Holy Panda – A basic review for common folk

Let’s be honest here, if you are reading this you either know me in real life and are wondering what’s this fool writing about now and why are his most recent blogs about keyboards and controllers? It’s just what I’m into at the moment, deal with it.

Or you are actually curious and researching deep down the rabbit hole about these interesting switches you may be planning to use on your keyboard one day. Let’s just get to the nitty gritty.

Holy pandas seems to be the kind of switch for the person that claims they don’t like tactile clicky bump feel, but secretly they do. Maybe they claim to like only linear switches only and beleive that browns and blue switches suck and are for the common masses. But they hear about holy pandas and HMM something feels, right. When lubed properly, they have a very smooth feeling. And it’s almost as if someone gave you a gently push up when you release the key, producing that infamous “pop” when typing really slow. Like a tactile switch that wants to go to the party but only linear were invited so he does his best to fit in. Except now he stands out as he’s got an advantage, and it’s good feelings all around.

– If you like brown switches, Holy Pandas are an upgrade as they are just as quiet but feel like an improvement. Granted they are delicate to work with and cost way more.
– If you like blues, you will be annoyed at how quiet they are, but will also like the feel. So as a blue switch user I am confused.
– If you like black or red switches you will be annoyed at how stiff these feel at 62 weight springs or maybe at how much feel they have. You will be frustrated when typing as you will think you finished typing, but nope, there’s more key press to go and when they release you are thrown off balance and you may hate them.

Look at those bumps, nice, smooth, round and lubed.

The Holy Pandas have a history and if you want to read about it elsewhere I would recommend it. As for the switch itself and working with it, it’s a very delicate switch and almost like the sports car, expensive, ever elusive, the “original”, but honestly, pretty sucky to work with. Kind like a Lambo. Yeah it’s fast and popular, but it’s just that. Honestly for daily driving most people would just be happy with a proper set of browns, and that’s what I noticed this is closest comparison, I replaced a set of browns in the Keychron K6 I bought and it’s very , almost eerily similar to Keychron browns. Opening up the holey pandas I bought, they are very carefully put together but with the leaf itself is a huge part of the feel, the stem, the housing, and even the spring as I had to choose how heavy I wanted it. You guys are so picky.

This is STOCK lubed, I know some of you would complain but hey it’s better than nothing.

The upstroke. Wow, this is something key switches usually ignore and don’t care. But not the Holy Pandas. They seem to put all their focus on the release and upstroke, which is probably why people seem to like and notice them. I do have to change my typing style jus, but nothing much. My wife also noticed them as she seemed to really liked the upstroke.

The ones I got are from AliExpress and they are blatant clones, which I appreciate them honestly as I bought 220 for $50 bucks, I am currently testing them stock and they honestly don’t have a lot of ping, granted they did pre-lube the ramps and leaf springs, which I do not appreciate as I like to feel the bump, so I’m re-lubing them %100 to see what their intention was and later on I will clean them up and lube them my way, with a dry ramp. So three different tests.

But I am satisfied as they sell them, despite being finicky to work with I plan to try them out for a bit longer. I know some people can get particular about buying clone switches or keycaps, but in this day and age it’s all from China and honestly I would never be able to tell the difference, yes I got one deflective switch but for cheap clones they are pretty good and worth it. Even if you keep them stock.