SP Star Magic Girl Switch Review
Oh yes, it is in fact not quite that time yet. You’re all probably looking at the notifications on social media and Discord servers right now wondering how exactly we’ve magically teleported a week ahead in time to yet another full-length review. While I personally haven’t exactly had the best of weeks, and if I have to see the inside of a Minnesota DMV again within the next year, I’m going to absolutely lose my damn mind, I’ve been having a craving all week to get some writing done. Even though there are other projects that I have been working on here or there that I could continue to pour more effort into, I figured it would be a nice little treat to get to sneak in an extra week’s worth of reviews to look back on at the end of the year. Don’t worry either – you’ll still be getting another full-length review next weekend as well baring me being personally summoned back to the DMV and finally snapping in half.
Figure 1: Seriously, who even thought this would be a good idea?
Normally this pre-background, life-update style section I write here has at least two paragraphs worth of information to share but with just having put out 1001 Switch Nights a week ago I’m really a bit short of new and exciting updates. My sponsors are doing well and you should totally check them out using my codes/links at the bottom of the article. Uhm, I made some half decent meals this week for not really going to the grocery store much, I guess. So… do you come here often?
Figure 2: I’m not saying Kenji would be proud of my menemen, but I’d like to think he wouldn’t be disappointed.
All jokes aside, I was really happy to get to announce passing the 1000 mark for switches last weekend and even more happy with all of the warm reception from my social media posts about the collection. I’ve been slowly picking up more and more exciting packs of switches from people over the last few weeks – both vendors and private sales – and I’m steadily chugging along towards 1500 switches and slowly increasing the reviews, scorecards, and measurements out there for you all to read. Thank you to all of you who are sending me stuff, and doubly so to all of you continuing to support and read my articles week in and out.
Switch Background
While the SP Star Magic Girl Classic and Dark switches from TheKeyCompany (TKC) have quite a bit more history surrounding them than most of the soon-to-release or prototype switches I’ve been reviewing over the past few months, their inspiration and thematic design actually have an even deeper history. First designed by Mintlodica, former COO of TKC and creator of CuteKeyboard.Club, DSA Magic Girl was released in 2019 as a best selling keycap set for TKC reportedly based on a 90’s anime that I refuse to look into further because I’m not a weeb. While the sales of the light-themed only version of these keycaps caught plenty enough attention, and even some by 50 Cent in a relatively memorable social media post, it wasn’t until the end of 2020 when the Magic Girl line of products and keycaps really took off to where they are today.
Figure 3: Even with context this is a bit of a hard photo to explain if I’m being honest.
In Q4 of 2020, TKC re-released the original DSA Magic Girl keycap set but also brought with it a whole slew of new products including a dark-themed Magic Girl keycap set, deskmats, artisans, cables, and just about everything that you could possibly color-scheme in a keyboard except for PCBs. In addition to the release of these, and seemingly in tandem with Novelkeys’ decision to release custom themed NK65s as entry-level boards to bring more people into the hobby with, TKC also announced Magic Girl themed Portico keyboards, which are their own entry level 65% keyboards. In these boards, and released shortly thereafter, were a set of matching colored, tactile SP Star switches to match the light and dark themes of the Porticos.
The initial sale of these switches, as well as all Magic Girl themed products, ended on December 4th of 2020 after having been open for roughly one month’s time. Sold in packs of 25 for $16.25 per pack, or $0.65 per switch, the Dark and Classic Magic Girl switches were marketed as 67g, tactile, and nylon-housing based SP Star switches which haven’t previously released in the U.S. from vendors who were not simply reselling off of Aliexpress. In fact, at this point in time there was very little information about SP Star branded switches at all given that the company had only released a handful of switches with very little marketing in the East. In addition to being sold in packs of 25, each pack came with a reusable plastic storage container previously seen in C3 Tangerine V2 and C3 Kiwi releases with appropriately themed Magic Girl stickers. According to the update page, shipment of the switches was slated to begin around the middle of July of 2021 after having arrived at their fulfillment facility in late June of 2021.
