linear stem. Clocking in at a modest stem height of 12.43 mm, which is considered rather short for linears in this day and age, the design of the MX Oranges also shows its age a bit in its un-tapered slider rails and mildly tiered center pole. Additionally, the MX Orange backplates retain the squared-off design commonly seen in quite a few other Cherry MX and MX2A linears, though nearly exclusively in those switches in particular. While there is some amount of factory lubing present on the stems upon opening the switches, it is minor compared to the accumulated factory lubing in the bottom housings of the switch, something which was frustratingly noted by the community at large upon the arrival of the MX2A switch platform at large.

**Figure 15:** Cherry MX Orange stems showing un-tapered slider rails, barely tiered center pole, and some remnants of factory lubing on the center pole.

Finally arriving at the opaque black nylon bottom housings of the Cherry MX Orange switches, these too do not feature really any details that stood out as surprising for a Cherry MX2A switch. Internally, these housings feature the same details as seen in the RGB versions of the bottom housings, including a pair of mold ejector circles in the base of the housing, slightly grooved slider rails, and a generous amount of factory lube stuck around the center pole hole. While quite hard to photograph well here for this review, I do want to note that the internal base of the bottom housings of the MX Orange switches does appear to be quite a bit smoother than expected, with almost a polished-like light reflection and machining lines sticking out to me when viewing it very specific angles. Externally, the MX Orange switches come in the 5-Pin/PCB mount variety and contain the single capital letter and numerical mold markings in the lower right-hand corner as expected of Cherry-made switches. Unlike the Cherry MX2A RGB platform, the opaque bottom housings of the MX Oranges do not have a wide open design for LED diffusing, opting instead for the classic 4 hole configuration for through switch LED and diode configuration.

**Figure 16:** Cherry MX Orange bottom housing internal design showing slightly ribbed slider rails and iconic MX2A factory lube ring around the center pole hole.

**Figure 17:** Alternative view of the Cherry MX Orange bottom housings interior base highlighting the reflective groove patterns noted in the review above.

**Figure 18:** Cherry MX Orange bottom housing exterior design showcasing 5-Pin construction and mold markings located in the lower right hand corner.

Push Feel

In order to try and keep myself unbiased in the preparation of this review, I admittedly tried to read and consume as little about the MX Orange switches as possible until I sat down to start collecting notes on them. As a result of this, I fully went into the testing of the MX Oranges expecting them to be medium to lightweight linears, clocking in at a modest bottom out force around 50-60gf – something spiritually closer to Cherry MX Reds than anything else. Much to my surprise, however, the Cherry MX Oranges actually clock in at a substantial ~70 gf bottoming out, making them functionally closer to that of Cherry MX Black switches than that of Reds. In spite of this surprise at the end of the downstroke, the bottoming out and overall housing collisions of the MX Oranges were effectively about what I had anticipated, with deep, muted, and soft feeling housing collisions that have long been an expectation of Cherry’s nylon housings. While the topping outs are obviously a bit thinner and higher pitched than the bottom outs due to mechanical thickness differences, it’s not nearly as substantial of a difference as is often seen in switches with two material housing constructions. As for the overall smoothness of these linears, well, they are also pretty in line with the expectations for Cherry as well. Much like with how I noted in the MX2A RGB Black switches which I covered before, the added lube to the switches as part of the MX2A platform does noticeably make these switches smoother, though there is still a medium fine, sandpaper like scratch that just still highlights the entirety of the stroke from top to bottom. Are these better than those first Cherry linears you tried out of the box all those years ago? Yes, they very much are. However, Cherry’s MX2A platform as seen here in the MX Oranges still has quite a ways to go until it hits a smoothness in line with gold star examples in the more custom mechanical keyboard scene currently.

**Figure 19:** Force curve for stock Cherry MX Orange switch.

One thing worth noting in the push feeling of the MX Orange switches which I didn’t cover in the paragraph above is that of their switch-to-switch or cross-batch consistency. After having been introduced to the MX2A platform via the RGB Black switches, I formed a pretty positive opinion of the consistency seen in manufacturing there, hardly feeling compelled at all to even mention it in the review of those switches. The Cherry MX Orange switches, though, don’t seem to quite have that degree of polish on their production consistency. While certainly not horrendously inconsistent, there is a slightly noticeable amount of inconsistency in the push feeling of the switches when it comes to the upper portions of their strokes as well as their housing collisions. Assumedly due to differences in factory lube application, something which is demonstrably not the greatest within the MX2A platform, some MX Orange switches feel a bit less smooth throughout this portion of their stroke and/or have thinner, slightly less dampened housing collisions. I certainly don’t think that this is enough of a difference to warrant cherry picking of MX Orange switches in order to find a matching set for a keyboard build, though it is at least noticeable enough to me when testing the batch that I received to make it worth mentioning.

