Switch Specifications:
Tactile | 4.00mm | 52g Bottom-Out Force | Plate or PCB Mount | ~£0.30 per switch
Gateron Brown switches have a very soft, barely noticeable tactile bump, with the tactile event occurring around 1.2mm. Its lack of tactility doesn’t make it favourable for typing nor gaming, but it makes up for it in the smoothness and price department. With that said, I cannot recommend it as a daily driver switch when other, more tactile switches make more sense to purchase.
Here’s the video review if you prefer watching content:
Smoothness: 6/10
Smoothness is by far its biggest selling point. The Gateron Brown outperforms all brown clone switches in this department, but not a huge margin. It’s certainly an upgrade from the Cherry MX Brown; the switch it’s copying from.
Gateron Brown switch disassembled
Weighting: 4/10
It’s lighter than the competition too, with a peak tactile force of just 48g, closely matching the Cherry equivalent by only 3g according to HaaTa’s force curves. It’s fairly comparable to the Cherry MX Brown in this regard, which I personally dislike; it’s too light for my taste.
Sound: 5/10
It’s nothing special. In fact, it’s very average. Though, I’m glad Gateron was able to refine the switch to the point where I don’t notice any spring ping. That’s a positive, to say the least.
Typing Performance: 5/10
With the seemingly absent tactile bump, typing on them felt flat and boring. Why offer a so called – “tactile switch” when tactility is the least important aspect? I don’t understand. At this point, its smoothness is what’s keeping it below a 5/10.
Greetech Brown stem (left) and Gateron Brown stem (right)
Gaming Performance: 6/10
It makes for a decent gaming switch, as its essentially not even tactile, so you’ll barely even feel them when dominating the enemy team. I bet with the right amount of lube; you can make them even less tactile! I didn’t do that of, course, but I can see it being a fun experiment.
Final Score = 26/50 (52%)