Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange Switch Review

Have you ever gone to an in-person keyboard meetup before? If not, I’ll be the first to tell you that you’re missing out by not attending the local one nearest to you. It doesn’t matter if you’re brand new to the hobby or a seasoned veteran with ten keyboards and as many years of experience under the belt – there’s always something at meetups for you. Some people bring out all of their artisans, keyboards, or very rarely switches to show off and share with other people in person. On the other hand, some people just drop their boards onto tables and spend the rest of the day catching up with old friends or making brand new ones in person. Over the years I’ve been to about a dozen different meetups myself, and even I still find everything from the smallest local get togethers to the larger, vendor-sponsored ones forming their own distinct memories upon looking back. Take last weekend’s Pittsburgh meetup as a prime example. In spite of the fact that I was feeling less sociable than normal, I truly enjoyed getting to bring the recently expanded switch collection out for people to try as well as finally meet people in person I’ve only spoken to online for multiple years in a row. In the rare few instances I could pry away from the conversations about switches, as well, I got to try out keyboard builds I had no clue even existed at all and was reminded of just how big the variegated and expansive the community has grown to become in recent years. So if you’ve never made your way out to a meetup yet, but are wanting a space to talk to anyone and everyone about keyboards since your coworkers and family don’t want to hear about them, consider looking up when and where the next local meetups are around you! If you don’t walk away with more friends or questionable purchases to be made, you at least stand a chance at walking away with some free giveaways at most meetups…

**Figure 1:** Someone even brought a working typewriter to the meetup. When's the last time you've ever got to test drive one of those?

Switch Background

After several years of writing and well over a hundred long and short articles combined no seemingly everything to do with switches, Hall Effect switches are a topic that I can say with certainty that I’ve never covered before. Even thought that streak of not mentioning this MX-adjacent style of keyboard switch has been largely accidental on my part, this review finally breaking my silence on the subject is far from a mistake. Hall Effect keyboard switches are not only undeniably showing up in mainstream prebuilt mechanical keyboards, but are even starting to carve out a little space of their own in the more customized end of the hobby. While these switches may look incredibly similar to their traditional MX-style counterparts at a brief glance, I’m sure quite a few of you reading this will know from first hand experience that these switches operate on an entirely different type of technology than the ‘normal’ keyboard switches we’ve all become accustomed to. Due to the fact that these switches invoke some mysterious magical science powers to operate and throw the two-part leaf system out of the window, they require both special PCBs and special PCB firmware to make the switches into an actually usable keyboard. And yet, in spite of the high up front costs incurred by having to sink research and development time into each of these components in addition to the switches themselves that has long held back their progress, manufacturers in 2024 are starting to come around to the Hall Effect style of keyboard switches. So given their current rising status in the hobby, and likelihood of continuing to grow in the coming years, I felt that it was finally about time to break out a good few paragraphs about the topic.

**Figure 2:** It is, however, very much intentional that I've not covered these so called "mechanical" keyboard parts...

Hall Effect keyboard switches, while still in the minority of all modern mechanical keyboard switches released today, started popping up in brands that produce OEM boards targeted more towards the ‘gaming’ side of the community. More specifically, this technology first began gaining a foothold in brands which traditionally only built with MX-style switches such as Acer, Corsair, Redragon, and even Razer too among a slew of other smaller names that few people would immediately recognize. Even more surprising than their market share that they’ve already gained within OEM builds, HE switches are also beginning to be seen sold loose from their boards and specifically targeted at the opposite end of the keyboard hobby where the more build-it-yourself end resides. Sometimes referred to as ‘Magnetic’ switches instead of Hall Effect or the abbreviation ‘HE’, as of my last count there are approximately 50 different HE switches being sold in boards or loosely to date, with companies like Outemu, Gateron, Wooting, Kailh, and Raesha providing their manufacturing takes on this design. While that complete list contains quite a few more names than just those listed there, in all reality the market has largely been dominated thus far by a pair of manufacturers located at opposite ends of the historical spectrum: the old, classical giant in Gateron and the newer, nimbler contender in the switch space in Dongguan Grain Gold. The steep competition being had between these two with respect to their Hall Effect switch designs has not only lead to quite a bit of drama between them, rife with insinuations of copying designs in both directions, but has also resulted in at least 30 of those 50 aforementioned HE switches to date being made by just these two factories alone. Keeping this very real and rapidly progressing competition in mind, its suddenly not so surprising that Hall Effect switches have blown up in presence over the past year on the back of this pseudo-arms race between Gateron and Grain Gold.

