Cherry MX Purple Switch Review

Am I supposed to announce some sort of New Year’s Resolution since this is the first review of 2024?

Completely ignore the fact that I most certainly had no intention of making any sort of formal resolution in 2024 and thus the introduction to this review is purely character building fluff. After not having felt compelled to do any year-starting resolution for nearly a decade now, or at least not since we all collectively slipped into the monkey death induced time warp in 2016, I certainly can’t start now since I’m already 2% behind on the time to carry out my resolution. How can you expect me to give 100% effort in only 98% of the time? The math simply doesn’t math. In fact, I’m not even resolved enough to flesh this out into a full fledged paragraph. Enjoy a switch joke, instead:

**Figure 1:** This is what ChatGPT looks like in case you've not encountered it yet.

Meta level self-awareness of my own laziness aside, know that I look forward to continuing into my fifth consecutive calendar year of writing switch reviews. While the joke about not setting any New Year’s resolutions in place above serves to easily open this first article of the new year, the lack of dedication to any content resolutions is entirely based in the fact that I typically set those sorts of things on the birthday of the website each year, which is only a few months away on March 11th. In the Meta Updates that I post on each of those birthdays, I take a brief data-driven approach to last year’s content and generally project some ideas I’d like to work on and strive to realize in the coming year. It’s certainly far from anything set in stone and more so serve the purpose of an annual check-in with my wider audience and reader base that I don’t get to normally talk to on a regular basis. One thing I can say I likely will include in my goals for the soon upcoming Meta Update VI, though, is that of a general push to lean into and squeeze more out of the switch data stashes that I’ve been working so diligently on updating over the course of the past year. With force curves for nearly 1,000 different switches and caliper-driven measurements for nearly 500 different switches as well, I think there’s a lot more potential for switch discussions in and around these numbers that simply haven’t been leveraged by me or anyone in the community yet. Switch offerings seemingly keep increasing year over year, and as the sources and manufacturers of these newer and newer technologies are becoming increasingly more vague and ill-defined, I think solidifying the community’s understanding of the switch brands and manufacturers we are currently and presently aware of will honestly be more important than anyone quite realizes yet. How do I propose to carry out this goal? Well, guess you’ll have to keep reading this year and find out!

Switch Background

Speaking of increasing switch offerings year over year – Cherry is a brand name that I feel like I’ve mentioned quite a lot over the past couple of years. While for the longest time it seemed like Cherry was riding on their OEM switch sales and coasting on their “Gold Standard” marketing campaign made what feels like forever ago, 2022 and 2023 have shown that this old dog of the switch manufacturing world still had quiet a few new tricks it could learn. In just these short couple of years, the keyboard community has watched the announcements of and roll out of production for Cherry’s Viola, Ultra Low Profile, MX Clear-Top Black ‘New Nixie’, MX ‘Ergo Clear’, and MX2A platforms – all switches which were just memes or rumors in the years before 2022. However, that is not to say that focusing on the design and development of these switches are the only things that Cherry has been focusing on in the past few years. As is incredibly evident from their social media footprints on both Instagram and (the artist formerly known as) Twitter, Cherry has also been engaged in quite the outreach driven social media campaign over and eagerly seems to be wanting to tap into the more niche, custom mechanical keyboard market. Since 2022, Cherry has been uploading multiple posts to both of these websites per week engaging in community-driven polls about switches, keycaps, and layouts, shout outs of specific custom builds from community member posts on r/mk, and even series of giveaways of switches and passes to events like Dreamhack in 2023.

