| Switch Type: | Tactile |
| Mount Type: | Plate Mount |
| Travel Distance: | 1.9mm Actuation | 4.0mm Total |
| Force: | 41g Operating | 60g Bottom-out |
| Price: | ~£4.65 (10 pieces) |
The Kailh Brown is a light tactile Cherry MX Brown clone switch found in the budget end of the switch market.
Smoothness: 5/10
On-centre keypresses are quite smooth with only a few switches feeling inconsistent. However, this probably won’t be noticeable to many people.
Off-centre keypresses show more inconsistencies, especially when pressed at the very edge of the keycap. This further magnified when keys are pressed slowly.
Overall, smoothness isn’t the strongest point of the Kailh Brown, but I wouldn’t outright say it’s terrible. Although, it is better than the Cherry MX Brown, so there’s that.
Kailh Brown switches disassembled.
Weighting: 6/10
The switch actuates at 41g at 1.9mm and bottoms out at 60g at 4.0mm of total travel. According to Haata’s force graphs, it is also slighter heavier than the MX Brown.
The Kailh Brown’s tactile event is rounded just like the Cherry equivalent, but it occurs before the 1mm mark only giving you a 0.2mm pre-travel. The Greetech Brown also has this characteristic, but the Greetech Brown has a much more ‘cliff like’ tactile event.
Overall, the weighing is light, but not extremely so. With that said, I find the Kailh Brown to be a better weighted switch compared to the MX Brown.
Sound: 5/10
If you listen closely, there is some ping in some of the switches, but it’s not noticeable in normal typing speeds. Otherwise, they are standard sounding switches as expected – in other words: Average.
Typing Performance: 6/10
Typing Performance is one of the Kailh Brown’s strongest suits.
Its smoothness is nothing to really write home about, but it’s not terrible either. Its weighting may be light, but for the most part, I don’t often find myself mistyping words or phrases which usually happens when a switch is too light or too heavy. Also, it doesn’t sound like crap.
It’s an overall comfortable switch to type on, and I would give it a point higher if the switch was more tactile.
Gaming Performance: 6/10
Another one of its strong suits – Gaming Performance.
As the tactile event is light and rounded, it can hardly be felt during fast and intense gameplay. However, for slower paced games, the tactile bump gives you assurance when a key has been actuated.
Overall, I like the ‘hybrid style’ of the Kailh Brown, but it wouldn’t be my main choice if I was strictly focused on building a keyboard for gaming. It’s more of – “A jack of all trades is a master of none…” switch which the MX Brown failed to deliver.
Final Score = 28/50 (56%)
2 thoughts on “Kailh Brown”