**Figure 3:** A small side-by-side comparison of Gateron-made HE switches (Orange and White, Left) and Grain Gold-made HE switches (Red and Pink, Right)

Given how large and established Gateron is within the switch scene, its probably pretty easy for most people to take on faith that they have the production capacity and working capital necessary to crank out new iterations of switches in little to no time. However, legacy manufacturers like Gateron, Cherry, Outemu, etc. very rarely actually engage in the same spray-and-pray approach of releases that newer manufacturers just now entering the market have to engage in in order to gain community attention and market traction. This race to the top of the Hall Effect mountain by Gateron and Grain Gold, though, is demonstrating quite well that just because legacy manufacturers don’t often do this doesn’t mean that they can’t. The innovation scramble by Gateron, be it by copying or trying to outpace Grain Gold, has resulted in them releasing seventeen different Hall Effect switches in the span of the last year alone, with multiple switch collaborations with Keychron and NuPhy contained therein. In even more surprising fashion for that many switches released in such a short span of time, there’s enough of a spectrum of mold details and performance-affecting design features to warrant several new part code classifications from Gateron – something which has often only happened once or maybe twice a year. All of the various Hall Effect switches released by Gateron to date have been spread out across several different KS-XX part codes including KS-20, KS-20U, and KS-20T for Gateron-specific offerings and KS-37, KS-37B, and KS-37C for Keychron-related collaborations. Needless to say, it is because of all of these innovations from just half of the cutting edge of HE switches that I don’t entirely have the space and time in this review to go over all of the details that have led up to the modern state of them today. What I do have the time and capacity to cover in depth within this review, though, is specifically that of the Dual-Rail KS-20U Gateron Hall Effect switches.

**Figure 4:** Gateron Hall Effect style switches currently available as of the time of writing this review.

Gateron’s Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches are the first (and currently only) KS-20U Hall Effect switch to be offered loose from OEM keyboards to the community at large. Adopting the puzzle-piece like slide rail designs that I’ve previously shown off in my Gateron Melodic Switch Review and applying it to Gateron’s Hall Effect platform previously established in KS-20 Orange and White switches, the Dual-Rail Magnetic Oranges have a mixed bag of everything that Gateron has seemingly been working on in recent years. First introduced via social media marketing by Gateron around mid-March of 2024, these switches have since spread like wildfire and are available on nearly a dozen different primary and secondary vendors around the $0.70 per switch price point listed on Gateron’s official sales page. While I would normally follow up the mention of pricing and availability of the switches with a quip about their longevity before tying up the loose ends that normally comprise my ‘Switch Background’ section, there’s still a bit of contextual background that needs to be covered as to what Hall Effect switches even are and where they depart from the MX norm. Given their likely inevitable rise in popularity based on current market trends, its probably at least the tiniest bit important to understand how these switches actually work.

**Figure 5:** The shortest summary of how Hall Effect switches work is basically just this meme.

Hall Effect keyboard switches, rather unsurprisingly, operate on the electromagnetic phenomena known as the ‘Hall Effect.’ (Riveting insight, I know.) First discovered by Edwin Hall in 1879, the Hall Effect describes how the current of electrons in an electrical circuit can be influenced by nearby magnetic fields that are perpendicular to the electrical circuit. However, this influence is not strictly binary. The strength and/or the proximity of the magnetic field to the electrons directly impacts how much the current of the electrons changes. Keyboard switches that use the Hall Effect exploit this sliding scale of current changed by magnetic fields by placing a magnet into the stems of the switches that moves closer to and further away from an electrical circuit in the PCB when pressed and released. As the magnet in the stem of the switch is pressed closer to the PCB, it causes the electrons in the electrical circuit of the PCB to deflect more until the stem is released and the current returns back to normal. Using specialized software specific to Hall Effect PCBs, these changes in electron currents within these circuits is interpreted as the switch being pressed towards an ‘on’ state or released towards an ‘off’ state. Unlike traditional MX-style switches which rely on two pieces of metal touching to complete a circuit and can only exist in fully on or fully off states, the fact that the electron currents are slowly impacted as the stem magnet is pushed closer to them causes the read out from the Hall Effect PCBs to be analog (continuously variable) rather than digital (discretely variable). Thus, what is considered as ‘on’ or ‘off’ for a Hall Effect keyboard switch can often be specifically controlled by the PCB software – allowing users to arbitrarily choose for “on” to occur after the switch is only 20%, 40%, or even 60% of the way pressed in. In very simplistic terms, if traditional MX-style switches are like the flick-up-and-down light switches, then Hall Effect switches are like fully dimmable lights that have a whole range ‘on’ states that you can choose from.

