Cherry has announced the arrival of new switches with its Nothern Light model. This model is lubricated as standard, and has a linear, silent action. The price, however, looks set to be rather high. Let’s take a closer look!
Nothern Light: Cherry’s new switches!
Cherry has come up with a new switch with a linear typing feel. Unlike tactile switches, for example, there’s no small stop upstream of the accent point. Here, the descent is continuous. In terms of figures, the brand is announcing an accentuation point of 1.6 mm over a total travel of 3.7 mm. What’s more, this switch will require a force of 45g to activate it, which is equivalent to an MX Red, for example.
Despite these details on the different travels, the brand isn’t very forthcoming about the materials used for its switches. We don’t know what the upper and lower casings are made of. All we know is that they are polished to make the strokes smoother. As for the stem, we have no idea what materials are used, which is a shame. Generally speaking, we find polycarbonate or nylon, or even POM in some cases.
With this, the brand indicates that it’s a factory-lubricated model, which is a good point. In fact, lubrication helps to reduce noise pollution, in particular by calming the effects of spring resonance, while improving fluidity when the switch is struck. Clearly, it’s night and day between a lubricated and an unlubricated switch.
Finally, the design is attractive, with a white upper case and blue lower part. The stem is black. These are five-pin models only compatible with SMD diodes.
The price is €29.99 for a box of 36. That’s around €60 for a 65% keyboard, compared with €90 for a 105-key ISO keyboard. Yes, that’s quite a lot!
Here’s the Cherry product sheet!