Figure 4: SP Star Magic Girl Classic (Left) and Dark (Right) switches featuring their respective special packaging.
In between the end of the groupbuy sale in 2020 and their shipment to customers beginning in July of 2021, though, TKC faced some backlash in regards to switches previously sold through them. Specifically referring to a set of defective batch of C3 Tangerine V2s and C3 Kiwis sold earlier in the year, around March of 2021 TKC began receiving several reports of both of these switches having wobbling/clicking issues in roughly 30% of switches customers had received. Soon thereafter they reached out to JWK, the manufacturer of both of these switches, with request for a formal investigation on the matter which was in turn released to the public on April 9th, 2021.
According to this internal investigation by JWK, as well as the announcement posted by the TKC team on their various platforms, the molds which had caused the aformentioned issues with respect to the Tangerine V2s and Kiwis was discovered to have been affected by a loose component which penetrated and damaged the bottom housings of these switches during their injection molding phase. Given no real clean means of handling the situation, TKC then issued replacements of unused, defective switches originally sold between February 16th and April 2nd of 2021 as well as released a series of statements regarding these switches and quality control in general. One silent change that occurred as a result of these issues with respect to switches, though, first made its appearance with the SP Star Classic and Magic Girl switches being shipped in July 2021 in the form of shipping bags featuring ‘lot’ numbers.
Figure 5: SP Star Magic Girl switches in sales bags with lot number stickers.
In order to mitigate the confusion surrounding any potential issues with respect to molds or defective switches in the future, TKC now packges its 25 packs of switches featuring a sticker containig a lot number. Featuring two letters followed by four numbers, these lot numbers will not only be used to help them more efficiently trace issues back to specific instances of machine malfunction or defective molds, but will also allow for TKC to more seamlessly handle any potential defects without the need to issue blanket returns for a specific timeframe of sales. As of writing this document, no other vendor in both the East nor West is currently selling switches directly to consumers in this fashion with lot numbers provided. While Zeal packs his switches with a handwritten order number and companies buying switches in bulk (more than 1000 switches) will have lot codes on the boxes sent to them, this represents a historical first for switches as of the time of writing this document that I’m personally incredibly supportive of.
Magic Girl Classic Switch Performance
Appearance
This is by far going to be one of my favorite ‘Appearance’ sections I’ve ever written in a review before. It’s not necessarily because I’ve not yet inspected SP Star switches at the mold-detail level in a review, nor is it because I’ve found cool quirks I’d like to share with you all, but because I can finally diatribe about the phrase ‘recolor’. As a result of general misinformation surrounding switches and/or public ignorance, too many damn people claim many switches to just be recolors of other switches. Unfortunately, because the phrase recolor denotes that the only difference between two switches is the color, and literally nothing else, this phrase is used incorrectly 99% of the time. This pair of Magic Girl switches, though, is a bona fide example of what recolors are as they are identical to each other to the smallest detail except for color.
Figure 6: Stop. Calling. These. Recolors.
So, given that these two switches are the exact same save their color, I’m going to choose to do the rest of this section (as well as the rest of the review for that matter) on the Magic Girl Classic switches for two reasons. Aside the fact that they strike my ‘uwu’ bone just a bit more than the Dark versions, they’re also much easier to photograph and distinguish mold specific details on. Feel free to disagree with me all you’d like, but even after thoroughly abusing carrots as a child it’s still harder for me to make details out on navy than yellow and mint.
Coming in as tactile switches with a 67g. bottom out to them, both Magic Girls feature SP Star branded top housings and identical, normal looking gold-plated springs. (Normal being not extra long and with evenly spaced threading throughout the spring.) The Classic version of these switches come featuring a mint-colored top housing, yellow colored bottom housing, and pink stem. The Dark version of these switches feature a uniformly navy-colored housing and a purple stem. Beyond these details, all of the interesting appearance-based features of these switches occur at the mold-detail level.
