Novelkeys Dream Cream Switch Review

Historically, this pre-background background section has always been an area where I share meta-level updates about the collection, my life, or whatever else that comes to mind when I sit down to write reviews week in and out. While this certainly does its fair share in buffing out the word count on each review (even though I don’t get paid at all, nor by the word), I quite enjoy these sections as it offers me a chance to document additions to the collection that I may not have another reason to write about for some time. Take the Kinetic Labs Husky Switch Review pre-background background, for example – given the acquisition of the Gateron KS-1 switches and the other KS-X prototypes, I couldn’t help but take an opportunity to document these effective fossils of switches since I couldn’t find hardly any other information about them out there. So poor thematic matching between a Tecsee made switch and Gateron made ones in mind, I bring you yet another documentation driven section with poor brand compatibility.

Figure 1: Behold!

Whereas I started my previous review talking about how the collection has ballooned in size over the previous few years and how I’ve had to buy more testers to accommodate such, I feel that this update is more of a ‘quality’ acquisition to the collection rather than a ‘quantity’ one. As you may have seen earlier this week on my Instagram and Twitter feeds, I was lucky to receive some small set of Cherry’s brand new Ultra Low Profile switches, some of which were snipped directly off of the factory line, itself. Marked as MX6C K3NB for the clicky variants and MX6C T3NB for the tactile variants, these switches were designed with the intent of being gaming laptop compatible and are already present in some prebuilt keyboards to the best of my knowledge. All in all, it’s not every day I get to pick up switches quite like this and I can’t possibly thank Cherry enough for being willing to send some over to me to look at. Perhaps I will have to find a way to incorporate them into some form of content in the future. Oh, and thank you to Cherry as well for all the awesome goodies that came with these!

Figure 2: Cherry Ultra Low Profile switch without keycap.

Cherry MX Merchandise — **Figure 3:** Just a few of the awesome goodies Cherry sent me alongside my switches.

Switch Background

The Novelkeys Dream Cream switches are effectively the 10th switch to be released in the Novelkeys Cream family of switches. While not all of these switches have been available consistently since the release of the original Novelkeys Creams back in 2018 (e.g. Nolives and Launch Creams), there has been a steady release in variations throughout the years to further community interest in the entirely POM-clad housing design that made the originals so famous. As of late, introductions into the Cream Family of switches such as the Cream Arcs and Cream Tactiles have clearly been a push to innovate beyond that of simple color and spring weighting changes, offering new tactile feels and conical spring designs into the mix of switch offerings from Novelkeys. Given that I’ve previously extensively covered the history of the Cream Family of switches in my From The Vault: Novelkeys Cream, Novelkeys Cream Tactile, and Novelkeys Cream Arc Switch Reviews, I do want to point to the tiny amount of history and background that was generated with the release of Dream Creams.

Novelkeys Kailh Cream Switches — **Figure 4:** Some of the more neutral Cream Family switches. (L-R, Top-Bot: Cream Tactile, Cream, Dream Cream, and Cream Arc)

Prior to jumping directly into the shallow pool of Dream Cream history, I think it might be worth it to motivate why at this point in time ‘Switch Background’ sections have historically been shrinking. While the obvious thing to point to would perhaps be that more switches are just being produced seemingly for the sake of being produced without much thought, design, or efforts put into their execution, I think there is a much more subtle point to be made for larger venders such as Novelkeys, Drop, Cannonkeys, etc. As all of these companies have grown substantially in the past few years, there has been less community-based discussion in the form of interest checks from them regarding their products. At the scale that all of these companies have reached, they can effectively just make judgement calls and run products they like knowing full well there is a large enough of audience for their products that will sell – something that someone running a keycap groupbuy out of their basement simply couldn’t afford to risk. As a rather pertinent example of this, Mike of Novelkeys has shared that their Cherry Spellbook keycaps never had renders, effectively meaning they prototyped and released these keycaps without remote concern for gauging public interest first.