**Figure 2:** Cherry Viola, MX 'New Nixie', MX 'Ergo Clear', and Ultra Low Profile switches.

While individual posts of custom keyboards and community-driven polls about switches all well speak to Cherry’s desire to want to engage with the community, no other point of content over those years speaks as strongly to this desire as that of Cherry’s content creator collaboration day on May 10th of 2022. As can be seen in several social media posts from around this time as well as a few associated YouTube videos, Cherry reached out to and invited a series of content creator creators they felt were most in touch with the keyboard community at the time to visit their facility and have discussions about their switch offerings – including Glarses, Hipyotech, Hamaji Neo, Squashy Boy, PC-Welt, and Switch and Click. Given Cherry’s lack of general engagement with the custom keyboard scene since the inception of the hobby around 2010, this single event has marked the first noted, dedicated outreach made by Cherry to connect with this minority part of their customer base. Whether this is a move by them motivated by shifting product focus and varying stock prices, or a genuine desire to want to engage with their pickiest and most opinionated customers, this shift has continued to trend towards more community collaborations in the years since. Obvious collaborations in the Cherry MX ‘New Nixies’ and ‘Ergo Clears’ aside, Cherry has continued reaching out to various individuals and companies within the custom keyboard realm over the course of the past few years and I can assure you all discussions about the future direction of Cherry within the space are being had. Unfortunately, though, I can’t speak much more to those discussions for implied legal reasons.

**Figure 3:** Photo of content creator collaboration day from Cherry's Instagram page.

Combining Cherry’s community outreach with their renewed interest in creating interesting switch designs, the latest of Cherry’s newsworthy updates has come at the tail end of 2023 in the form of a collaborative switch offering with Glarses – one of the content creators they first reached out to all the way back in 2022. As you can probably guess after having made it this far into this article, that switch is that of the Glarses x Cherry MX Purple. In a first ever move for the history of Cherry, the MX Purples represent the first custom-colored, collaborative switch designed in tandem with an individual from the custom mechanical keyboard community. The historical importance of this simply cannot be understated. While this, in and of itself, is groundbreaking and speaks towards the outreach strides being made by Cherry as a company, I personally can’t help but be reminded that the arrival of this switch fulfills a sort of meme prophecy first drummed up in the community almost a decade ago shortly following the design and release of the first Zealios switches – “Cherry Purples”. What was once a rumor that even spawned a few scam-bait EBay sales listings all the way back in 2018 and is still searchable on Geekhack today is now officially part of the history of mechanical keyboard switches. In a way, it almost feels sort of poetic.

**Figure 4:** A scam truly ahead of its time in the strictest of senses.

**Figure 5:** With MX Purples becoming reality it must mean that it’s only a matter of time until Hirose Violets become a thing too!

First announced by Glarses in a YouTube video titled ‘i made my own switch’ on December 11th of 2023, Cherry MX Purples were stated to be a collaborative effort between him and Cherry as a celebration of him officially hitting one million subscribers on his channel. Wanting to be different and more tactile than his personally least liked switch in Cherry MX Browns, the MX Purples were stated as being “regular pole, mid-stroke tactiles with a short but medium-sized tactile bump.” Boasting other design features to help separate them from other existing Cherry offerings other than by color, the MX Purples are stated as having slightly longer than normal springs as well as the mold and lube based improvements first introduced in the Cherry MX2A switch platform. (Details about the specifics of this MX2A platform can be found in my Cherry MX2A RGB Black Switch Review.) In addition to discussions about the internal switch designs for the Cherry MX Purples, Glarses also spent a sizable amount of this introductory video discussing some of the external, context related issues with ordering a collaborative switch with Cherry, namely that of the size of the order and dedicated packing time in order to ship these out to buyers. Specifically, Glarses stated that 1,036,800 Cherry MX Purple switches were purchased by him at an invoice cost on the order of approximately £200,000 GBP, a number which more or less falls in line with long standing community rumors about bulk, per-switch invoice price and MOQs required for collaboration with Cherry. As well, Glarses mentioned new “testing, machine setups, and molds” required as part of the execution of the Cherry MX Purples, though specifics about these various details have yet to be released to the public in any form. (Nor have they been released to me, for that matter.)

**Figure 6:** A view from the end of Glarses' Cherry MX Purple announcement video paying homage to the original Invyr Panda bathtub meme.