Figure 7: SP Star Magic Girl Dark (Left) and Classic (Right) switches.
Looking first at the top housings of these switches the exterior is rather plain save the nameplates which feature a very subtly raised “SP-Star” logo in their slanted, sleek looking font. Previous iterations of SP Star branded switches featured a slightly different, more vertically aligned and bubbly looking version of this logo as well as ones that simply read “Star.” As of the time of publishing this, though, this was the most up to date logo used by SP-Star. Interestingly, as well, as I was inspecting some of my switches, I came across a singular one out of my entire batch which featured a slightly more raised ‘r’ at the end of “SP-Star” than the rest of the nameplate. Needless to say, I thought this was incredibly neat.
Figure 8: SP Star nameplate evolution going from oldest to newest, left to right.
Figure 9: SP Star “Error” Nameplate in which the ‘r’ in Star is significantly more pronounced than the other letters.
Internally, the top housings of the Magic Girl switches were anything but boring. Coming with a slew of features not seen previously in inspections of neither Tecsee nor JWK molds, I would like to first point to the raised bar on the inside edge of the LED-slot. While I’ve previously noted raised sections here before, none have been in a rectangular formation as shown below. On this raised plateau, as well as on the other three outer edges of the top housing, there appears small, smooth rectangles akin to the mold circles previously seen on JWK switches. Looking further internally to the inner hole within the top housing, it features a stepped ridge with much more intricate detailing than I’ve previously seen in any switch. While it doesn’t appear to be an issue with any of the switches I’ve tested, I would be concerned that this level of detail would lead to issues with performance purely from the complexity of molds required and the increased likelihood for molding issues to occur. In yet another level of detail as well, the central slide rails where the front and back plates of the stem collide are tapered on the top of the LED side and include a small rectangular outcropping at the top of the nameplate side. I’m not entirely certain how much these design choices ultimately affect the performance of the switches though.
Figure 10: Internal of SP Star Magic Girl top housing featuring raised ledge on interior of LED slot as well as complex internal design structure.
Looking next towards the stems, these will be a nice intermission in between the weird and unique features of the top and bottom housings. These stems have a slew of features previously seen in Durock/JWK and Tecsee switches including the tapered slide rails, stage-tapered central pole, and backplate wide-set mold circles. As well, these switches are reported to come with a light factory lubing that is noticeable quite readily upon inspection under LED lighting. Of the switches inspected, all appear to feature a relatively even, thin, and complete coating on all sides of the stem including the front and back plates, which is a bit out of the normal for other pre-lubed switches from factory. As well, I feel like these stems feature a much more noticeable seam along the frontal plane than I’ve previously seen in switch stems prior, though I may be mistaken. (Don’t forget about those transverse or sagittal planes either, you pre-med kids out there.)
Figure 11: Angled shot of the SP Star Magic Girl stem showing center pole and slider rail taper, mold circles, and pronounced transverse seam.
Figure 12: Total coverage of side of stem with factory lubing as can be seen by the shining of the lube against LED light.
Rounding out our exciting tour of SP-Star switch molds and proving that “they’re not just made by Durock/JWK”, we move next to the bottom housings. Externally on the bottom side they feature a pretty standard layout with a two-number mold marking in between the 3rd and 4th LED/Diode pins. Unlike mold markings previously seen in this location, though, these appear significantly thinner and less raised, and even to such an extent that its fairly hard to make these markings out in normal light.
Figure 13: Underside of SP Star Magic girl bottom housing showing extremely faint mold marking.
Internally, the bottom housings of these switches feature some familiar and some different characteristics from molds previously explored in reviews. Similar to previous releases, they feature the full set of eight mold circles around the upper lip of the bottom housings as well as similar mold circle patterns at the deepest part of the housing to Durock/JWK switches like Lavenders. Unlike those switches, though, there are two unique features which really stand out. The first is that at the base of the slider rails of each switch there is a small outcropping of extra thick material. While extra material has been seen here before, it has always come in large, squared off patches rather than small outcroppings as such. The second, much more subtle detail about these switches has to deal with the shape of the outer LED/Diode pin slots. While the partitioning of the inner two LED pin slots to the outer two diode pin slots has been done previously, never before have these outer chambers consisted of sloped edges that form a sort of cone down towards the hole in the bottom. Again, I’m not entirely sure what this has to do with general performance of these switches, but it definitely does make them feel more special.