Do not get me wrong here – I do not think that this is a bad thing in the slightest. I am glad that keyboard companies who I’ve supported for years have grown to the extent that they can stand on their own feet and make decisions for products that otherwise might not have a shot of making it in someone else’s hands. That being said, though, it does also effectively limit the amount of historical and design-based knowledge that I can share with you all about switches. Aside the writing here on the website, I would love to get an inside look at sampling, designing, and critiques regarding each of these new switches that these large companies have coming out, but as they continue to grow in size it would be selfish of me to expect them to carve out dedicated time for something as small as that. As well, each of these companies I’ve directly listed here in this conversation have already gone well above and beyond to support me and the collection over the years.

What little I can put together about the Novelkeys Dream Cream switches starts all the way back in late April of 2022. While I can not seem to find the original conversation which led into the dialogue in this screenshot, discussion of a new, linear cream switch by Mike (mgsickler) was met with a suggestion by a Novelkeys fan speedycake that the new switches be called ‘Dreams’. As a fun note too, speedycake’s request for compensation for this idea is a life size Gator Ron hat, which I have no idea whether or not this has been fulfilled. The next and only other mention I could find of the Dream Cream switches in the Novelkeys Discord came in May with Mike stating that the samples for said switches had arrived. The final historical teaser prior to the full release of the Novelkeys Dream Cream switches came by way of announcement on LightningXI’s Instagram and Twitch streams in which Dream Cream samples were built into a Linworks Dolphin keyboard. While it is a tad bit uncertain, it can be implied that LightningXI was sent these switches as not only is he a content creator partnered with Novelkeys, but he was one of the few people sent original Novelkeys Cream samples prior to their release in 2018, with those other content creators from that time being more or less inactive currently.

**Figure 5:** And thus the name 'Dream Cream' was born.

Released for sale in mid to late August of 2022, the Novelkeys Dream Cream switches (also known as Dreams and/or Cream Dreams) were released for sale with a rather unique design prompting community interest – these switches were broken in by Kailh out to 600,000 actuations prior to shipping. Being the first time that switches have ever been substantially broken in by a manufacturer, and ostensibly requiring increased production time as a result, the switches debuted at $0.85 per switch in boxes of 36 which was a notable step up from the $0.65 per switch price tag of normal Novelkeys Cream switches. While no known plan has been stated regarding the longevity of their offering, it’s assumed that the Dream Cream switches will remain stocked for a substantial length of time alongside the other Cream Family releases. As well, it is known that these will not be the last installment in the Cream Family of switches either, as Mike has also teased in early September of 2022 via the discord server that Cream Clickies will also be coming in the future.

Novelkeys Kailh Cream Clicky Switches — **Figure 6:** Clicky Cream sample as shown off by Mike. 'Final' samples were stated to have arrived at Novelkeys on 8/10/22.

Dream Cream Switch Performance

Appearance

Coming in an entirely pure white colorway, the Novelkeys Dream Creams outwardly appear to continue along the monotonal colorway theme that is being used for modern Cream Family releases. With large font, inverted ‘kailh’ nameplates in all lower-case letters, aside from the color these do not immediately appear to be separable from that of other recent Cream switches. Interestingly, as will be shown at the mold-based level below, there are noticeable instances in which identical molds are being used between Cream Family switches in some of the switch components.

Novelkeys Dream Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switch — **Figure 7:** Novelkeys Dream Cream switch and its components.

Going first to the exterior of the top housings, the Dream Creams appear effectively no different in design than that of other recent releases. In addition to the aforementioned inverted ‘kailh’ nameplate, the housings also boast a thin, rectangular LED slot with a circular indentation in the middle to support common aftermarket LED types. It’s worth noting here that while it has been mentioned in previous switch reviews that the ‘kailh’ nameplate font size has grown substantially in newer releases versus that of originally released Novelkeys Creams, as can be seen below in Figure 9. When exactly this change took place is uncertain, and it doesn’t appear to have drastically altered performance in any way that I can discern. (I suspect that this is on par with Cherry and Durock/JWK’s ‘silent’ mold revisions which tweak small features for various reasons upon updating molds even though it may not provide explicit performance enhancements.)

