Switch: Gateron Ink Yellow

The Gateron Yellow was my favorite in the first round of Gateron mechanical switches, and the company has at least three other "Yellow" switches in the form of the Milky Yellow, Silent Yellow, and Optical Yellow, the latter of which is a speed switch actuating at 1.5 mm and 35 gf force, so you might as well breathe on it to get it to trigger. With the Ink switches, Gateron obviously does retain the speed for the Ink Yellow. It is the fourth Ink linear switch thus, and Gateron sees its strength in good linear switches, too.

The Gateron Ink Yellow is more similar to the Ink Silent Black than I thought, but more on that below. What we see are the walled columns around the stem, again in an opaque yellow to add some dust and spill resistance to further differentiate it from the rest. The top and housing get a radioactive yellow translucent finish, and I have to say that the combination is not my favorite of the three colors thus far. The sides and bottom are functionally similar to the others seen thus far.


I thought the Ink Black, and thus also the Ink Silent Black, was hard to photograph on my black acrylic background, but the Ink Yellow may have it beat in terms of getting everything exposed properly. It might be time to get a white acrylic sheet for such things, too. The spring is still black, and the housing and top are a yellow-green rather than pure yellow. Disassembly makes this all the more obvious next to the clearly yellow stem, which has a single-piece construction for the columns around the crosspoint stem. Also notice the generally longer stem, which results in the lower actuation distance and net travel.


Installation and removal of the Gateron Ink Yellow switches follows the same steps as before. The columns around the crosspoint make it easy to grip each switch for installation. I will say that the front view makes it a lot more pleasing to look at since it mostly avoid the casing. As for keycaps, I kept the default base kit for all but another vanity Esc keycap with the Akko cat paw design on top.

The Gateron Ink Yellow is listed on the company's website, but without a force-travel curve. Between the English and Chinese websites, we know enough to conclude that it is meant to be a speed switch, but ends up the furthest from the nearest Cherry MX equivalent. Yes, it does have a rated actuation at 1.5 mm travel and total travel distance of 3.5 mm, but the spring is basically the same as on the previous two switches. So what we end up with is a switch that requires ~60 +/-10 gf for actuation at 1.5 mm. This is one of the most differently feeling switches out there in that you face high resistance right away. I thought the Ink Silent Black took it faster down the hard road, but the Ink Yellow goes even further, all the way with a bottoming-out force of ~67 gf at 3.5 mm. This means bottoming-out is more likely than with the Ink Silent Black. The stem is also clearly designed differently; actually, I think this is the smoothest of the four linear switches. Not enough to gain from lubing them separately as these are darn good out of the box. It's just a shame that these are speed switches, but it is also much harder to accidentally actuate with these than just about any other speed switch.


Here is what this specific combination sounds like, and they do have the highest pitch of any tested so far here. It could be the longer stem you will inevitably bash down, but going from the Ink Silent Black to the Ink Yellow was a big change too. I would probably put some foam into the case if I had the parts, maybe also film the switches. But, and in all honesty more likely, I just would not use these at all with the others on hand appealing to me more. For context, you can find sound clips from other keyboards here, including those with linear switches.