Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE Switch Review

If you’re reading the introduction to this review, there’s a decent chance that I’m lost deep in the woods somewhere at this very moment and I’ve probably been lost for quite a few hours now. Don’t worry, though, as this is almost entirely by my own design. See, my girlfriend is falling deeper and deeper into her ‘birding’ hobby with each passing day and so as a result all of our vacations are slowly turning into ones where we go watch birds out in the woods very far away from everything including cellphone reception. No, just going down to the local park doesn’t quite cut it anymore as apparently all that you’ll ever see there are sparrows, house finches, and “those bastards of birds” that are European starlings, according to her. So this weekend I’ve surprised her with a trip out to Letchworth State Park in New York as it is listed online as a prime spot for birding this time of year, or at least a prime spot for blue herons from what I can tell. I think there’s supposed to be some “rookery” or mass communal area for these things around there somewhere? While that would be exciting to see in and of itself, today is also the day that the Rochester Birding Association is making one of their annual gatherings at the park, and so I’m quite literally traipsing around with her and them at the very second that this review was auto posted online. And, if I’m not mistaken, the start time for this day long birding adventure was slated for something like 4:30 AM, so I’ve been out here for quite some time now. Shit, I really hope that this thing actually posted today. I can’t say that I’ve ever left it up to Squarespace to post my reviews for me before so despite having used the platform for over five years now I have absolutely no idea how reliable it is…

Figure 1: At least the view out here in the middle of nowhere doesn't seem so bad.

It’s also a touch humorous to me posting a review with such a time-specific introduction as they generally do not age well for anyone reading it months, weeks, or even just a few days into the future from when it was first posted. However, the way things have been progressing with her interests and desire to drag me along out into the woods, it’s becoming increasingly more common that I am out there somewhere vaguely in the woods when not here working on switch content.

Switch Background

It’s not often that I ever really sit down and reflect on the history of just a lone, single switch manufacturer. Part of this is due to my sheer lack of time to reflect on past switches from just trying to keep on top of importing, documenting, and measuring all of the new switches being released by the hour. Another not as large, but also not insignificant part of this reason is because I hardly ever think about switches on an individual manufacturer by manufacturer basis. The modern switch scene has collectively shifted in recent years to one that is driven by trends, ideas, or designs that almost all companies try and emulate to capture market share rather than one that is driven by uniqueness and separation from the competition. As a result, it’s easier to think of all of the Hall Effect style switches that are being cranked out in 2025 as one group of switches, or all of those long stem pole linears as another rather than just what Gateron, Cherry, or Kailh has done throughout all of those trends. But in taking a short while to think about just Gateron specifically, I have come to realization that they’ve been either plugged directly into or have tangentially contributed to literally every single modern keyboard switch trend as far back as they go. Even long before the very earliest days of custom colored switch offerings – which Gateron helped perpetuate from the very start with their collaboration with C3Equalz on the Tangerine switches – they were there with custom-made Zealios in 2016 and even KS1 style Cherry MX clones as far back as 2014. Gateron has been around a really, really long time and they’ve changed more than quite a bit over that more than a decade of producing switches. I’d even go as far as to say they’ve changed how they’ve changed as well and when I began to think about their more contemporary history, it does feel like something is different with Gateron now than it was just only a couple of years ago. However, it’s kind of hard for me to put into words what that something actually is.

Scrolling back through Gateron’s various social media pages, I even struggle to figure out what year exactly it was that this ambiguous change that I feel even occurred. Was it the end of 2022 right after the Baby Racoon switches had been announced? The middle of 2023? We can all pretty clearly remember the early 2022 reign of Oil King supremacy and the general overwhelming presence of Gateron’s newest switches boasting insanely cutting edge factory lubing and flipped nameplates, though I’m not sure where exactly that went. I don’t think anyone would also argue with the fact that that Gateron of the past is not the Gateron we see now in 2025. Looking more specifically between 2022 and 2025, they’ve managed to do all of the following with their switch releases:

- They developed and released a well fleshed out and supported budget line of switches in ‘EverFree’ that does not feature any Gateron branding at all. (This is something especially historically interesting as they had never done this prior for any collaboration or release with the exception of the Rantopad KS1 switches from 2014, not even giving in for their long time collaborative partner in Zeal.)

