I appreciate the in depth writeup! Made me want to relate and share my experiences too. My journey took me from choc v1 whites -> robins -> sunsets -> browns -> pro reds…
Whites I really liked the whites, but like you, the inconsistent and occasional pre-bump activation drove me nuts.
Robins I thought these were supposed to be lighter than the whites but are actually heavier. I was mistaken and disappointed. The colour and sound is really nice though.
Sunsets The sunsets were really hyped up and also really good, but I realised I like a little bit of pre-travel rather than a bump right at the top, and I like the lighter, crisper clicky feeling of the whites than the seemingly heavier bump on the sunsets.
Browns Meh. Their reputation precedes them and while I don’t think they’re as horrible as the memes make them out to be, I don’t really feel any unique value it provides that would make me pick them over the others.
Pro Reds Right now my daily driver has pro reds installed, and I’m surprised by how much I’m adapting to linears. I’ve hated linears on MX-switch based keyboards so thought I would hate it here too, but I actually don’t mind it with the shorter travel of the chocs compared to MX switches.
This is also my first attempt at going with significantly lower actuation weight switches and at first I was skeptical, but like many others, after adapting to it I really like it. I can imagine pinks being way too light though. I’m considering trying the 40g greys/silvers sometime? Don’t know how much of a difference 5g will make, but I do feel like it might suit me a smidge better since I like to rest my fingers on the keys and I still get the occasional unintended keypress with the pro reds.
v2 Browns I’m really surprised by what you’be described about the v2 browns, it sounds like a whole different beast from the v1 browns and much closer to the sunsets in overall character. Now you have me tempted to look for a choc v2 board to test it with.___
Good to know, although in that case wouldn’t I be better off picking from the many linear options already available? Sorry, genuinely asking, not sure if I’m missing some context behind that advice.
I like clicky keys. I like the feedback, but the inconsistency in relationship between the click and actual actuation in the v1 whites annoyed me. I first thought it was maybe just a bad batch of keys but after learning more about the actual click mechanisms and the general tolerances required it seemed like an inevitable flaw in the design?