Following the announcement of the Cherry MX Purple switches made in Glarses’ video, the switches were available for purchase from ‘The Glarses Company’ at glarses.com until at least the middle of January of 2024. At the time of writing this review, no other proxy nor alternative sales point for these switches was available, with no further comments about this made by Glarses as well. Divided up into three different ‘batches’, Cherry MX Purples were able to be purchased in quantities of 36 at $21.99, or approximately $0.61 per switch. (It is worth noting that there appears to be no distinctive differences in design nor performance between these batches and I believe that they are only phrased as such based on how shipments of switches were received by Glarses, though I’ve not received specific confirmation of such.) The last of these three batches is currently stated on the sales page as being the “Final Batch” and thus the longevity and availability of these switches beyond the beginning of 2024 is uncertain. No comments have been made by Glarses yet regarding if there will be eventual future batch release of Cherry MX Purples nor if Cherry aims to revamp and continue to improve these based upon community feedback regarding their performance.

Cherry MX Purple Performance

Note: As stated previously, I do not believe that there are any functional differences between Cherry MX Purple switches of various shipment batches as denoted on Glarses’ sales page. That being said, the lot that I received and am reviewing here in this review were shipped from ‘Batch #2’. I was supposed to received a set of switches from Batch #1, however my package was lost in shipping.

Appearance

At the highest level, the Cherry MX Purples are indistinguishable from any other modern, all-black Cherry switch offering with the exception of their unique, eggplant purple colored stem. Made entirely of nylon, the opaque housings only come in 5-pin/PCB-mount variety and feature Cherry’s most recent, bubble letter nameplate and Cherry logo. Internally, the Cherry MX Purple have approximately 18.00 mm long silver, normally threaded springs that are a few millimeters longer than the springs used in all other stock Cherry switches from recent years. While these switches feature mold details that were based on the improved, MX2A switch platform, it is worth noting to those unfamiliar with the MX2A design details that these are extremely subtle, unlikely to be recognized here easily, and not easily used to distinguish between MX and MX2A switch housings. All other details worth discussing come at the mold-detail level and are expanded upon below.

**Figure 7:** Cherry MX Purple switches and their components.

First looking at the Cherry MX Purple top housings, these come in a 4-pin, all-black nylon construction identical to that of other common Cherry switches. As noted at the start of this section, the nameplate used for all Cherry MX Purples as of the time of writing this review is that of bubble letter ‘CHERRY’ identical to that of Cherry’s logo as introduced sometime in the last few years. As for the LED/diode slot, the Cherry MX Purples are incredibly restricted in their compatibility similar to that of the Cherry MX2A RGB Blacks and feature only a thin rectangular slot within a centered circular indentation to allow through-switch LED compatibility. On the left hand side of this LED slot, there is a single capital letter mold marking which denotes at least one of the two mold markings present on all Cherry MX Purple top housings. The internal mold marking for Cherry MX Purple top housings is found on the left hand edge of the housing in the form of a three-digit number. Beyond this internal mold marking, though, there are no other mold details really worth mentioning and that aren’t captured in the photos below.

**Figure 8:** Cherry MX Purple top housing external design showing recently stylized Cherry logo nameplate and extremely restricted through-switch LED access slot.

**Figure 9:** Cherry MX Purple top housing internals showing similarities to other MX2A platform switch housings as well as its triple digit mold marking on left hand edge.

Moving next to the all-black, nylon bottom housings of the Cherry MX Purple switches, these too closely align with the design features noted in the bottom housings in the Cherry MX2A RGB Black Switch Review. Most readily noticed is that of the large amount of factory lubrication located around the center pole hole as well as in the internal base of the housing that is a result of the “improved” factory lubrication from the MX2A platform. Around all of this factory lubrication, it can be seen that there are four mold ejector markings in the upper corners of the edges of the bottom housings as well as two in the base of the housings themselves. There do not appear to be any other features in the housings of the Cherry MX Purples that are commonly seen in switches whose manufacturers have a market share more focused on the custom keyboard scene such as north or south side spring collars, bottom out pads on the slider rails, or manipulated leaf shapes. Externally, the Cherry MX Purple bottom housings are fairly plain and feature two mold markings – one in the form of a single capital letter between the third and fourth LED/diode pins and a multiple digit number located perpendicular to this capital letter mold marking also in the bottom right hand corner of the housing layout. Beyond these features, though, the Cherry MX Purples do not feature any other design points which separate them from other MX2A switches.