- They’ve collaborated with NuPhy on almost a dozen different switches to produce multiple ranges of custom offerings in full and low profiles that also feature NuPhy branding in tandem with Gateron on some switches and on its own in others.

- They’ve completely developed their own magnetic/Hall Effect style switch platform multiple times over and through dozens of releases to try and outrace other present day giants in the MX keycap compatible HE switch space like that of Grain Gold. This zone flooding tactic of them wasn’t just done with ‘recolors’, either, as they developed both single rail and dual-rail KS numbers and multiple different magnet orientations within those releases.

- Most recently, Gateron has begun to demonstrate their very first switches which feature truly premium design aesthetics and decorative capabilities. Both the Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches being reviewed here and their most recently announced (as of the time of writing) Magnetic Jade Sakura HE switches show printing and decoative elements that have really only previously been seen from switch companies like TTC and their LNY offerings.

And that’s just everything that I can think to mention from the last three years of development. With all of these new releases and collaborations going on to produce tantalizing options at each step in just the past few years, it’s almost kind of hard to remember that they had just finished really pushing their classic “Ink” line of switches a handful of months before this all started. Looking back, the Gateron Ink family of switches was practically hailed by Gateron as their flagship product and it was far and away the pinnacle of their design technology up that point in time. And yet despite feeling like the peak, it very clearly was just a small should on the edge of a much larger mountain of R&D efforts and design releases that they were planning for. However, Gateron doesn’t just feel different because of all of the switches that they’ve released in the last handful of years – it’s also because their general community presence has shifted too.

Figure 2: A handful of the 'new wave' Gateron switches from the past few years including EverFree switches, NuPhy full size and low profile collaborations, and some early KS-20/23 Hall Effect switches.

Again, starting sometime around the very tail end of 2022 or start of 2023, Gateron began completely revamping how they presented themselves as a switch manufacturer to the mechanical keyboard community at large. Unlike the switch releases which were a little bit harder to historically summarize, these marketing chnages are incredibly obvious from just quick glances at their various social media pages. Prior to 2022, Gateron had always kind of existed as an eastern-facing only company, sitting on top of a solid reputation of releases over many years and not really caring much to reach out to the rest of the world and really ‘market’ their switches in any tangible way. Sure, collaborations with individuals like Zeal and more recently PunkShoo helped push the fact that they were not truly locked away from the western keyboard audience, but they never really tried to court western audiences much if at all. Then, the next thing you know they open a western facing store front to sell their switches directly online. Next, they began rolling out more aggressive social media campaigns on Twitter and Instagram, rife with giveaways, audience engagement, and following content creators as well. And then seemingly in a blink of an eye Gateron opened a fully staffed and lively Discord server as well as continued to push on the increasing social media presence until it got to a point where they were hardly recognizable as the more isolated, no-play-all-work style manufacturer that they could have been construed as for so long. Looking back at all of this it’s no wonder that things feel different now – even if I completely refuse to address the fact that they even further drove home this point of emphasis on rebranding by changing their logo to a dragon head less than a month before this review was posted! While this introspection is fun purely for the purposes of me reminiscing and also helping to build a shortened, more centralized lore behind Gateron’s renewed efforts to modernize itself and expand its outreach, it’s actually incredibly relevant to the history of the Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches too. These switches are very much products of Gateron’s newest self and so had the story in the next paragraphs been told to me a number of years ago with my very old, but then accurate view of Gateron as a company, I would have thought it too fantastical to actually be real.

Figure 3: Gone are days of the lone, stylized 'G'. I'm not going to lie, I kind of really like this new logo.