Figure 14: Internal structure of SP Star Magic Girl bottom housing showing off padding at bottom of slider rail and conical diode holes.
Push Feel
The ‘Push Feel’ section of any tactile switch review is often where people start out their reading experience, so I’m including this fourth wall break here to tell you that you should go read the rest of this review while you’re at it. On the grand scale of tactile strength, the SP Star Magic Girl switches sit quite well in the middle of the spectrum, with perhaps a slight edge towards the lighter edge of tactility. Starting about 20% of the way into the downstroke, the tactile bump has a well-rounded, snappy type feeling to it without any sort of sharp nor overly prolonged feeling the tactile bump. Without actually sitting down to compare these to anything nor going back to edit this sentence, my kneejerk reaction has me pin these as having a less-aggressive feeling bump than other mid-range tactile switches such as Kiwis, which have also been released by TKC.
Figure 15: Questionably useful artistic rendering of SP Star Magic Girl force curve diagram.
Beyond the decently well rounded, high-set, and smooth tactile bump, these switches do surprisingly well by all other feeling metrics talked about in switches. For the thin amount of factory lubing they do have, they have enough smoothness to prevent some of the harsh scratchiness often encountered with factory lube jobs but still enough character that these don’t feel overly smooth. As well, the topping and bottoming out in the nylon housings is surprisingly solid, firm, and muted. While just a tiny bit thinner in the topping out than the bottoming out, these are one of the few instances in recent memory that I can point to where the top and bottom housings were this close in terms of feelings upon collision.
Sound
On the whole, these switches are surprisingly quiet for something labeled as a tactile switch. Regardless of the fact that these have full nylon housings, I’ve become rather jaded towards the sound side of tactile switches with this rise in high strength tactile switches attempting to out-decibel Cherry MX Blues in use during an osu! game. While the tactile bump gives a rounded, muted, and soft snapping sound to it, the bottoming and topping out of these switches really don’t provide all that much more total noise to the switch at normal typing speeds. At higher typing speeds the topping outs begin to add a bit of a more bright poppy sound to the switches, but even then, these are still surprisingly quiet for what I’ve become accustomed to expecting of tactile switches. Based on these sound factors alone, I could easily imagine that people who are super into exploring frankenswitch combinations would want to try these housings out.
Wobble
While these switches really don’t have that many glaring negative points to pick upon in this review, the stem wobble is probably the biggest noticeable disappointment. The N/S direction stem wobble is not necessarily a lot relative to all switches ever released, but it is definitely distinctly more noticeable than in most recent switch releases from bigger factories. It’s to the extent that I’d be concerned about it potentially bothering my own typing if I were using high profile caps such as MT3 or SA. The E/W direction, thankfully, is much more controlled even if still present more than one would like. Aside stem wobble, there is no give in the top housings in any direction even after having opened and closed them forcefully several times with a metal switch opener.
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, that can be found under the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking on the card above. This sheet typically gets updated weekly on mail days, and has been a subtle project I’ve been developing for some time now!
Other
I already pointed it out once above in the Background section of this review, but I’m going to do it here yet again because of how important I truly feel it is. All vendors selling switches should be putting lot numbers on their packaging, sales page, or somewhere publicly available for consumers to view. While I don’t necessarily think it needs to be done with the same amount of plastic and stickers that TKC chose to do it here, it still represents the cleanest way for customers to be able to not only check with other consumers if issues are just specific them, specific to their batch, or for all batches, but it also allows you all to keep yourself safe and organized in the event of issues with your switches.