**Figure 10:** Cherry MX Purple bottom housing internals showing copious amounts of factory lubrication and mold ejector circles in upper edge corners and in base of housing.

**Figure 11:** Cherry MX Purple bottom housing external design showing five pin/PCB mount style and two part mold markings in lower right-hand corner.

Finally arriving at the most controversial point of design in the Cherry MX Purple switches – the purple, POM tactile stems based on the design of Cherry MX Clears – we get to see just why I mixed around the ordering of this ‘Appearance’ section. As stated in Glarses’ video announcing the sale of the Cherry MX Purple switches, the stem of this “medium-sized” tactile switch was based on that of the Cherry MX Clear, a switch which has long been Cherry’s most tactile offering while still being closer to the middle ground of tactile switches as compared to innovation in tactility of switches in recent years. While very few people in the community likely have an issue with the tactile of Cherry’s MX Clear switches, and especially so given Cherry’s willingness to make Cherry MX Ergo Clear switches only just a year ago, a larger portion of the community has historically had an issue with the design of specifically the keycap mounting post of Cherry MX Clears. While the average Cherry switch keycap mounting post diagram depicts their switches as having a cruciform shape with each leg being perfectly at right angles to each other, historically the designs of Cherry MX Tactile Grey and MX Clear stems have featured small ‘nubs’ on either side of the north- and south-side keycap mounting posts which have long been understood to put enough stress on mounted keycaps as to cause cracks in their stems. In fact, this issue is so historically rooted that some of Zeal’s earliest marketing documentation from 2015 for his yet to be released Zealios V1 switches revolved around the Zealios stems not featuring that keycap-cracking nub present on Cherry MX Tactile Greys/Clears.

**Figure 12:** 2015 Zeal marketing promotional photo from Geekhack showing differences in shape of Purple Zealio and Cherry MX tactile stems.

Given that Glarses had stated that the Cherry team had to develop “new testing, machine setups, and molds” for these Cherry MX Purple switches, a large majority of the community was under the tacit assumption that this most widely understood design flaw of the Cherry MX Clear switches would have thus been removed from the Cherry MX Purple switches. However, as can mostly cleanly be seen by u/s5064295’s PSA post on r/MechanicalKeyboards on December 18th of 2023, this was in fact not the case. As was shown in only the second photo of this post titled “PSA Cherry MX Purple can STILL break keycaps. Glarses has purposely withheld this information.”, these Cherry MX Purple stems still feature the same nubs on the north and south side keycap mounting posts in identical fashion to that of Cherry MX Clears. Further supporting that fairly accusatory title, this user then followed up the stem photographs with snippets of Discord messages in which Glarses had stated in his Discord server the stems should not still crack GMK keycaps and that “I made sure this was cleared with the cherry engineers.” While I personally don’t think that Glarses intentionally misled the community in a directed fashion based on these claims or the lack of discussion surrounding this feature in his sale announcement video, the community pushback about these keycap cracking nubs still being present in the stems of MX Purples is hard to ignore. It is clear that lack of addressing of this point by Glarses and/or Cherry has resulted in a not insignificant amount of backlash from the community regarding the design of these stems, even in spite of the fact that nobody has yet demonstrated that these switches can crack keycap stems.

**Figure 13:** North and South side keycap post nubs on Cherry MX Purple stems which are widely believed to induce cracking in keycaps as seen with other Cherry MX switches which share this design feature.