The tale of the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches first kicked off on February 19th, 2025, with one seemingly skippable teaser post on Instagram. Wrapping up a month long campaign of flexing their newest Hall Effect style switches in the Magnetic Jade Rubies – switches that would go on to be centerpieces of Gateron’s Global Sources Consumer Electronic Show and Computex 2025 show displays – they tossed up a picture of one more pile of these strikingly red switches with one lone, light green dustproof stem poking out of the pile. Teasingly asking what this green switch might be, they then followed up this announcement the next day with a post of these new, grassy lime green colored switches pushing for a connection with their fans by suggesting that whoever would correctly guess the name of the switches first would earn a free sample of them. While there were many, many interesting guesses from users over the course of this post – including things such as “Gateron Slime Green Magnetic Switches”, “Gateron Magnetic Lime”, and “Gateron Duolingo” – it was ultimately correctly guessed first as ‘Green Dragons’ by a user named shadowprogr. Notably, shadowprogr guessing correctly is a bit situationally funny here as he is not only a switch collector and enthusiast himself from Vietnam, but also a friend of the website and of my own personal collection going back many years. Interested only in keeping a couple of these free Green Dragon Magnetic switches he was now being sent by Gateron for his prescient guess, the bulk of the remaining samples he sent directly to me and my collection, completely free of charge. (For which I owe him here a full and proper thanks for that generosity.) So while these switches that I’m reviewing here today are no different than any other Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches out there, it does give my own personal set a tingly sort of provenance that they were actually the very set promised as a giveaway by Gateron upon reveal of their formal name. It almost feels like the most tangible way that I could ever quantify how the Gateron of today is so far and away different than the Gateron I hoarded in 2020 and the Gateron I was just getting to know in 2018.

Figure 4: First teaser image of the Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches posted on February 19th amidst a pile of Jade Ruby switches.

Figure 5: Magnetic Green Dragon HE name guessing introduction post with correct guess by switch collector shadowprogr.

While the short tale of the Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches could certainly be cut short there for editorial simplicity, I feel nothing but pedantism pushing me to share that there were a couple more bits of information sprinkled out there by Gateron before their release. In addition to a couple of sparse Instagram and Twitter posts just marketing these switches as the leaner, meaner, and greener Hall Effect versions of the Magnetic Jade Rubies that they had just wrapped up pushing, the Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches were first put up for sale on February 26th, 2025. Marketed as being lighter weight, smoother, and with a “HIFI” sound, the Green Magnetic Dragons ended up being the last switch included in Gateron’s GSCES/Computex 2025 displays, alongside that of the Magnetic Jade Pros and Jade Rubys pitched in the months prior. Available in packs of either 70 or 90 directly through Gateron’s western-facing online sales portal, the switches are priced at $0.85 per switch, which is standard for Gateron’s HE switch offerings as of 2025 (and not a function of tariff inflated prices for those of you reading in the US). Despite no formal announcement from Gateron as to the expected lifespan of these switches, anything that Gateron has historically debuted at trade shows – such as that of the Inks – tend to be among the switches that they support, improve, and continue to release for many, many years into the future. Or, at least until they pivot into an entirely new direction that I won’t be able to predict, either.

Figure 6: Instagram post showing the Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches among other recent Gateron HE switches as centerpieces of their trade show tour in 2025.

Green Dragon HE Performance

Appearance

At the highest level, the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches come in an aggressively lime green colorway from top to bottom that will make them hard to be mistaken for any other switch, even from a distance. While some of you may immediately jump to compare the vibrancy of these switches to those of other switches like KTT Matchas as a counter to the claim in the last sentence, I just can’t quite put into words how shockingly vibrant the green is on Green Dragon HEs. Honestly, they might as well just fully fluoresce at this point. Without dragons being real, tangible things I can compare this colorway too, the closest real world comparisons I can think of to the color of these switches would be irradiated grass? Maybe the most poisonous tree frog there is? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure how to say it other than that they’re a damn bright green. All humor about their vibrancy and ability to be used to flag down rescue planes in the wilderness aside, these do actually boast quite a few design details that make them unique among Gateron’s offerings and also further support the fact that Gateron’s design capabilities are growing quite substantially. These details worth discussing, as well as many other sub-part features of the Green Dragon HE switches worth covering may be found in the paragraphs and photos below.

Figure 7: Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches and their components.

Looking first to the translucent green, uranium glass-like top housings of the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches, these initially appear to look quite similar to the designs and structures first debuted by Gateron in their KS-20 HE switches. These overlapping details include that of the half-height LED diffuser on the front side of the housing, the inverted ‘Gateron’ nameplate, and the ‘third’ bottom housing connection clip in the center of the left and right-hand sides of the housing. However, unlike the other KS-20 housing designs, the center stem pole hole is not rounded in the center and is instead fully rectangular to hug the dustproof walls of the Green Dragon HE stems. Without Gateron having formally listed a KS part number for these anywhere that I can find, this combination of matching and different features with those of other KS-20 switches suggests to me that these might have a different product code associated with them. Internally, the housings feature no other information which helps differentiate them as different from other KS-20s with the only detail worth noting being that of the single mold marking found in the upper-right hand corner of the housing underneath the nameplate region. Unlike traditional MX-style switches that Gateron produces, the Magnetic Green Dragon HE top housing mold marking is only on one side and features two letters rather than common sideways single letter.