**Figure 6:** Incredibly simplistic diagram shamelessly stolen from Wooting of current in a wire being affected by the presence of a magnetic field via the Hall Effect.

**Figure 7:** Response curve representations of 'digital' and 'analog' signals showing the binary nature digital signals in comparison to the continuous nature of analog signals.

Magnetic Orange Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches come in a clear over white housing construction with artificial cheesy orange colored stems that are quite similar to a very old modern Gateron switch by the name of ‘Gateron FF Cheese.’ Unlike the FF Cheese switches, as well as all other MX-style switches, the Magnetic Oranges and other Hall Effect switches made by Gateron have a pair of features which makes them immediately distinguishable as being HE-type. The first is that of the rounded north and south portions of the stem top which produce a partially circular, partially rectangular shaped profile to the stems as opposed to the completely rectangular top profiles of normal MX-style stems. The second is that of the either giant gaping hole in the bottom housing (KS-20, KS-20U) or completely flat bottom housing externals (KS-20T, KS-37). Beyond these immediately distinguishable features, though, there are quite a few other details to be looked into at the component and sub-component levels. All other details of note about the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches can be found at the sub-part level and are covered in the following paragraphs below.

**Figure 8:** Color comparison between the stems of Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches and Gateron FF Cheese (Center).

**Figure 9:** Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches and their components.

Looking first to the clear, polycarbonate top housings of the Magnetic Orange switches, both the internal and external structures feature quite a few peculiar design features. Externally, the Magnetic Orange switches feature an inverted, stylized ‘GATERON’ nameplate and fixed, mid-height LED-diffusing bubble similar to that of many other premium Gateron offerings in recent months. As well, the hole in the top housing for accommodating the stem is significantly larger than in traditional, MX-style switches as a result of the rounded north and south side of the stem. In fact, this hole is so large that even if there were MX and HE switch cross compatibility, the stems of traditional MX-style switches would loosely flap around when placed in Gateron’s HE-type top housings. (This can also be seen explicitly by the numbers in the measurement card for the switch components below.) Internally, the top housings are fairly similar to the design of MX-style Gateron switches, though it feels a bit odd to see that the north and south side guiding rails in the top housings are also curved to match the shapes of the stems in these switches as opposed to their normally flat shape. Most interestingly, the mold markings for the Magnetic Orange top housings are located not in the upper corners underneath the nameplate region, but rather directly below the upper housing attachment pins on the edge of the actual top housing, itself. Present on both sides, these mold markings still come in the form of single capital letters on the left and numbers on the right, which is a departure from the two-letter norm in Gateron-made switches.

**Figure 10:** Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange top housing external design showing fixed, mid-height LED diffusing bubble, inverted 'GATERON' nameplate, and large center hole for accommodating the HE-style stem shape.

**Figure 11:** Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange top housing internal design showing curved guider rails on north and south sides of the center hole as well as odd mold markings located below the upper housing attachment clips.

