Lighting
This keyboard has red LED illumination, which seems sort of boring in the day and age of RGB, but some people do prefer a single color. And you do have to think the all-red matches the HyperX brand pretty well. All keys on this keyboard illuminate as well as a 18 LED light bar at the top of the keyboard.
The keyboard offers three different brightness levels and you can turn the lights completely off. There are six different LED modes as well, which include solid, breathing, trigger, explosion, wave, and a custom mode. Since there is per-key backlighting in custom mode you can set which keys are illuminated. Overall the illumination is good, and the keyboard looks pretty awesome sitting on your desk.
Final Thoughts
The Alloy Elite is a great entry into the gaming keyboard segment for the HyperX brand. it is a more versatile keyboard that the previously released Alloy FPS and seems to have a better design as well. You really can’t go wrong with a solid steel frame and Cherry MX Red mechanical key switches. On top of that you have dedicated multimedia keys with a very large volume wheel. Another thing you can’t forget is the included wrist rest, I am a wrist rest guy so I appreciate one being included.
This combination of features makes for a great gaming and overall typing experience. The keyboard is extremely comfortable to use and adding the textured key caps really does help, especially during intense gaming sessions. The keyboard has absolutely no flex in it at all so if you have a gamer who bangs on your keys this is definitely a keyboard for you to consider.
The keyboard does have all-red backlighting on the keys as well on the 18-LED light bar at the top of the keyboard. While red works, especially since this is a HyperX keyboard, having RGB’s would make sense since 2017 seems to be the year of RGB. I mean the version of this keyboard that we were shown at CES did have RGB backlighting, maybe that version is coming later?
I think that it is very important for gaming keyboards to have customization software which allows you to remap keys and more. This is absent from this keyboard, which is sort of a let down. This means no key remapping, creating and saving macros, and setting game profiles. That puts this keyboard in the no-software category.
Kingston will be launching this keyboard at $109.99, which is a good price considering the build quality and design of this keyboard. It is a solid keyboard overall, but having software and RGB backlighting would make it so much better.
Overall ThinkComputers gives the HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard a 9 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Solid design with steel frame
– Cherry MX mechanical key switches (Red, Brown, Blue options)
– 18 LED light bar at the top of the keyboard
– Included wrist rest
– Extremely comfortable
Cons:
– Not RGB backlit
– No configuration software