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 SP Star Magic Girls side by side.
Figure 17: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: Star Purple, Moyu Black, Naevy V1.5, Zealio V2 AC 67g., TTC Watermelon Milkshake, C3 Kiwi)
If you would like to learn more about these switches, I’ve already completed reviews or scorecards for some of them. If the names below are highlighted in a grey color, click them to be taken to my other content or reviews on them!
Star Purple
- While these both have a similar sound with respect to their housing collisions and tactile bump, the Star Purples are effectively Magic Girls “cranked up a notch” in terms of loudness and how strong the sounds are.
- Surprisingly, the Magic Girl switches are a bit better in terms of stem wobble in both the N/S and E/W direction than the original Star switches, but not by entirely all that much.
- There is an audible spring ping at higher activation speeds that is noticeable in the Star Purples that simply isn’t noticeable in the SP Star Magic Girls.
Moyu Black
- Needless to say, the constant comparisons between Moyu Blacks and Holy Pandas should indicate that these are significantly higher strength in terms of tactility than most switches, including the Magic Girls.
- The bottoming and topping out of the Magic Girls are not only much more firm and muted feeling, but also significantly less harsh and pointy feeling than the Moyu Blacks.
- The tactile bump of the SP Star Magic Girls feels quite analogous to a true snap of the fingers as opposed to the tactile bump of the Moyu Blacks which feels more like a slap.
Naevy V1.5
- The tactile bump of the Naevy V1.5s is quite similar in terms of overall strength and size to the Magic Girls, but it does feel like it sits a fraction of a millimeter further down in the downstroke than the Magic Girls.
- While similar sounding at slower activation speeds, as the typing speed picks up the Naevy V1.5 switches quickly become the louder of the two pairs.
- Overall, the housing collisions of the Naevy V1.5 switches feels much for impactful and hit a bit harder even than the Magic Girls even though they’re still plenty firm feeling on their own.
Zealio V2 AC 67g.
- In terms of both sound and push feel, the Zealio V2 67g. switches have a snappier and more stronger tactile bump than the SP Star Magic Girl switches.
- Aside the fact that they are simply louder at the tactile bump, the Zealio V2 switches are louder than the Magic Girls due to louder housing collisions as well as a spring ping that becomes noticeable at higher activation speeds.
- The stem wobble, and especially that in the N/S direction between these two switches is comparable though it is slightly lesser in the Zealio V2 switches.
TTC Watermelon Milkshake
- In terms of tactile strength, the TTC Watermelon Milkshake switches are noticeably softer and less pronounced. If these and Magic Girls were tested blindfolded side by side there’s a decent chance that the TTC would be more likened to Cherry MX Browns than the Magic Girls.
- Surprisingly though, even with a softer tactile bump, the Watermelon Milkshake switches are louder with respect to topping and bottoming out, which I suspect is due to a difference in housing material between the two switches.
- The TTC Watermelon Milkshake switches edge out the Magic Girl switches with respect to stem wobble in both the N/S and E/W directions.
C3 Kiwi
- The tactile bump location between the C3 Kiwis and the SP Star Magic Girl switches is probably the most similar out of any on this list, though the Magic Girls are a bit less sharp and scratchy through the stem/leaf interaction.
- Overall, the Magic Girl switches are significantly more quiet than the C3 Kiwi switches.
- The SP Star Magic girl switches are just a hair worse in terms of stem wobble than the C3 Kiwi switches. Both do have no top housing wobble issues as far as I can tell, though.
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.
Push Feel
In terms of being a middle-light tactile switch, the Magic Girls do a great job of providing enough of a snappy feedback to register as distinctly tactile while being quite good with smoothness and housing collisions. Ideally with a bit more smoothness and tiny bit less awkward pre-travel to the tactile bump these could be an instant classic in terms of push feeling.
Wobble
Unfortunately, the stem wobble on these switches is truly their one weak point. While not so much likely to be noticeable in the E/W direction, the N/S stem wobble might be enough to be noticeable to the average user when in a board. Housing wobble otherwise nonexistent.