Figure 8: Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE top housing external design showing half-height LED bubble, inverted 'GATERON' nameplate and middle bottom housing attachment pin on the side.

Figure 9: Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE top housing interior showing double letter mold marking in the upper right-hand corner underneath the nameplate region.

Moving next to the neon lime green stems of the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches, these too feature a surprising mix of modern and vestigial design details that make them similar to but also different from KS-20 and KS-23 stems seen previously. The commonalities between the Green Dragon HE stems and those of previous releases include the small nubs on the north and south plates of the stems located just above the upper edge of the slider rails as well as the large gauge, magnet enveloping center pole. Unlike those previous releases, however, the Magnetic Green Dragon HE stems are fully squared off, dustproof, feature non-tapered slider rails, and even a weird nub on the front right corner of the stems. While I don’t believe this nub serves any actual function in the mechanism of the Green Dragon HE stems, I imagine this may just be a feature meant for a click bar or tactile bump mechanism that the Green Dragons, themselves, don’t have but some future switch which shares stem molds with them might. Additionally, the north pole down magnet of the Green Dragon HE stems appears to be more flush with the edge of the bottom housing than that previously shown in the Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange Switch Review. This increased protrusion of this magnet is likely due to the fact that the bottom housings of the Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches is sealed whereas the Dual-Rail Magnetic Oranges were open. It is also worth noting that the stems come with a fine, even application of lube on all sides of the stem.

Figure 10: Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE stem showing non-tapered slider rails, front plate nubs, vestigial mechanism arm, and magnet flush with the edge of the center pole.

Arriving to the matching neon lime green bottom housings of the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches, we’re finally greeted with the singular design detail that I feel separates them aesthetically from all other HE switches that Gateron has manufactured to date. Despite not being present in any of the marketing renders of these switches, on the underside of the bottom housings the Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches feature a silver printed QR code in the circle where the magnet collides with the bottom housing. While at a distance this is almost completely illegible and looks more just like a vaguely grey spot on the switch, any closer inspection clearly makes out that this is a QR code printed on every single switch that links to… I don’t know. I can’t actually read it with my phone’s camera at all. Ironically, this singular feature is one of the cleanest demonstrations of just how fine the detail on the outside of switches has come and yet it is completely unusable in the current form. At the least should be an exciting demonstration of what Gateron can and maybe will do with the external designs of their switches in the future. Beyond this printed QR code stamp on the bottom of all of the housings, they feature an otherwise small and mundane plethora of features seen in other Gateron magnetic switch bottom housings – PCB mounting pins, slightly lubed internal slider rails, and a massive stem hole to help guide the magnet vertically during presses.

Figure 11: Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE bottom housing interior design showing general lack of details. Note the asymmetry in the upper plate mounting pin on the top edge of the housing.

Figure 12: Alternative view of bottom housing asymmetry as noted in fully built switch.

Figure 13: Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE bottom housing exterior showing PCB mounting pins, capital letter mold markings, 'G' anticounterfeit logo, and dot printed non-functional QR code.

Figure 14: Enhanced, brightened view of the printed QR code showing the resolution of whatever technique was used to generate this design.

Push Feel

Before even getting into any actual discussion on how the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches feel in hand, I have to admit that they measure up to be quite interesting linear prospects right from the jump. For one, these switches were adequately marketed by Gateron as being “light weight” as they only measure in at a peak force of ~ 47 gf at the tail end of their ~ 3.330 mm stem travel. Now while either one of those numbers, in and of themselves, is far from an absolute extreme nor stands out as initially odd at first sight, the combination of these this light of weight and this short of a travel distance is actually surprisingly out there by all measurable standards. Among the over 1,600 different switches that I’ve collected force curves for over the last handful of years, the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches are in the top 15% of shortest stem travel distance and the top 15% lightest bottom out weights at the same time. Even further compellingly strange is just how flat the force curve is that I collected for the switches below. I mean it is stunningly flat. Starting out its linear region around 34 gf of weight, by the time they reach 47 gf at the very end they’ll only have increased in force at a rate of 4 gram force per millimeter of travel distance, which is yet again another statistically out there measurement for any linear switch.