Looking a bit deeper into this specific design feature of the Cherry MX Purple stems, myself, I too have come to the conclusion that these stems are more likely to crack keycaps that are mounted on them than the vast majority of other MX-style switches currently out there to date. Leaning on a large repository of data that I started collecting for my article for Artisan Collector titled ‘On Artisans and Switches: A Take in (Hopefully) One Piece’, I have been measuring several different dimensions on keycap mounting posts of a wide range of MX-style switches for just about a year now and have measured such for 380 different switches across 19 different known switch manufacturers. Comparing the north and south side post widths, with the nubs included, for the Cherry MX Purple switches and comparing them against Cherry’s own original switch specs for Cherry 8 mm. mount stems, the MX Purples are 1 of only 5 total switches out of those 380 measured to have widths bigger than that spec. More specifically, Cherry’s spec for north and south side post widths for their keycap mounting posts should only be 1.1 mm in size, whereas I’ve measured Cherry’s MX Purples as being 1.15 mm in size. This added 0.05 mm in width puts extra strain on the internal portion of a keycap’s stem which can cause it to develop hairline cracks, if not altogether shatter under normal typing conditions and/or when mounting or removing the keycap from the switch.

As for the rest of the design of the Cherry MX Purple stems, there’s honestly very little to be said about them. While it is interesting to note that there is a mold marking on these stems located in the center of the backplate of the stem, unlike that of other MX2A platform stems, this feature has been seen in many other Cherry MX switch stem designs throughout the years. Much like with the bottom housings, these stems lack features of more niche-focused switch designs and thus don’t have details likely largely tiered center poles or tapered slider rails. Even though I do not make a direct visual appearance here, take it on faith for only a few more paragraphs that the tactile bump present in the stem legs of the Cherry MX Purples is identical to that of Cherry MX Clear switches.

**Figure 14:** Cherry MX Purple stem front and back showing double digit mold marking and mold ejector circles on stem back plate, squared-off slider rails, and marginally tapered center pole.

**Figure 15:** Side profile of Cherry MX Purple stem showing stem legs which produce the tactile bump in the switch.

Push Feel

While I hate to continually crutch the writing of different sections of my review on quotes that I’ve ripped directly from Glarses’ video introducing the MX Purple switches, I don’t often have the ability to so seamlessly integrate the exact design intent and desire of a switch’s designer directly into my own takes about switches. As stated in that video, Glarses very adamantly wanted the MX Purple switches to be “regular pole, mid-stroke tactiles with a short but medium-sized tactile bump.” To that exact end, I think his expectations were perfectly nailed in large part because these request were, well, exactly what a Cherry MX Clear switch feels like and that is what the MX Purple stems were “based on.” Unlike the vast majority of modern tactile switches which gain the attention of a sizable portion of the community, Cherry MX Clears have historically been more subdued and only push back with a medium-strength tactile bump after a short linear pre-travel lead up to it. All of Cherry’s switches have had normal stem pole sizes, or at the least they all travel a full 4.00 mm in total stroke length, which also helps sell the brevity of their tactile bumps as a bump that is about 1.50 mm in total size feels a lot less when it is 40% of the total stroke length as opposed to 70 or 80% of it. However, I’d imagine many of you are probably waiting for me to point out the subtle differences between the bump sizes and feeling of the Cherry MX Purple and Cherry MX Clear switches. Scroll back up a few lines. Do you see that I put “based on” in full quotations? Let me show you why:

**Figure 16:** Comparative force curve between Cherry MX Purple and Cherry MX Ergo Clear stock switches.

Cherry MX Purple stems are exactly the same as Cherry MX Clear stems.

