A glance at my overall opinion of a switch, and a visual TL;DR for reviews long and short. Larger numbers are better.

Sound: One of the first things people want to know about a switch: is it easy on the ears? Does it make an awful din?

Feel: What I consider to be the most important individual aspect of a switch – how does it treat your fingers?

Looks: Might matter less than the rest, but still matters plenty for some folks. I prefer the word “aesthetics” but I don’t like how it looks on the chart – so “looks” it is. Is it pretty?

Familiarity: Is the average user going to be able to pick this up and work with it right away, or will it take some getting used to? Is it all-out weird or totally approachable?

Parity: A shorter word for “consistency” – those last two aspects, are they more or less the same from switch to switch?

Value: Something of a contextual summary; how do all those other factors fit-in with the price? Not a direct measure of cost so much as my opinion of how much quality you get relative to that cost.


This graph shows what I think this switch (or keyboard) is good for, in terms of both task and environment.


This graph compares the push weight at various critical points. Sometimes visually similar to a force-curve graph, this is a little different, not tracking travel distance and being a pure comparison between the weights at meaningful points in travel (which may not be the same switch-to-switch) rather than measured distances.


This graph tracks the travel distance at key points.


This graph breaks-down the many aspects of switch wobble, giving an overall and comparative glance at the aspect and its various sub-components.


This graph breaks-down the sound character into component parts and their relative prominence.


This graph tracks various aspects of un-intended noise.


DCX “Drama”:

I’d originally included this in my review for DCX Cyber, but realized it was a little too off-topic and gave the section its own little post. For a little context about DCX and myself; I was among those most vocally critical towards Drop’s handling of this profile’s originally-intended name, MT2. In the intervening time a few things have changed, and I wanted to talk about that for posterity.

I fully believe no one meant an ounce of harm here, but this was deffo an “oops”. Image from Drop’s profile announcement.

I won’t be getting into the weeds of exactly what Drop staff did and didn’t say to catch ire, as I think everyone is better-served that way; this is about context. I centered my criticism first around the dissonance between using a name inherently derived from a popular creator’s handle (Matt3o, most recently known for creating MT3) while in no way involving that creator. Drop’s response was perhaps unfortunate if well-intended; said creator had more or less the same reaction to that response I did, expressed disappointment, and peaced-out.

And thus, I yote to lands unknown.

Before I did, however, I went out of my way to highlight that while the name choice was perhaps ill-informed or poorly considered, that it was never actually the problem despite all the drama appearing to center around it. The only real issue was poor (or sometimes hollow) communication with both creators and customers, which had been an issue with Drop for a long time – basically since the beginning. When confronted with some decisions that customers didn’t like, Drop (at the time) elected to side-step and not address some material points. The instigating thing (the name) was actually a no-big-deal-at-all sort of thing – but how they handled it was a problem.

I pointed out that their actual products, likely these keys included, tend to be excellent – and that it’s only their communication that has long been lacking. I said that while I am indeed walking away for the time being, that I’ll keep my eye on the space because even at the time, I did see a desire from Drop to take stock and move forward in a productive way. I told them then that if they can be open and communicate better with their customers and creators from there, that they can fully expect to earn back my trust and vocal advocacy.

Text in screenshot reads: I'll be real with you guys - I'm not sure Drop will ever regain my trust after how this whole thing played-out in the days following the initial announcement, but if it's ever going to happen, this move represents a great first step in that direction. While maybe not actually the most important part of all this, changing the name was a good call and I think you picked a good one. What I do think is the most important part of this is acknowledging what happened and communicating about it; and while I'd still like to see more transparency about this and in general, this post is more than I expected at this point and it's refreshing - keep it up! Moving forward: when in doubt, just communicate. I understand you guys reached out to matt3o and smoothed things over with him personally - I'm really glad to hear about that - and it's encouraging for the relationship between Drop and the communities its serves moving forward. On his blog matt3o mentions he got the impression that Drop just wants to learn from this situation, move on, and keep making fun stuff - that's exactly what I'd like to see happen. I really hope the biggest lesson internalized here is that on-the-level communication is always the best policy; lack thereof has literally been my only complaint about Drop in the past few years, though it has been a recurring one. I'd be all too happy to see that stop here. Don't forget the Streisand Effect - placing oneself in its path can be ugly - much uglier than eating any amount of crow, fresh or otherwise. Specifically: yes, I'd say the name was ill-advised, but please please know that wasn't the actual root problem - the actual problem was the lack of communication that led up to and followed it. It seems to me you guys finally did come around to the right answer(s) in the form of this positive development (reaching out to matt3o, changing the name, and most importantly just talking about it), and I'd really like to see that not even be necessary in the future. Stuff happens, mistakes happen, miscommunications happen - no problem - just be on the level about it and there's a very good chance most folks will stick with you for it. This post is a great example of doing just that, and I genuinely hope it sets the tone for positive community and creative relations with Drop moving forward. Keep it up, and you guys may yet earn back my patronage and vocal support. I'll be watching!

A screenshot of what I said to Drop before stepping away for a few months.

Well – here we are – so what did Drop do to win back both my and (more notably) Matt3o’s engagement?

IMHO, just about the best things they possibly could have – and reasonably quickly if not instantly, once the extent of the backlash had become clear to the organization as a whole: They listened to their customers and collaborators, took a step back, realized the true issues, and adjusted their approach.

No renders here: these are photographs on the product page. Oh yeah, it dropped in-stock, too.

They started being more detailed and transparent in communications. (Yeah, product descriptions are still fluffy but that’s to be expected – and hey, they’re well written in that fluffiness, at least.) They started communicating more things up-front, and even acknowledging potential pain-points with products and specific plans on how to address them in subsequent versions. Well – at very least not stopping their collaborating creators from doing so on their site. DCX Cyber and its designer MiTo’s post on Drop’s blog section being the critical example:

"Screenshot

DCX Cyber was the brace that healed the camel’s back for me in multiple ways. Not only did I specifically want the colorway in a shorter profile, but its rollout and introduction were refreshingly transparent. I genuinely don’t think I could ask for more or faster improvement with what I view as Drop’s biggest issue, so here I am keeping my word and my end of the bargain.

They’ve genuinely earned-back my patronage and my vocal support, so I’m happy to be sharing with you my thoughts of more Drop goodies moving forward.