The Glorious Pandas I have on hand are from 2020, and are already hand-lubed. So a majority of the review will be centered around that instead of the switches at stock.
I won’t spend too much time explaining the history of these switches, so I’ll be summarizing and skimming a lot of parts. You can go to the more information section to get a better understanding. Around 2020, Glorious teased a switch that had a logo that looked like a Panda, the community thought it’ll be another Holy Panda clone. Few weeks later, the Glorious Holy Panda was announced (as it was its original name). Glorious claimed to have “found” the original molds for the housings of the switch, and filed a trademark for “Holy Panda” which rubbed the keyboard community the wrong way. Glorious got a lot of backlash from the community, then promptly renamed the switch to Glorious Panda, and dropped their claim for the trademark.
To add context to the manufacturer being unknown. I can’t find or track down reliable information for Glorious’ switch manufacturer. I found one site claiming Tecsee as the manufacturer, but I can’t find proper evidence to back that up. The switches are Outemu hotswap compatible though, and Tecsee is one of the few manufacturers that makes switches compatible for Outemu. Another site claimed that Kailh is the manufacturer, which is hard to believe because Kailh switches aren’t Outemu compatible, and for another reason based entirely on hearsay. Two different sites claimed Glorious makes their switches in-house. There’s also not a lot of information to back that up. This one is harder to believe if they did manufacture everything in-house without any issues too. I’m leaning on the former more than the latter due to the lack of any other evidence, and the switches being Outemu compatible. For now I’ll leave the manufacturer as unknown.
To start off with, Glorious Pandas come in a pack of 36 per box. It’s relatively expensive, but comparatively cheaper. The packaging is a small rectangular box with the switches stored in a good-quality ziplock bag. It’s size efficient, but it’s a little hard to put the switches back inside the box with the ziplock. A description about the switch at the back of the packaging, and some important details on the bottom of it. It also comes with the panda logo as a sticker, a quick start guide and thanks for purchasing a Glorious product. The packaging overall does what it's designed to do, to advertise to its target audience, and protect the product within. Compared to Akko’s or the boxes Voyager switches come with, it does the job at best.
The Top housing is made from polycarbonate, and the bottom is made with nylon, specifically PA66 nylon. The bottom has 3 protrusions (2 copper pins and the big plastic one in the middle), so it’s a 3-pin switch. The housings are in a warm, off-white color. It’s more warmer or yellowish compared to DROP’s and FEKER’s Holy Pandas. The Glorious text is embossed on the top housing. At the back of the top, below the Glorious text, there’s a notable sprue mark left behind. Sprue marks are leftovers during the manufacturing process of the plastic. The stem is made from POM, and the coloring is a nice bright tint of orange. Overall length of the stem to the pole is 13.2mm, its long compared to a brown’s stem. The spring isn’t noteworthy other than it being 67 grams, which might be heavy and hard to use at first. The housing provides a generous amount of space for both LED and SMD lighting. The Latches that keep the switch in place are fairly strong, but will wear down over multiple swaps.
Tactility has a D-shaped bump with a rounded feeling. It’s ever so slightly more rounded than Drop’s Holy Panda in my opinion. Focusing on the tactile strength, It’s a lot stronger than a brown, and more noticeable, than a Corsa’s tactility, but is nowhere near the strength of a u4T. GP’s strength is somewhere, on the lighter side of medium tactiles, somewhat similar to an Azure dragon’s, kind of. Moving onto other aspects of the switch. The spring is 67 grams, but it doesn’t bother me as I’m already used to heavier springs. I did notice a very tiny amount of pre-travel, barely noticeable at all during normal usage; it’s negligible, and probably a margin of error for the spring. There’s barely any housing wobble, but there’s still some North / South and East / West play on the stem. It isn't distracting or noticeable at all when a keycap is on though. It’s fairly stable.
Sound is subjective for many reasons, and for a lot of people as well, so I won’t go in-depth with my experience here. Check the typing test section to get a vague idea of what the switches sound like. To me, the switches sound a little thin, and or subdued. Using two of the stock GPs I have left, it’s more or less the same. It’s a little louder, but also scratchier. Spring ping is a little loud too. Leaf ticking is still present, but isn’t as annoying or prominent as the ones in BBN Tactiles at stock.
Before talking about mods, I want to mention Glorious’ own lube. They offer a factory lubed version of the switch using their own G-lube. I can’t really comment on anything about these because I don’t have experience with the factory lubed version of the switch nor have I used their G-lube. You can do some searching around on the internet if you want to read people’s opinions on it. There’s a breakdown of the substance linked in the more information section too.
Moving onto modding. The switches doesn’t need films, as there’s barely any stem or housing wobble. Adding a .125 TX film on one of them, makes it feel tighter or more stable when pressing on it. The improvement is minimal. The switch at stock has a fairly noticeable amount of scratch and spring ping. lubing the parts remedies its quirks.
Glorious Pandas have a medium-light D-shaped bump and well-rounded tactility paired with a heavy spring that’ll take some time getting used to if you’ve only ever used brown switches and its equivalents. The housing and the spring will need some lubing though. These switches are pricey, but are relatively cheaper and more accessible compared to Drop’s. Though there are cheaper options out there.