Since I recently received my annual wage bonus from my company recently, I had an increased urge to spend money - after all, the COVID lull had made things a little dreary and I figured that a little retail therapy wouldn't hurt. And it was warranted too - a significant number of my keyboard switches were experiencing key chatter due to poor quality control, and my mouse was getting dingy due to wear and tear over the few years that I abused it. So I decided to replace my keyboard switches and mouse!

Buying Keyboard Switches

Since I was using a keyboard with hotswap capabilities, I could switch out the switches inside for something else without having to go through a desoldering process. My keyboard used to have Glorious Pandas, which are pretty nice tactile switches when they worked perfectly. Sadly, a good number of my switches have started to experience key chatter (typing not registering and double typing) and I was progressively replacing the faulty switches with some of my old Gateron brown switches in order to not stay sane while typing.

I had a good mind to change all the switches on my board to make a uniform typing experience, but I just couldn't decide on which switches to get. So it was a godsend when I found out that NovelKeys was offering mystery switch boxes for really cheap.

Given that NovelKeys' switches are pretty decently reputed in the keyboard community, I figured that it would be a great idea to buy these and test my luck. The only problem was the cost of shipping - it was 20 USD, more than the price of the switches themselves! The most logical thing to do then was to... you guessed it, buy more packs of switches to justify the shipping. I coaxed myself into thinking that it would be great value and I could sell the switches that I wasn't interested in using.

I ended up receiving three different types of switches - a set of NK Dry Blacks (linear), NK Milkshakes (linear), and NK Creams (tactile) each. For how much I paid, I was really satisfied with this haul. I had wanted to try linear switches but just didn't want to overspend on a set just to figure out that I didn't like them, so this was a great opportunity to try them out. I decided to replace my board with the Milkshake switches.

I also took the opportunity to clean my keycaps and keyboard while I was replacing the switches - I was appalled at just how much dust and hair had gotten beneath the keycaps!

And finally, I managed to replace them all! Looks good, doesn't it?

After replacing the switches, I did a few typing tests to see how I liked the switches. I found the switches to be a little too light initially since the actuation force required to activate these switches were way less than the Glorious Pandas. That being said, I still decided to give them a chance and I think I've gotten accustomed to the less force required to activate these switches.

For the other two packs of switches - well, I don't think I'm going to sell them just yet. Since I already have an old case and some old keycaps lying around, I could just build another keyboard if I bought another PCB and plate 🤣 Oh man, this is definitely what happens when you get into custom mechanical keyboards...

Replacing my Mouse

I'm not sure how long exactly I've been using this mouse for, but it must have been about 4 to 5 years at this point in time. The Logitech G502 has been a great mouse to use, but as you can see from the photo, it is getting pretty dingy and the mouse was slowly getting uncomfortable to use probably due to how much dead skin had built up on it. Mechanically, it was also experiencing a little double-click issue where it would occasionally click twice when I intended to click once.

After reading some Reddit reviews, I decided to go with the Pulsar XLite, a rather new computer peripheral company that had made waves with its first mouse offering. It looked good on paper with its extremely light 48.9g weight and ergonomic design, and it cost half of the competing Logitech product, the Logitech Superlight.

I was pleasantly surprised with how comfortable it felt to use when I got it today. It felt like a breeze to use with how light it was. If you like to have different mouse sensitivity profiles for different games, the Pulsar software also allows you to do so, as well as some other neat stuff like macro programming and key binding.

Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase and would recommend this mouse for people who are in the market to get a new one. With a 2-year warranty, I think that the company has reasonable faith in its QC processes and should be a good competitor to Logitech's mouse offerings.

Thanks for reading my retail therapy blog 😂 Hoping that I don't have to replace these for a while!