Go ahead and scroll down to the switch comparisons I make below and you’ll see that this exact same bump shape is replicated in Cherry MX Tactile Greys and Cherry MX Clears in addition to the MX Ergo Clear comparison which I’ve spoiled above because all of these stems are identical to each other. The only reason these force curves look any different from each other is because of the differences in weighting in their spring. While Glarses’ introductory video points to the longer than conventional for Cherry springs used in the MX Purple switches as providing a difference in feeling from the MX Clears that inspired them, I’d argue it clearly isn’t all that different than whatever springs Cherry uses in its MX Ergo Clears, at least. The only real difference between the Cherry MX Purples and any of those other aforementioned Cherry switches, then, is that of the increased presence of factory lube from the MX2A lubrication process. As Glarses points out in his video and as I’ve already expressed in my Cherry MX2A RGB Black Switch Review, this factory lubrication is, at best, okay in making these switches feel smoother. While the Cherry MX Purples are smoother than some stock Cherry MX Clears I’ve tried from over the years, there is still a noticeable, Cherry-esque amount of leathery, medium-grain scratch that is present throughout the linear portions of the stroke of this switch as well as across the tactile bump from the interaction of the stem leaves and legs. Thus even on this single point of clear delineation from Cherry’s previous switch designs, the Cherry MX Purples still fall right back to old Cherry design motifs.

Sound

In their stock form, the Cherry MX Purple switches are rather quiet and subdued in their overall volume and sound profile as compared to other tactile switches at a similar strength. Likely due in large part to the combination of the copious amounts of factory lube present in the housings of these switches as well as their thick, Cherry nylon housing design, these switches don’t really stand out all that more than conventional Cherry releases like MX Browns and even at higher actuation speeds. While there is a noticeable portion of the sound profile of these switches that is occupied by scratch, there are deep, very muted housing collisions and an ever so slight snap to the tactile bump which can be heard if listened for closely. This tactile bump sound, especially, becomes more present when used in tandem with taller keycaps and more hollow boards which help to reverberate switch sounds a little bit more, though I wouldn’t recommend you mount keycaps on these switches to find this out for yourself. All in all Cherry MX Purples have a sound profile much closer to that of a silent tactile than what most people with little switch experience may expect, though I wouldn’t claim that they are really any different or stand out than what can already be found sound profile wise from other tactile Cherry offerings.

Wobble

Much like with other experiences with switches from Cherry’s MX2A switch platform, the Cherry MX Purples have an improved amount of stem wobble as compared to other traditional Cherry offerings. While there is a bit more E/W direction stem wobble than is common in most switch offerings currently on the market today, the N/S direction wobble is much less noticeable and more in line with modern day expectations. It’s not likely that the stem wobble of these switches will bother the majority of keyboard enthusiasts, though those particularly picky about this metric may have a bit of an issue.

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 18:** Numerical details regarding the stock Cherry MX Purple 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

- Much like with the other switches I’ve done a full length review on that shared the MX2A platform switch lubrication, the Cherry MX Purples demonstrated quite a bit of lube migration at 17,000 actuations and felt noticeably more smooth than their stock counterparts as a result of this.

- In addition to feeling smoother as a result of the lube in the Cherry MX Purples distributing more thoroughly throughout the switch, the MX Purples also had a touch less of that medium grain leathery scratchy tones present in their overall sound profile.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, the only noticeable change in performance of the MX Purple switches is that of an increased N/S and E/W direction stem wobble. While these switches were still a bit more smooth and sounded a bit less scratchy than their stock counterparts, they did not appear dramatically improved beyond that of the MX Purples broken in to 17,000 actuations.

51,000 Actuations

- At 51,000 actuations the changes from the previous round of break in testing were even further minimized, with the Cherry MX Purples broken out this far effectively being undistinguishable from the 34,000 actuation batch across all performance metrics.

- The one surprising feature which I did not see occur with the break in of the Cherry MX Purples was an appearance of spring ping as the lube migrated throughout the switch during the break in period. This appearance and increased presence of spring ping was noted at the last stage of break in testing in the Cherry MX2A RGB Black Switch Review and I had already assumed that this phenomena would also appear here in the Cherry MX Purples. Perhaps these MX Purples did have a bit more factory lubrication put on them than the MX2A RGB Black switches.