Novelkeys Dream Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switch Top Housing — **Figure 8:** Novelkeys Cream Dream top housing showing rectangular LED slot and inverted, large font 'kailh' nameplate.

Novelkeys Dream Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switches — **Figure 9:** Side by side nameplate comparison of original batch Novelkeys Creams and Novelkeys Dream Creams showing difference in nameplate size.

Internally, the top housings very much show that they are of the same molds and design as that of the recently released Novelkeys Cream Arc switches. In addition to a very nuanced and multifaceted design underneath the nameplate region of the switch, identical placement of mold ejector circles as well as mold markings are indicative of this point. While it was damn near impossible enough to photograph it in the Novelkeys Cream Arc Switch Review, the mold marking is located on the right side of the switch interior next to the slider rail underneath the nameplate, and features a single capital letter marking – a location which is exclusively unique to Kailh.

Moving next to the stems of the Novelkeys Dream Cream switches, they appear fairly standard by all modern linear releases to date. Coming with tapered slider rails, a staged central pole, and ejector circles on the front plate above the slider rails, the Dream Creams pretty much follow the standard set for most linear switches to date. In fact, it can further likely be concluded that the Dream Cream stems are produced from the same molds as those of the Cream Arc stems as the differences in their measurements with respect to such features, as can be seen below in Figure 12, are within specification tolerances. By extension, as well, the same treatment can be applied to the measurement similarities in the top housings as well. A final feature worth noting in the Dream Creams is that the stems are reported to have a very small amount of factory lubrication applied to them, though this is visually extremely hard to distinguish to the eye and by camera. Upon touching the stems while inspecting them, it’s evident that there is a very fine amount of factory lube on all four sides of the stems.

Novelkeys Dream Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switch Stem — **Figure 11:** Image of Novelkeys Cream Dream stem showing tapered slider rail and staged central pole.

Novelkeys Dream Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements — **Figure 12:** Direct comparison of component measurements between Novelkeys Cream Arcs and Dream Creams.

Finally arriving at the bottom housings, its subtly noticeable that these in fact do not follow from the same line of molds as that of the Novelkeys Cream Arc switches. While this may be a bit of an obvious statement given the differences in measurements shown in the previous image, the interior structure of the Dream Creams is definitely different. The noticeable features inside of the bottom housing interior that are unique include a much more pronounced ledge at the bottom of the slider rails as well as a quite wide circle around the central pole hole. Externally, these PCB-mountable bottom housings further confirm their differentiation from Cream Arcs in that they have two mold markings rather than one. Located above the upper left- and right-hand corners of the wide-open LED slot, the left mold marking is that of a number whereas the right one is that of a capital letter.

Novelkeys Dream Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switch Bottom Housing — **Figure 13:** Novelkeys Dream Cream bottom housing internal structure showing large flat region around the central pole as well as minor factory lube on the left-hand side.

Push Feel

To address the biggest point first that many people will come to this review wondering: Yes, I think that the breaking in of the switches has evidently done something to improve their scratch. Given the rather large amount of people in the community who have taken to using break in machines to actuate their Novelkeys Creams prior to building with them, it’s not all surprising that there is an effect when a manufacturer does the same thing. (As a side note, I’ve heard of some people refer to said broken in Creams as ‘Whipped Creams’ and it’s about the only time I’ve ever approved of aftermarket, modified switch names.) While there is still some scratch noticeable in the Dream Cream switches, when compared directly to original, stock Novelkeys Creams, it is evident that the scratch is of a much smaller grain and much more subtle in overall presence. While there was evidence discussed above that there is some amount of lubricant present on the stems, it doesn’t appear to have all that much effect in mitigating the little scratch that is present in stock form.