Sound

As is my personal experience with quite a few other Cherry switches, I feel as if the sound of the scratch present in the MX Oranges produces a much more intimidating bark than the actual push feeling bite, itself. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the majority of the noticed quips in the push feeling above are almost all distinctively more noticeable in the sound profile of the switches than the push feeling. In spite of the factory lubing of the MX2A platform, scratch is still one of the more dominant components of the overall sound profile of the MX Oranges, something which is only accented by how comparatively deep and bass-heavy the bottom outs are. While I had noted above in the push feeling notes that the topping outs of the MX Oranges felt a bit thinner than that of their bottom outs, they audibly register as much more thinner and higher pitched than the bottoming out. Further yet strengthening that claim of the sound profile being an amplified display of their push feeling, the MX Orange’s tonal inconsistencies are much more noticeable, with switches being much more readily separable based on their topping out thinness and sharpness. Irrespective of my pickiness regarding these sound issues, though, the MX Oranges still present a decently well composed, overall quiet profile that is about as subtle as the Cherry MX Blacks which they are similarly weighted after. Much like all other Cherry switches before them, all of these points made about their sound profile can readily and easily be changed via any degree of aftermarket lubing applied to their stems. (You may just have to clean off the bottom housings first, though, since these are MX2A.)

Wobble

The Cherry MX Orange switches are clearly made by the newer, slightly better designed MX2A molds as they feature nearly identical wobble to that of the MX2A RGB Black switches before them. More prevalent in the E/W direction than the N/S direction, it’s not likely that the wobble of the MX Oranges will bother most enthusiasts, though those more susceptible to it may take issue. There is also the smallest amount of give in the top housings in the E/W direction, though it is almost certainly not likely to cause any issues upon placement of the switches into a PCB.

Measurements

If you’re into this level of detail about your switches, you should know that I have a switch measurement sheet that logs all of this data, as well as many other cool features which can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. Known as the ‘Measurement Sheet’, this sheet typically gets updated weekly and aims to take physical measurements of various switch components to compare mold designs on a brand-by-brand basis as well as provide a rough frankenswitching estimation sheet for combining various stems and top housings.

**Figure 21:** Numerical details regarding the stock Cherry MX Orange switch force curve diagram.

The latest in the content-adjacent work that I’ve picked up, the new ‘Force Curve Repository’ is now hosted on GitHub alongside the Scorecard Repository and contains all force curves that I make both within and outside of reviews. In addition to having these graphs above, I have various other versions of the graphs, raw data, and my processed data all available for each switch to use as you please. Check it out via the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking any of the force curve cards above.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- After just 17,000 actuations, the Cherry MX Orange switches pretty drastically increase their smoothness in both their push feeling and sound. While I did notice this similar sort of trend in the Cherry MX2A RGB Black switch break in process, I feel like the change was much more sharp and noticeable in the MX Orange switches and I could pretty cleanly separate which switches I had broken in and which were in stock form.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, there wasn’t really much change in the overall smoothness of the switches as had previously been seen at 17,000 actuations. That being said, though, there was a noticeable increase in uniformity of the Cherry MX Oranges insofar that the noted variation in topping out and smoothness towards the upper end of the strokes begins to melt away at this point.

- Also at this point in the break in testing, it was noted that the N/S direction stem wobble in the Cherry MX Oranges began to pick up a tiny bit. There were no noted changes in the side to side top housing budge that was noted in the Wobble section above.

51,000 Actuations

- As the Cherry MX Oranges pass the 51,000 actuation threshold, they really do begin to show signs of breaking in extremely well. The MX Oranges broken in this far are noticeably smoother in hand, sound smoother, have a more deep and richer sounding overall sound profile, and are substantially less prone to switch-to-switch variation. If you have the means of breaking in your Cherry MX Orange switches before using them, I would absolutely recommend it without hesitation.

- No functional changes in the stem nor housing wobble of the Cherry MX Orange switches was noted in those broken out to 51,000 actuations.

**Figure 23:** Comparative force curve diagram showing no distinctive trend in change of the Cherry MX Orange switch force curve diagrams throughout the process.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Linear Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these switches to the MX Orange switches side by side.

