Cherry MX Browns Are Terrible!

Why I think the most popular mechanical keyboard switch is actually the worst

Scollurio
4 min readJul 20, 2020
mechanical gaming keyboard in red light
Photo by Padraig Treanor on Unsplash

I am really into mechanical keyboards and urge everyone to at least give it a try. I keep exploring more and more switches as I delve deeper into the wonderful world of mechanical keyboards. Maybe I am obsessing over it, who knows. Anyways, while I think that Cherry MX mechanical keyboard switches offer a great “allround” selection of capable switches and a solid entrypoint for anyone interested, I absolutely don’t get why the Cherry MX Brown switches are so popular.

Unpopular opinion

They are supposed to be tactile switches. That means, somewhere halfway down when pressing the key on your mechanical keyboard, you’re supposed to feel a little “bump” or some kind of resistance you push through, when you reach the activationpoint. That’s supposedly “tactile”.

But in reality the Cherry MX Brown mechanical switches just feel like “broken” or “scratchy” linears, like Cherry MX Red switches that got sand into them. They’re way too light and don’t offer much of a resistance, the tactile bump is just too subtle.

They are truly so awful, I even prefer (well done) rubber domes over them.

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Scollurio

Hailing from Austria, a self-employed graphics designer and writer since 2009. Loves long walks in the forest, rain, thoughtful solitude and silly raccoons.