As for the rest of the linear feeling of this switch, there are some minor improvements over that of original Novelkeys Creams which I suspect are also attributable to the breaking in period. The first thing that was noted upon testing is that these switches feel much more consistent across their batch than a standard box of 36 of the original Novelkeys Creams. While this does mean that perhaps there are only one or two less standout-ish switches in the bunch, the overall range of variability with respect to smoothness and housing collisions is narrowed slightly. As for the housing collisions, they are a bit unbalanced and evidently driven by the thickness of each housing, with the thicker bottom housings having a deeper and more firm feeling as opposed to the thinner feeling and gauge top housings. Perhaps a function of my own imagination, as well, the Dream Creams feel as if their topping out is more ‘singular’ and less spread out than the original Creams, as if there was perhaps a fraction of a millimeter less surface area of contact between the stems and the top housings.

An additional point I felt compelled to bring up here, as well, is a brief mention that the Dream Creams and original Creams are effectively indistinguishable from one another with respect to their intended performance. Given that the switches have identical springs and conceivably at least two similar molds to each other as was noted above, a Novelkeys Cream switch broken in aftermarket should in theory be comparable to that of the Dream Creams bought in stock form. For those few out there who want to argue how overwhelming of a change there is upon breaking in Cream switches, and arguing that these points I’m making in this review here are not incredibly minute and nitpicky, I went ahead and overlaid the force curves of Novelkeys Creams and Novelkeys Dream Creams together. As can be seen below in Figure 15.

Novelkeys Dream Cream and Novelkeys Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements — **Figure 15:** Butterfly style force curve comparison of Novelkeys Creams and Novelkeys Dream Creams.

In case you are still in denial and want to argue that I am biased in favor of Big Cream as well, I went ahead and beat you to the punch by replicating this experiment three total times as well and overlaying the curves. With the exception of variability in manufacturing, it doesn’t appear there is any real drastic change in the force curves between broken in and non-broken in Creams.

Novelkeys Dream Cream and Novelkeys Launch Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements — **Figure 16:** Honestly the equivalent of making up arguments in the shower and responding, but in data form.

Sound

With respect to the overall sound of the Novelkeys Dream Creams, in their stock form they very much live up to the reputation that they are in fact from the Cream Family of switches. While there isn’t the same leathery, scratchy undertone to the sound that I’ve mentioned previously with respect to Novelkeys Creams, the overall switch does carry some tiny amount of scratch noise sandwiched in between pretty disparate housing collisions. As could be implied in the ‘Push Feel’ section above, the bottoming out is decently firm with a medium-pitched sound to it whereas the topping out is higher pitched and a bit pointed in its delivery. Unlike previous Novelkeys Cream Family switches which I have reviewed, the incidence of spring ping seems to be much lower in the Dream Creams than that of the other switches. Whether or not this is a direct function of the breaking in period is beyond me.

Wobble

You’re in for a treat on this one as this is quite possibly the most unhinged and long-winded ‘Wobble’ section that will probably ever be wrote in a review on this website. And with an introduction like that, I am shocked to say that the stem wobble on the Novelkeys Dream Creams are fairly mundane. Comparable in terms of N/S and E/W wobble to recent releases in the Novelkeys Cream Arcs and even the original Creams themselves, there is a noticeable amount that will likely bother some users and especially those who are susceptible to wobble based issues and/or using taller keycap profiles. That being said, though, this does not in any way track with my experience of how wobble changes with Break In period.