**Figure 20:** Comparative force curve diagram showing no distinctive trend in change of Cherry MX Purple force curve diagrams throughout the break in process.

Other

**Figure 21:** Bag of 36 Glarses switches which all initial Cherry MX Purple switch orders were shipped in.

While I’ve not included this ‘Other’ section for packaging in quite a few reviews, I did at least want to include one photo of Glarses’ switch packaging for the sake of complete coverage in this review. As well, these bags make quite a bit of an appearance in his MX Purple introduction video as he details the difficulties associated with the logistics of making, shipping, and sorting well over a million switches. If you’ve never seen or even considered the difficulties of breaking down a million switches into packs of 36 at a time before I highly recommend watching the latter half of his introductory video as most of the vendors you love in this hobby have done something similar at least once before. A link to his video can be found in the ‘Further Reading’ section at the bottom of this review.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Tactile 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 Cherry MX Purple switches side by side.

Gateron Holy Panda X

- Surprisingly, while the force curve comparison for these two switches may make it seem like they have similar strength tactile bumps, the Gateron Holy Panda X feels noticeably more strong and punchy than that of the Cherry MX Purple switch’s bump.

- In terms of housing collisions, the Cherry MX Purple’s bottom and topping out feel like they much more closely match the feeling of its tactile bump and each other whereas all three points of contact in the Holy Panda X switches feel quite a bit different from each other.

- The Gateron Holy Panda X switches are better than the Cherry MX Purple switches in terms of both N/S and E/W direction stem wobble without a doubt.

Zaku II

- The Zaku II switch’s tactile bumps feel noticeably more sharp, pointed, and forceful than the comparatively smoother, subtler, and longer tactile bump of the Cherry MX Purple Switches. This feeling is also pretty well represented in their comparative force curves below.

- These two switches are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to their sound profiles. Whereas the Zaku II switches are towards the louder side, with a snappy sounding tactile bump accentuated by thinner housing collisions, the Cherry MX Purples are much more subdued, muted, and have a sound that is primarily driven by subtle, large grain scratch.

- While the Zaku II switches have slightly more N/S direction stem wobble than the Cherry MX Purple switches, they also have quite a bit less E/W direction stem wobble.

MODE Tomorrow

- Of all of the switches on this initial comparison list, the MODE Tomorrows are the only switches which have a tactile bump that feels more subdued and mellow than that of the Cherry MX Purples. In addition to not only feeling as if it is a lower overall strength, the tactile bump of the Tomorrows feels much more spread out than even what the comparative force curve below seems to indicate.

- The MODE Tomorrow switches have noticeably less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Cherry MX Purple switches.

- While both of these switches have a bit of scratch in their push feeling and sound, the scratch in the Cherry MX Purples is a bit more present in both aspects and feels as if it has a sort of a larger, more grainy feeling. The scratch of the Tomorrows, by comparison, feels smaller grain and more ‘static’ like.

Neapolitan Ice Cream

- As a result of the snappiness of the Neapolitan Ice Cream switch’s tactile bump, they feel as if they have a surprisingly shorter tactile bump than what the comparative force curve below seems to indicate. In fact, in hand I almost would have made the conclusion that the tactile bump length between these and the Cherry MX Purples were similar even though that does not appear to be true.

- Much like with the sound comparison made with the Zaku II switches above, the Neapolitan Ice Cream switches are much more snappy, louder, and in your face than the otherwise subdued and more quiet Cherry MX Purple switches.

- While the best Neapolitan Ice Cream switches have fairly comparable stem N/S direction stem wobble to that of the Cherry MX Purples, there’s much less cross-batch consistency in the wobble in the Neapolitan Ice Cream switches than in the MX Purples.

Zealio V1 Redux (62g)

- While these two switches are fairly similar to each other in terms of their overall volume, the Zealio V1 Redux switches are a touch bit louder and have a bit of subtle spring ping to their sound that is absent in the comparatively more scratch-forward Cherry MX Purples.