Moving next to the ‘mac n’ cheese’ orange, assumedly POM stems of the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches, we are greeted with quite a slew of uncommon design features that are all covered with a moderate, almost light amount of factory lube. Most notable of all of these features is that of the fat center pole which is sized as such in order to house the magnetic used to trigger the Hall Effect PCBs. In addition to standing out for being as round and chonky as it is, at approximately 3.61 mm in diameter, it is also standout for just how short it is, just barely sticking beyond the edges of the slider rails on either side of the center pole. The stem itself only sits a grand total of 10.81 mm tall, as compared to most modern, MX-style switch stems that are at or beyond 13.00 mm in height, only further highlighting just how short the center pole is. Unlike traditional stem structure, the slider rails are hollow and made to slot into a third rail guiding system built into the bottom housings of the switch. A strange design choice is also present in the stems in the form of a small ‘foot’ that comes off of the northwest corner of the stem as it sits in the bottom housing. In these linear Magnetic Orange switches, this foot clearly does not trigger anything in spite of the fact that it clearly suggests that it should or could. Conceptually, it is really similar in design (and likely intention) to that of a foot which would trigger a click bar in Kailh’s Box switches and thus I’m assuming that we may see more KS-20U switches in the future with tactile and/or clicky capabilities. The fact that this remains functionlessly in the Magnetic Orange switches, though, further points back to Gateron’s frenetic pace of design and release as they very rarely, if at all, leave design features in their premium switches which don’t serve a noticeable purpose.

**Figure 12:** North facing side of Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switch stem in a size comparison to an MX-style Gateron Deepping stem. Also note the functionless protruding leg on the right-hand side of the orange stem in the photo.

**Figure 13:** South facing side of Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switch stem showing mold ejector marks, hollow rails, and small amounts of factory lube still present on the stem's center pole.

**Figure 14:** Top down view of the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange stem situated in the bottom housing without spring. Note both the interlacing of the third-rail style stem guiding mechanism as well as the aforementioned useless stem leg in the upper left hand corner.

Finally arriving to the white, nylon bottom housings of the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches, we are met with the switch component that is the most drastically different than that of the traditional-MX switches. First and foremost, it’s pretty hard to ignore the massive hole through the center of the bottom housing which is there to fit the large magnet shown in the stem above. While this center pole hole is open in the KS-20 and KS-20U switches, it is covered over flush with the outside of the bottom housings in the KS-20T and KS-37 Gateron HE switches. (It should be noted that whether this is open or does not noticeably alter the performance of Hall Effect switches as the magnetic fields can and do extend through the plastic of the housings.) All other expected internal components of a switch are present in the Magnetic Oranges – including recessed padding at the bottom of the slider rails, mold markings, and a small spring collar on the south side – though placed in substantially different locations than traditional MX-style switches which I will let the photos below speak for. Externally, we again are met with many common features that are simply placed in odd placements. Two capital letter mold markings can still be found on the left- and right-side halves of the bottom housing, though upright and closer to the PCB-mounting pins than normal Gateron switches. As well, a lone stylized ‘G’ anticounterfeit mark can be seen in the upper left-hand corner of the bottom housing exterior close to where a metal PCB pin would be located in traditional MX-style switches.

**Figure 15:** Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange bottom housing interior design showing large stem pole hole with factory lube, third-rail style guide rails, and slight south side spring collar built into housing wall.

**Figure 16:** Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange bottom housing exterior showing PCB mounting pins and locations of mold and anticounterfeit markings.

Push Feel

Completely disregarding the very strange internal structure and magical magnetic powers that the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches boast as part of their Hall Effect compatibility, what they offer on paper is a ‘plain Jane’, no frills linear switch. Traveling just about 4.000 mm in total for a complete downstroke, the Magnetic Orange switches have a medium-light spring weight of 52.3 grams at bottom out and a minor, but not too generous amount of factory lube on all sides of the stem. Were these to be made in the form of traditional MX-style switches rather than HE-type, they would certainly be among the more conservative linear releases Gateron’s made in quite some time because of their specifications, lack of specifically performance enhancing details, and above all their execution. Unlike premium Gateron MX-style switches priced in the same range around $0.70 per switch, the Magnetic Oranges are just the tiniest bit scratchy and quite a bit inconsistent in their smoothness across the batch of switches that I received. Some switches get this inconsistent factory lubing worse than others and its especially noticeable in these worst-case switches as it causes the topping and bottoming out to feel (as well as sound) squishy, sticky, and some other icky feeling ‘s-word’ here. While present at both ends of the switch, it is definitely much more noticeable and overbearing in the topping out. In the more adequately lubed switches, though, the housing collisions are rather soft and cushioned, with the topping out only being a tiny bit more thin than the bottoming out. All things considered, I guess it’s not necessarily delivering anything that is terribly bad relative to all other linear switches that have ever been made before it out there, though I certainly had higher expectations of Gateron switches at this price point. While I recognize that a good fair bit of their pricing is likely due to the new molds and designs required to pull off a Hall Effect style switch, it’s hard to expect anything other than incredibly consistent, heavily lubed and smooth as butter linears from premium Gateron offerings.