For those of you who have read the ‘Break In’ section religiously over the past dozen or so reviews in which they have been implemented, nearly every single switch increases its stem wobble over that of the stock form after being broken in to 51,000 actuations. In fact, the Novelkeys Cream Arcs were one of the few which suffered noticeably more at 51,000 actuations as compared to their stock forms of any of the switches which I’ve tested with this break in device. Given that the Dream Creams have been broken in at Kailh up to 600,000 actuations according to the marketing, then how exactly do these have nearly identical stem wobble to that of the stock Novelkeys Cream Arcs and less stem wobble than Cream Arcs broken in to 50,000 actuations? Even further complicating my confusion in this matter is that the Cream Arcs and the Dream Creams demonstrably share enough features between their stems and top housings that it wouldn’t be unwarranted to say that they come from the same molds, and thus should perform the same with respect to something like wobble that is directly a function of top housing and stem tolerances…

**Figure 17:** "What do you think about this one, Scully?"

I’m certainly not insinuating in any way shape nor form that Novelkeys is lying or that the manufacturing of this switch is unscrupulous in its nature. These results could certainly be a function of personal implicit bias or perhaps batch-specific differences that I note that the team at Novelkeys may not have noted. (Take for example the Everglide V3 Water King Switch Review which I still absolutely hate to this day for that same reason.) It may be entirely possible that the breaking in instrumentation that Kailh has rigged up does not necessarily break in switches like traditional aftermarket break in machines, which effectively just pressed closed switches up and down repeatedly. As for how the stem wobble remains comparable between two switches in stock and 600,000 actuation form that appear to share the same involved molds does not make sense to me, and until we perhaps gain some insight as to how exactly this process is carried out this shall remain a mystery. Or, I’ve very possibly lost it.

Editorial Note

After having noticed my potential concerns about having fully lost it, Mike from Novelkeys shared with me and the Novelkeys Discord server that these switches were in fact broken in by break-in machines as expected. Operating at about 720 cycles per minute according to Mike, he attached the following video to put an end to my speculation.

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.

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

While I am very well aware that the Break In section has become a well appreciated institution in the switch reviews it’s been used up to this point, I hope we can all come to an agreement that it is a bit excessive in this review. Never mind the fact that I didn’t start writing this review until rather late and barely had time to get it together when I did – testing 600k actuations versus 617k, 634k, and 651k seems a bit redundant. If a phenomena hasn’t turned up by 600k actuations then it surely won’t turn up with 10% more breaking in time.

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 Dream Cream switches side by side.

Novelkeys Cream

- While there is still some small grain scratch present in the stock Novelkeys Dream Creams, it is noticeably lesser than that of the large grain, sandpaper-like scratch of the original Novelkeys Cream switches.

- Further supporting the face that these switches come from identical molds is that their N/S and E/W stem wobble across several switches is nearly identical to one another.

- Even though this may be entirely in my head, the Novelkeys Dream Creams do have slightly higher pitched topping outs than those of the original Creams.

Invokeys Black Sesame

- To my utter lack of surprise, the factory lubing on the Invokeys Black Sesames led to a significantly more firm, consistent, and thick feeling typing experience than that of the Novelkeys Dream Creams.

- With respect to stem wobble, the Invokeys Black Sesames have significantly less than that of the Dream Creams in both directions.

- While both of these switches pick up in overall volume with faster activation speeds, the Dream Creams pick up a much more thin, high-pitched tone than that of the Black Sesames.

Novelkeys Dream Cream and Invokeys Black Sesame Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements

Gateron CJ Light Blue

- The CJ Light Blues and the Dream Creams have similar E/W direction stem wobble but there is much more stem wobble in the N/S direction in the Dream Creams.

- To no surprise of anyone who has tried more recent Gateron releases, the factory lubing of the CJ Light Blues provides a significantly smoother and more scratch free experience than that of the Dream Creams.

- The CJ Light Blues are subtly more quiet and ever so slightly lower shifted in pitch at topping out than that of the Novelkeys Dream Creams.

Novelkeys Dream Cream and Gateron CJ Light Blue Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements

Cherry MX Black

- The scratch on an average, stock MX Black switch is much greater than that of the Novelkeys Dream Cream switches and could much more readily be compared to that of the scratch in an original Cream switch.