Figure 15: Force curve diagram for the stock Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switch.

When actually typing on the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches or testing them in hand, however, it’s hard to recognize any of the statistical anomalies or measurement outliers above purely because of the housing collisions of this switch. At both topping and bottom outs, the Green Dragon HE switches punch with an overwhelmingly aggressive pointedness that carries a pen clicking-like sharpness that is not only very focused and well balanced between the two ends of the switch but also incredibly resilient to changes in actuation speeds. While you can get an occasional pop or off-center hit feeling when you really hammer away at these switches, it’s honestly just as hard to notice as the measurements from the paragraph above. As for the smoothness of these linears, well the Magnetic Green Dragon HEs also have that in spades. While Gateron may have changed a lot as a company in the years following the release of the Oil King switches, their ability to absolutely nail factory lubing of their switches clearly hasn’t changed one bit. These switches are completely smooth, completely free of scratch, and with just the most perfect amount of lube required to do such. They have no sluggishness, no pockets of heavy or light factory lubing spots, and just the right amount to hardly make you think that they were lubed at all.

Sound

The sound profile of the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches closely mimics that of the push feeling notes above insofar that they are almost exclusively driven by the combination of the bottoming out and topping out. There’s really nothing else to the sound of these switches besides these two things. There’s no stickiness, no pinging, no scratching, no weird plastic sounds, no overly aggressive sharpness, and absolutely nothing that comes across as overly harsh on the ears at all. The only thing you’ll get is the loud, ping-ponging of pen clicks as you push the stem from one end of the housings to the other. Admittedly, despite being technically clean in its sound, this is quite a bit more aggressive, loud, and pointed than what I personally prefer in my switches. And yet, after a while of testing them out I feel as if their initial harshness subsided a bit and left me with a sound that was surprisingly more complex than how it had initially struck me. Perhaps this was a sort of reviewer and switch Stockholm Syndrome that was starting to set in throughout the course of this review, though it did really strike me as if the sound of the Green Dragon HE switches evolved like coffee or tea to develop over the course of using them. After a bit of testing I could really begin to pick up on very subtle bassy tones and a general roundness at the apex of the point of the housing collisions that made them much more pleasant to listen to than when I had initially started. Maybe this is what Gateron meant when they marketed these as having a “HIFI” sound? Honestly I couldn’t tell you if that’s what that phrase means or not.

Wobble

There is only the tiniest amount of E/W stem wobble in the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches that is noticeable to any real degree. While there is the faintest amount of N/S direction wobble, the E/W one is the only one that anyone would ever realistically notice, and it’s faint enough that virtually nobody would have an issue with such.

Measurements

Figure 16: Numerical details regarding the stock Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches.

Have you ever wanted to be bombarded with more switch data than you’ve ever seen at any point in your life before? Consider checking out the ‘Force Curve Repository’ hosted on my GitHub that contains all force curves that I take both within and outside of these full-length reviews. In addition to having these graphs above, I have various other versions of the graphs, raw data, and my processed data all available for over 1500 different switches for you to use however you see fit. Check it out via the ‘Archive’ tab at the top of this page or by clicking any of the force curve cards above.

Break In

Break In Notes

17,000 Actuations

- At 17,000 actuations, there’s not much change to the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE Switches save for a slight increase in inconsistency in the overall sound profile from switch to switch. After being broken in thus far, some switches just sound ever so slightly different in pitch from one another than they do in their stock forms, though it is quite subtle.

34,000 Actuations

- At 34,000 actuations, the same inconsistency in overall tone as noted above is also present though with the added detail of an occasional slightly shuffling scratch tone. Much like with the pitch differences from switch to switch, this shuffling tone is pretty inconsistent in its appearance though it is something that can be noticed if you’re listening for it.

- There’s a very minor increase in the N/S and E/W direction stem wobble of the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches after being broken in to 34,000 actuations.

51,000 Actuations

- At 51,000 actuations, there’s really no change to the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches that wasn’t previously noted at 34,000 or 17,000 actuations.

Figure 18: Comparative force curve diagram showing no substantial change in the force curves of the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches throughout the break in process.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Linear Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these switches to the Green Dragon HE switches side by side.