Greetech Sunset

- As a pretty rare note to make when comparing Cherry and non-Cherry made switches against each other, the Cherry MX Orange switches have noticeably less stem wobble than the Greetech Sunsets in both N/S and E/W directions.

- The Cherry MX Orange switches are noticeably more smooth throughout their downstroke than the Greetech Sunsets, and this gap is only further widened after having broken in the switches any further.

- The Sunsets and MX Orange switches are fairly similar to each other in terms of their overall volume under normal typing speeds, but the housing collisions of the Sunsets are much more noticeable and thinner sounding than the comparatively deeper, more bass heavy tones of Cherry’s nylon housings.

Feker Emerald Cabbage

- As a result of the significantly longer stem pole used in the Feker Emerald Cabbage switches, the bottom outs of the Emerald Cabbages are noticeably more forceful and pointed feeling than the more muted, dampened feeling bottom outs of the MX Oranges.

- While the Emerald Cabbages are only a tiny bit better than the MX Oranges when it comes to N/S direction stem wobble, they are substantially better than the Oranges in the E/W direction. The Emerald Cabbages, on their own, have equal magnitude stem wobble in both directions.

- The Cherry MX Oranges are the much more quiet, subtle, and perhaps office friendly of these two linear switches in terms of their overall sound profile, coming across less aggressively even with a scratchier overall tone than the Emerald Cabbages.

Huano Caramel Latte

- The Huano Caramel Latter switches not only feel significantly more smooth out of the box than the Cherry MX Orange switches, but also demonstrate a much more consistent switch-to-switch feeling.

- While the MX Orange switches are noticeably better in terms of stem wobble than other Cherry switches of past due to being made with molds from the MX2A platform, they still aren’t quite as good as that of the Huano Caramel Latte switches.

- As a result of the strong factory lubing in the Caramel Lattes, they are overall much more quiet and have less noise throughout their stroke and at the point of housing collisions than the comparatively scratch-forward Cherry MX Oranges.

Diamond Avalon

- The Diamond Avalon switches are a bit better than the Cherry MX Oranges in terms of stem wobble, both in terms of having less of it and it being equal in magnitude in both directions.

- While the Diamond Avalons are overall a bit more smooth feeling than that of the Cherry MX Oranges, their housing collisions feel quite a bit more thin and plasticky. As well, there is a sort of ‘stickiness’ which is apparent in some of the Diamond Avalon switches that makes for a much more drastic switch to switch variation than what was noted in the Cherry MX Oranges.

- In terms of their sound profiles, both of these switches are comparable in terms of their overall volume, with perhaps the Diamond Avalons being a touch louder, though they depart at the point of what makes their profiles truly unique to them. The Cherry MX Oranges are clearly more scratch forward and have deeper housing collisions whereas the Avalons have thinner, sharper sound to their housing collisions and that aforementioned stickiness that shows up here and there.

Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellow

- It’s honestly almost a tiny bit unfair comparing the Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellow switches to the Cherry MX Oranges as these Yellows are among some of Gateron’s absolute best work and simply beat out Cherry switches across the board on virtually all performance metrics.

- Even the broken in Cherry MX Orange switches do not begin to approach the lubed, out of the box smoothness and consistency seen in the Gateron G Pro 3.0 Yellow switches.

- The closest these two switches come to each other on any performance metric is in the stem wobble, and even then the G Pro 3.0 Yellows have substantially less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the MX Oranges.

Cherry MX2A RGB Black (3 Pin)

- While comparably smooth to the Cherry MX Oranges, as noted in the full length review above there is a slight bit less consistency in the switch to switch feeling of the MX Oranges than the MX2A RGB Blacks. Perhaps this is due to differences in production history as I would have received MX2A RGB Blacks fairly early on in their production cycle, though to be honest I can’t say for certain.

- Even though these switches are similar to each other in terms of their sound profiles and quirks, the MX Oranges are just a touch more quiet in their overall volume as a result of not having the thinner, sharper topping out juxtaposed by a translucent bottom out in Cherry’s RGB-style switches.

- The force curves do show, even perhaps more so than any in hand metric could prove, that these switches are about as similar to each other as you could get in terms of by the numbers performance for two switches of noticeably different design.

Linearity

If you are just now seeing this section for the first time and are a bit confused as to what I am talking about when discussing ‘Slope’ and ‘Linearity’, I highly suggest checking out my article titled ‘On Differences in Linear Switches’ where I explain what this section is for and how it came to be! For a bit of a shorter answer, know that this is part of my ongoing attempt to better quantify and articulate differences between linear switches which have historically not been captured in discussions about them.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.