**Figure 17:** Force curve for stock Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switch.

As an interesting point of note for those of you who have never seen the force curves for Hall Effect style switches before, this perfectly linear upstroke curve is actually expected and common. In traditional MX-style switches, the dip in upstroke force between 0 and ~2.00 mm in most switches is a result of the stem legs disengaging with the large leaf of the switch on its return to the top. Due to the fact that Hall Effect switches do not rely on interactions between stem legs and leaves to complete circuits, and instead only rely on the touchless electromagnetic interaction between the stems and the PCBs, the force curves for linear switches are a function solely of the spring and its weight. Thus, the force curve regions in between the housing collisions will obey Hooke’s Law and produce a force “curve” that is directly proportional to their compression distance. (That is, until we start getting progressive springs in Hall Effect switches.)

Sound

The Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches are altogether on the quieter end of the linear switch spectrum with sound that is largely driven by the medium pitched, slightly thinner, and more plasticky sounding topping out of the stem. Given that the bottoming out occurs onto the edges of the slider rails of the stem as well as contacts in a deepened recess in the bottom housing aimed to increase surface area of contact, the bottom outs are almost completely silent in normal use unless they’re being typed on particularly heavily. While scratch is present in the sound of the switches as was already hinted to above in the push feeling notes for the switches, its presence and severity is intermittent and entirely dependent on the switch to switch variation in lubing. The variation in factory lubing does also cause the topping outs of the switches to sound a bit sticky in those particularly bad switches, making the switch’s sound almost entirely based around such. Beyond these issues with consistency and housing thinness, the Magnetic Orange switches are otherwise free from unexpected poor sound features including any ping from their thick springs.

Wobble

Surprisingly, the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches have a noticeable and slightly greater than average stem wobble in both N/S and E/W directions for a premium Gateron switch. While they are probably closer to the all-time average for stem wobble across all mechanical keyboard switches that I’ve tried to date, I guess I still expected more of Gateron and at this price point. This likely won’t bother most users of the switches, though it could be potentially bothersome if you are particularly picky about your stem wobble.

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 19:** Numerical details regarding the stock Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic 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.

Unfortunately, some of the finer points about the performance, compatibility, and measurements of Hall Effect switches is still something that escape me in my current review writing and switch testing capacities. Given that Hall Effect switches operate both on magnets and sensors which are tuned to specific magnetic fluxes, the most thorough discussions about HE-type switches should also mention things like the pole orientation of the magnet, magnetic fluxes at various points in the downstroke of the switch, and the compatibility of these values with specific PCBs and PCB software. Alas, I don’t own a Gauss meter nor a Hall Effect board at the moment that allows me to further test these things out. (I am strongly considering doing these things, though, should Hall Effect switches continue to grow in popularity and presence in the custom switch scene.) Through what I can gather via informal channels and marketing information about these switches, the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches have North Pole polarity, an initial magnetic flux of 75 +/- 15 Gs, a bottom out magnetic flux of 700 +/- 80 Gs, and are currently compatible with at least Wooting PCBs.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- At 17,000 actuations, the biggest change in the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches is noticed in an increased inconsistency in topping out sound. Likely as a result of lube migration throughout the break in process, the batch of switches I broke in to this extent have topping outs that sound noticeably more squishy and lube heavy than their stock counterparts.

- As is common for most switches that I’ve subjected to break in testing, the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches also increased in stem wobble over their stock counterparts after having been broken in thus far.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, the lube migration in the Magnetic Orange switches becomes pretty readily apparent and hard to discount from the switch’s overall feeling and sound. At the extreme least, the topping out inconsistency is at least somewhat mitigated here by the fact that more switches in the batch broken in to this point had the squelchy, sticky sounding topping outs than those that didn’t. Honestly, I can’t think of the last time I had a Gateron switch which broke in this poorly with respect to factory lubing.

51,000 Actuations

- Thankfully, the Magnetic Orange switches broken in to 51,000 actuations did not continue to get worse than their 34,000 actuation counterparts on the lube migration and associated sound profile changes.

