| Switch Type: | Linear |
| Mount Type: | PC Mount |
| Travel Distance: | 1.6mm Actuation | 4.0mm Total |
| Force: | 45g Operating | 65g Bottom-out |
| Stem Length (mm): | 12.29 |
| Price: | £1.50 (10 pieces) on AliExpress |
The Outemu Silver is a lightly weighted linear switch and is a clone of the Cherry MX Speed Silver. Though, there are some notable differences between the two.
TL;DR
On paper, it’s an Outemu Red switch with a higher actuation point. However, in practice, both switches perform very similarly. In fact, I found it hard to determine any differences between the two. Adding to this, the differences between the Cherry MX Red and the Cherry MX Speed Silver was much more obvious.
In my opinion, these switches are essentially Outemu Reds with a different name and a different stem colour.
Smoothness: 4/10
On-centre keypresses are somewhat smooth with only a few switches exhibiting minor levels of scratchiness and inconsistencies at slow keypresses.
Off-centre keypresses are much more inconsistent with 70% of switches exhibiting high levels of scratchiness, especially at slower keypresses.
Overall, they’re slightly worse than the Cherry MX Speed Silver which I did not expect. These are below average and I don’t recommend them if you’re looking for smoothness.
Outemu Silver switch disassembled.
Weighting: 5/10
According to Outemu, these switches actuate at 1.6mm at 45g and bottom-out at 65g with a total travel of 4mm.
In the real world, they felt like a generic linear switch. Surprisingly, they didn’t feel like a ‘speed’ switch at all. The higher than usual 1.6mm actuation point was pretty much non-existent. Perhaps, a difference of 0.4mm is hard to detect? I’m not so sure, but I certainly didn’t feel the actuation to be any higher than usual.
What about the weighting? They’re on the light side, on par with the Cherry MX Speed Silver and with other light linear switches like the Outemu Red. I’m not a fan of it, but since the actuation feels more normal, it was slightly more tolerable.
Consistency wise, they’re fine, I suspect most people wouldn’t have any issues with it. I’d still say that they’re less than ideal especially when typing slowly, but they’re usable.
Overall, these are very average switches at most, and I’m still unsure who the target audience for them are given they perform very similarly to the Outemu Red.
Sound: 5/10
These switches have a weird quirk where there is quite a bit more top-out sound rather than bottom-out sound; this is extremely common amongst silenced switches, but these are not silenced and still have this feature.
Since they have this rather odd feature for a normal switch, they’re also quieter than usual, but bear in mind that they aren’t as quiet as an actual silenced switch.
Additionally, and similarly to the MX Speed Silver, these switches also have light spring ping. I’m sure this was unintentional, but the fact that these also ping suggest that they a more accurate clone 🙂
Overall, apart from their weird quirk, they’re rather uninspiring.
The Outemu Silver stem length is 12.29 mm.
Typing Performance: 6/10
The differences with these switches are most obvious when typing. Unlike the MX Speed Silver, I didn’t find these to be too sensitive. In fact, they felt very normal as I didn’t struggle with the higher than usual actuation point of 1.6mm.
However, the Outemu Silver has a softer and mushier typing feel, akin to a silenced switch (whilst not actually being silenced) which I found odd. Also, this aspect of the switch was more noticeable when typing at speed.
When it came to the light weighting, this is one of the very few speed switches where I wasn’t too bothered by it since the actuation point felt normal. It reminds me of the Akko POM Silver that I tested in 2022.
Moreover, the scratchiness and inconsistencies weren’t too off-putting assuming you’re typing at normal or faster speeds. If you have 50 WPM or less, the scratchiness could start to bother you.
Overall, this felt like any other generic linear switch and not a typical ‘speed’ switch. It’s not super impressive performance wise, but it wasn’t horrible either.
Gaming Performance: 7/10
In short, slightly better than the Cherry MX Speed Silver.
However, these are still lightly weighted switches which I’m still not a fan of. Although, since their actuation point is lower, I didn’t make as many accidental keypresses when gaming which was a big upside.
Additionally, their scratchiness and inconsistencies didn’t tend to show up as often compared to the MX Speed Silver especially in faster-paced titles, but they do in slower-paced games which is a shame.
Moreover, the aforementioned mushy key feel was present during gaming, but it didn’t bother me as much compared to when I used the switch for typing.
Overall, as a pure gaming switch? It will probably serve you fine, but so will the regular Outemu Red or the Gateron Red or basically any other cheap linear switch clone. These Silvers aren’t worth the extra bump in price in my opinion.
Final Score = 27/50 (54%)