- The Zealio V1 Redux switches are just a touch better in both N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Cherry MX Purple switches.

- Even though it is by the slimmest of margins, they Zealio V1 Redux (62g) switches feel as if their tactile bump is just a touch more sharp and responsive than the tactile bump of the Cherry MX Purples. The tactile bumps are both so similar to each other in terms of their hand feeling and in their appearance in the comparative force curve below that I’m almost inclined to think that whatever difference is present is a function differences in the leaves of these switches only.

Ajazz x Huano Banana

- Of all of the switches in either comparison list, the comparative force curve between the Bananas and MX Purples is the least representative of their in-hand feeling differences. The most notable discrepancy here is that the Bananas feel much more pointed, snappy, and succinct in their tactile bumps than the comparatively flatter, more drawn out feeling MX Purples.

- While both of these switches have a similar overall presence in their sound, the Ajazz x Huano Banana switches have a lot more harsh, pointed bottoming out which jumps out at the ears more so than the dampened, Cherry nylon bottom out of the MX Purples.

- Much like with the Neapolitan Ice Cream switches above, there are Ajazz x Huano Banana switches which have a similar degree of stem wobble to them as Cherry MX Purples, though they are much more inconsistent across their batch than the MX Purples.

Bonus Round

I don’t think this review felt long enough so I figured I’d add some more comparisons. It also probably makes sense to compare the Cherry MX Purples directly against the suite of switches which guided their design.

Cherry MX Ergo Clear

- I mean these switches feel exactly the same as each other. Not only does the comparative force curve between these two switches belay it, but their in-hand feelings are virtually indistinguishable from each other when testing them in a blindfolded fashion.

- As was already assumed in the ‘Push Feeling’ section of the full length review above, the Cherry MX Purples do feel a touch more smooth than the MX Ergo Clears and don’t quite have the same sort of slippery, rubbery snap to their tactile bumps that the Ergo Clears do.

- In addition to the differences in feeling as a result of factory lubrication, the MX Ergo Clears also do have some spring ping in their sound profile that is dampened by the aggressive amount of lubing in the Cherry MX Purple switches.

Cherry MX Clear

- While the only effective difference between these two switches is their springs, it is impressive how the heavier spring in the Cherry MX Clears makes the tactile bump feel a bit more longer than that of the Cherry MX Purples. My best guess is that this is due, in large part, to the fact that the end of the tactile bump in the MX Clears is at a much different level than the starting force of the bump whereas the differential between beginning and end of the bump in MX Clears is a bit smaller.

- Unsurprisingly, the older Cherry MX Clears have a bit more N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than is seen in the upgraded molds of the Cherry MX Purple switch’s MX2A platform.

Cherry MX2A RGB Brown

- While the MX2A RGB Browns and MX Purples should share similar lubing practices at the point of manufacturing, the MX Purples feel a bit more heavily lubed and have a touch less scratch to their feeling than the MX2A RGB Browns that I received. Perhaps this is a representative swing of Cherry’s batch-to-batch MX2A lubrication variability but unfortunately, I do not have any other comparisons on this point to be made.

- Much like what is to be expected, the tactile bumps of the RGB Browns feel noticeably more distant and small than the Cherry MX Purples.

- Much like with the other Cherry switches comparisons made in this bonus list, there’s a lot less scratch sound present in the Cherry MX Purples than in the MX2A RGB Brown switches.

Cherry MX Tactile Grey

- Honestly there’s not much of a difference between these two switches except for their spring weighting. As is detailed above in the Cherry MX Clear comparison, the tactile bump in the MX Tactile Greys feels much more substantial and as if it occupies a larger portion of the bump than in the MX Purple switches.

- As a result of their heavier spring making it harder to bottom out with force, surprisingly the Cherry MX Tactile Greys have the most similar volume and bottoming out tones to the Cherry MX Purples out of any of the switches on either comparison list.

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.