- The only real noticeable change in the switches broken out this far was a further slight increase in stem wobble in both N/S and E/W directions. This only further strengthens my stance that this is among one of the worst Gateron switch break ins that I’ve tested to date.

**Figure 21:** Comparative force curve diagram showing no distinctive trend in change of Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switch force curve diagrams throughout the break in 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 Magnetic Orange switches side by side.

Raptor MX Extreme

- While the force curve comparison between these two switches below makes it more than evident, the bottom out of the Magnetic Orange switches feels significantly deeper into the downstroke than that of the Raptor MX Extremes. By comparison, the bottoming out onto the stem pole of the MX Extremes makes the Magnetic Orange switches hardly feel as if they have a bottom out at all.

- There is less stem wobble in both N/S and E/W directions in the Raptor MX Extreme switches than there is in the Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches.

- In terms of their push feeling, these two switches are both rather smooth linears, though the Magnetic Oranges feel a bit lighter and more ‘loosely’ lubed than the Raptor MX Extremes.

Novelkeys Box Cream

- While I personally am a fan of the Novelkeys Box Creams, its hard to call them a comparable linear switch to the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Oranges and especially so with respect to their smoothness. The Box Creams are unlubed out of the box and thus noticeably more scratchy than the Oranges here.

- The stem wobble of these two switches are comparable, though the Magnetic Orange switches have just a tiny bit better tolerances and thus don’t wobble in the N/S and E/W directions nearly as much.

- Of all of the switches on this comparison list, these two are the most similar in terms of their overall downstroke length as well as bottom out feeling. The roughly 4.00 bottom out onto the bottom of the slider rails really makes these fall much more in line with the ‘classic’ expectations of bottom out feelings from MX switches rather than the more commonly seen abrupt, pointed center pole bottoming out of the modern day.

Wuque Studio Morandi

- In spite of the fact that these two switches have pretty similar bottoming out weights, the Morandi switches feel quite a bit more heavy when tested in hand. I suspect that this is largely due to them being much more heavily lubed from the factory than the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches.

- The Morandi switches are a bit better than the Magnetic Orange switches in terms of their N/S and E/W direction stem wobble, though it is not by a large margin.

- While both of these switches are on the quieter end of the spectrum overall, the Morandi switches have a much deeper, bass-heavy sound to them at bottoming out than the more hollow, and quite literally hole-y Magnetic Oranges.

Cherry MX2A RGB Black

- Ah yes, I’ve found another one. The Magnetic Orange switches are, in spite of what you might have potentially maybe sort of guessed, are actually smoother than the stock Cherry MX2A RGB Black switches. (Yes, even with the ‘improved’ factory lubing.)

- With respect to stem wobble, the Cherry MX2A RGB Black switches have less stem wobble in the N/S and E/W directions than the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches.

- Even though the comparative force curve between these two switches below shows that they bottom out at roughly the same point in their downstrokes, the MX2A RGB Blacks feel like they go a tiny bit further to bottom out when tested in hand.

Feker Emerald Cabbage

- With respect to their overall push feeling, the Feker Emerald Cabbages are a bit more scratchy and have a slightly more sandpapery feel to their strokes than the Magnetic Orange switches.

- The Feker Emerald Cabbages and the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Oranges have comparable amounts of N/S and E/W direction stem wobble.

- In spite of what the comparative force curve below may suggest, these two switches feel as if they both travel an equally far distance to reach their bottom out. I was honestly a bit surprised in generating this chart after making my initial set of notes as I would have guessed the Cabbages went a nearly full 4.00 mm travel distance.

Tecsee Honey Peach

- As is likely to be expected if you’ve tried the Tecsee Honey Peaches before, their bottoming out feels noticeably more in-your-face and firm than the Magnetic Orange as a result of the metal stem on metal plate contact in the Honey Peaches.

- The Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange and Tecsee Honey Peach switches are comparable to each other in terms of their N/S and E/W direction stem wobbles.

- Much like with the Feker Emerald Cabbage switches above, the Tecsee Honey Peaches are a bit more scratchy than the Magnetic Orange switches, and largely due to differences in factory lubing as opposed to an internal structural difference.

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.