Overview
Gateron has been knocking out a park lately with releases such as Oil King which has been very well reviewed and has been immensely popular in our store. We want to see whether they can continue this trend with their latest switch: the North Pole.
Gateron North Pole comes with 4 different versions, the Yellow, Red, Brown, and Silver. The Red, Brown, and Silver are box-style stem switches. In this blog, we focused on reviewing the Yellow and Red, if you are interested in the other types, let us know by sending us a note!
Figure 1: Gateron North Pole Red (left) and Yellow (Right)
Product Details
North Pole Yellow
The linear 5pin North Pole Yellow uses Polycarbonate materials on both top and bottom housing. The stem is Gateron ink v2 housing material. It has a 50g actuation force and 67g bottom out force. The total travel time is 4.0mm. The lifetime of the switch is 80 million presses.
Figure 2: Gateron North Pole Yellow Features
North Pole Red
Similarly, The linear Box Style North Pole Red also uses Polycarbonate materials on both top and bottom housing and has a stem using Gateron ink v2 housing material. The actuation force is 45g and the bottom out force is 50g. The total travel time is 3.8mm. The lifetime of the switch is 80 million presses.
Switch Sound
The Red is a relatively deep-sounding switch akin to other high-end Gateron switches like the CJ and Oil King. The Yellow on the other hand sounds a bit more muted and slightly deeper. Check out the video below for a comparison.
Video 1: Gateron North Pole Yellow and Red
Switch Feel
The Yellow feels more of it's got a softer bottom out and is more cushioned, whereas the Red has a more standard bottom out. The spring weight on the Yellow feels stiffer than the Red. They both feel very smooth and the smoothness level is about the same.
Frequency Spectrum Analysis
At Lume, we love data! Figure 3 and Figure 4 are called frequency spectrums.
On the x-axis (horizontal axis), the further left it is, the lower the frequency which means a deeper sound. The further right it is, the higher the frequency which is a higher pitched sound.
On the y-axis (vertical axis), it is amplitude which is how loud it is. For testing switches, that would depend on how hard we press the switches, so pay less attention to the y-axis. It is more about where the peaks are on the x-axis.
North Pole Yellow peaks at around 2000 hertz, whereas the North Pole Red peaks at around 2500 hertz. That means the Yellow sounds deeper than the Red.
Figure 3: Gateron North Pole Yellow Frequency Spectrum
Figure 4: Gateron North Pole Red Frequency Spectrum