Figure 19: Switches for comparison. (L-R, Top-Bot: WS Flux HE, Akko Mirror, Cherry MX 'New Nixie', Keygeek Oat, Novelkeys Cream, and Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange)

WS Flux HE

- Even though the WS Flux HE switches have stems and top housings that were completely designed from the ground up for their release, they do have a noticeable bit more N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches.

- Overall, the Flux HE and Green Dragon HE switches are very similar to each other in their smoothness throughout their stroke and their more bottoming/topping out focused feelings. However, the Flux HE switches have housing collisions that are much more firm, deep, and wide feeling than that of the more pointed, singular, and thinner feeling Green Dragon HE housing collisions.

- These two switches are also fairly comparable to each other in terms of their overall volume, though with a substantial difference in how they come across. The Green Dragon HE switches are much more high pitched, pointed, and click-like whereas the Flux HE switches have a more medium-high pitched bottom out that is rounder.

Akko Mirror

- The Akko Mirror and Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches are very similar to each other in terms of both their smoothness as well as just how precisely their factory lubing was applied. Neither of these switches are sluggish, overly lubed, nor have heavy/light spots where lube was inconsistently applied.

- Despite the Green Dragon HE switches having very little stem wobble on their own, the Akko Mirror switches have just a bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Green Dragon HEs.

- Even though these two switches have seemingly identical force curves as one another as can be seen in the comparative force curve between them below, the fact that these switches have feelings that are largely driven by their housing collisions makes them feel entirely different from one another.

Cherry MX ‘New Nixie’

- As is to be expected, the Cherry MX ‘New Nixie’ switches have a bit more scratch to their feeling than the Green Dragon HE switches as well as housing collisions that are much more heavy, deep, and firm feeling.

- In terms of their overall volumes, the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches are far and away louder than the Cherry MX ‘New Nixies’, with their higher pitched, singular, and more pen click-like tones carrying them to the ears a lot more than the deeper tones of the Nixies.

- The Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches have a fair bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the ‘New Nixie’ switches.

Keygeek Oat

- Even though the comparative force curve for these two switches below suggests only a minor difference in their bottoming out points, in hand the Green Dragon HE switches feel like they pull up substantially shorter than that of the Keygeek Oat switches.

- While both the Keygeek Oat and Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches are similarly smooth to one another, they exist on opposite ends of the linear switch spectrum. The Oats, by comparison, are deeper, richer, and much more subtle in their feeling than the Green Dragon HEs, which are thinner, sharper, and much more singular in their housing collision feeling.

- While there is a touch less N/S direction stem wobble in the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches than in the Keygeek Oats, they also have a slight bit more E/W direction stem wobble.

Novelkeys Cream

- As could be expected, in their stock form the Novelkeys Cream switches are quite a bit more scratchy than that of the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches. However, even in their broken in and fully modified form, I’m not certain most people would be able to get their particular Novelkeys Cream switches anywhere near as delicately and precisely smooth as the Green Dragon HEs are in stock form.

- There’s quite a bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches than there is in the Novelkeys Cream switches.

- Of all of the switches on this list, these are the two that are most comparable to one another in terms of their overall volume and initial harshness on the ears.

Gateron Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange

- Despite the fact that the Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches were made fairly recently in Gateron’s overall history, they suffer quite a bit more than the Grene Dragon HEs when it comes to factory lubing inconsistency, pooling, and general smoothness.

- There’s a fair bit less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble in the Gateron Magnetic Green Dragon HE switches than there is in the KS-20 Dual-Rail Magnetic Orange switches.

- While the Dual-Rail Magnetic Oranges are a touch cheaper than the Green Dragon HE switches at $49 per pack of 70 as compared to $59.50 per pack of 70 for the Green Dragons, the Green Dragons are far and away the better bang-for-buck deal if you had to purchase a Hall Effect linear switch from Gateron.

Linearity

Figure 26: Absolute and relative Linearity and Slope values for each switch in this comparison section.

Figure 27: Qualitative comparison of the normalized Slope and Linearity for each switch in this comparison section.

If you are just now seeing this section for the first time and are a bit confused as to what I am talking about when discussing ‘Slope’ and ‘Linearity’, I highly suggest checking out my article titled ‘On Differences in Linear Switches’ where I explain what this section is for and how it came to be! For a bit of a shorter answer, know that this is part of my ongoing attempt to better quantify and articulate differences between linear switches which have historically not been captured in discussions about them.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.