Sound
While these do feel closer to a silent tactile than true tactile in terms of sound, these really do sound quite good for a tactile switch. Quiet, muted, and mostly firm at both the tactile bump as well as the topping and bottoming out experiences.
Context
Coming as the first custom-colored SP Star switches in the west, these are exciting both on their own as well as in context with their pre-installation in TKC’s entry level Portico board. While the price at $0.65 per is a bit steep for the average beginner to truly appreciate, considering the packaging sold alongside these as well as the use of lot numbers really does sell the outside-of-switch contextual points on these switches.
Other
With solid sales and good performance metrics, only time can tell how well these will be accepted by the wider community. It certainly does provoke thought though as to whether future TKC/SP-Star releases will differ or build upon the positive notes of these.
Statistics
If you are looking at this statistics section for the first time and wondering where the hell are the other 96 switches that I’ve ranked are, or what ‘hard’ versus ‘soft’ ranks refer to specifically, I’d encourage you to head on over to my GitHub linked in the table above or at the links in the top right hand of this website to check out my database of scorecards as well as the ‘Composite Score Sheet’ which has a full listing of the rankings for each and every switch I’ve ranked thus far.
Final Conclusions
At the end of all of this review, I can say that I was actually pleasantly surprised with the amount of interesting details about these switches I was able to pick out over the course of my testing. To be entirely honest, I had set out to do this review quite literally on a whim well outside of my normal writing schedule and didn’t necessarily anticipate it turning out as well as it has. First of all, the interesting complexities of the molds for SP Star switches, which I hadn’t analyzed previously, really stood out to me both in helping prove these weren’t made by JWK but also showing all of the variation that can still exist within the MX-style switch footprint. As well, their overall performance as tactiles distinctly aimed for entry-level audiences was something to behold as well. The all-nylon housing mixed with the not-too-strong tactility of these switches will really spoil those who’ve not previously been into mechanical keyboards quite a bit and I’d like to think it will eventually leave them disappointed with the sound from other non-nylon or non-SP Star switches if they choose to expand outwards from there. Even the contextual point I’ve harped on a few times in regard to listing of lot numbers on switches is simply a great point in favor of the release of these switches.
While at this point only time may tell how well these switches roll out and become accepted within the wider community at large, I do think these stand a decently strong chance of being a favorite by many. Even with the small points and attention to detail level issues I’ve spotted, I could see myself using these if I were to have a build to ever call for it or if I wanted to use a tactile switch in that sort of soft-middle range of tactility. All in all, I was quite pleased with these and I’m very curious to see what everyone else will feel about these switches soon as they begin getting them in the mail.
Sponsors/Affiliates
Mechbox.co.uk
- A wonderful UK based operation which sells singles to switches that I’ve used above in my comparisons for collectors and the curious alike. Matt has gone out of his way to help me build out big parts of my collection, and buying something using this link supports him as well as my content!
KeebCats UK
- A switch peripheral company based out of the UK which sells everything switch adjacent you could ask for, they’ve been a huge help recently with my film and lube supply for personal builds, and they want to extend that help to you too. Use code ‘GOAT’ for 10% off your order when you check them out!
proto[Typist] Keyboards
- An all-things keyboard vendor based out of the UK, proto[Typist] is a regular stocker of everything from switches to the latest keyboard and keycap groupbuys. While I’ve bought things from the many times in the past, they also are a sponsor of my work and allow me to get some of the great switches I write about!
MKUltra Corporation
- We may have stolen a few government secrets to get this one together. MKUltra is a US vendor that truly fills all the gaps other vendors simply don’t offer and is continuing to expand their switch and switch related peripherals by the day. Use code ‘GOAT’ for 5% off your order when you check them out!
Further Reading
SP Star Magic Girl Switch Sales Page
TKC’s Magic Girl 2020 Sales Offerings
Figure 20: You’re still here? It’s over. Go Home.