- As well, the Cherry MX Black switches have noticeably greater N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than that of the Novelkeys Dream Cream switches.

- While these two switches are surprisingly similar sounding to each other in terms of tone and overall volume, the Dream Creams are slightly higher pitched and sound just a bit more plasticky than that of the Cherry MX Blacks.

Novelkeys Dream Cream and Cherry MX Black Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements

TTC Tiger

- The TTC Tiger switches are, overall, significantly louder and more plasticky sounding at topping out than that of the Novelkeys Dream switches.

- In terms of smoothness, the TTC Tiger switches edge out the Novelkeys Dream Creams by being very lightly smooth with just a bit of the unlubed character showing up in the feeling underneath.

- Surprisingly, even taking into account the complexity of the design of the TTC Tiger switches as a whole, there is less stem wobble in all directions than is found in the Novelkeys Dream Cream switches.

Novelkeys Dream Cream and TTC Tiger Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements

Splash Brothers

- The topping out of the Splash Brothers switches is drastically louder and more pointed than that of the Novelkeys Dream Creams which is likely a function of their polycarbonate top housings.

- The slight factory lubing on the Splash Brothers switches creates a similar effect to the TTC Tigers in comparison to the Novelkeys Dream Creams, in which they are still smooth while having a bit of character as opposed to the small grain scratch feeling of the Dream Creams.

- While the N/S stem wobble between these two switches is comparable, the E/W direction stem wobble is much less in that of the Splash Brothers than the Novelkeys Dream Creams.

Novelkeys Dream Cream and Splash Brothers Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements

Bonus Round

It felt a bit weird doing a comparison section to a ‘Cream’ switch without comparing it to the other linears in the family. Either that, or I felt I didn’t make enough work for myself without the Break In section and felt compelled to make more force curves.

Novelkeys Box Cream

- While both of these switches have higher pitched topping outs than the original Novelkeys Cream switches, the Box Creams have a more plasticky and thin sounding topping out than the Dream Creams.

- Unlike the original Novelkeys Creams, while the Box Creams clearly come from different molds than the Dream Creams, they appear to have relatively similar wobble yet again. If I absolutely had to pick one over the other, I’d say the Box Creams were slightly more wobbly with respect to their stems.

- Interestingly, even though the Box Creams which I am comparing these Dream Creams to have not been broken in, they certainly do feel rather close the Dream Creams in terms of scratch.

Novelkeys Dream Cream and Novelkeys Box Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements

Novelkeys Cream Arcs

- Even keeping in mind that the heavier springs in the Novelkeys Cream Arcs will make them feel more firm and substantial than the Dream Creams, the housing collisions on the Cream Arcs just feel less plasticky and more solid than the Dream Creams.

- The Novelkeys Cream Arcs have slightly lesser N/S and E/W stem wobble than the Dream Creams, though this is almost certainly a function of the heavier spring weight holding the stem more firmly into the top housing in the Cream Arcs.

- In terms of overall smoothness, these switches are again pretty similar to each other with the only difference being perhaps a subtle difference in the size of the grain of scratch.

Novelkeys Dream Cream and Novelkeys Cream Arc Mechanical Keyboard Switch Measurements

Novelkeys Launch Creams

- Even though both of these are on the louder side of Novelkeys Cream switches, the Dream Creams are by far the better sounding option. They’re less plasticky, less thin, and significantly less cheap sounding than that of the Launch Edition Creams.

- While it wouldn’t be unreasonable to compare the stem wobble between the Launch and Dream Creams, overall the fact that the Dream Creams don’t have top housing wobble whereas the Launch Creams do makes a big difference with respect to their wobble performance.

- In addition to my other noise-based complaints about the Novelkeys Launch Creams, these switches also have a subtle spring ping which simply isn’t present in the Dream Creams.

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.

Novelkeys Dream Cream Mechanical Keyboard Switch Review Score