Finding the right gaming hardware isn’t easy. There’s no shortage of shiny keyboards, mice, headsets, and other fancy gizmos out there. Of course, to make life even more difficult for consumers, there’s a lot that often comes down to personal preference or, in some cases, biology. For example, I have tiny hands, which means that large gaming mice are a no-go for me. I loved the Logitech G Pro mouse, but I recognize that folks with huge mitts might find it a bit too small. Without going to a brick-and-mortar store to try out products in person, you’re left reading between the lines of reviews like this one to figure out if something is going to meet your needs. That being said, the HyperX Alloy Elite is one of the few peripherals on the market that I’d be comfortable recommending to anyone and everyone.
If you’ve never bought a mechanical keyboard before, you’ll fall in love with the Alloy Elite. And if you’re a hardcore PC gamer with a desk drawer full of customized keycaps and an entire section of your closet reserved for exotic mechanical keyboards, the Alloy Elite is a great product to add to your collection.
HyperX Alloy Elite: Features and Tech Specs
Here’s what the HyperX Alloy Elite has to offer:
- Solid steel frame.
- CHERRY® MX switches. (The Alloy Elite is available with Brown, Blue, or Red switches.)
- Multimedia keys and an easily accessible volume adjustment wheel.
- Game mode, so you don’t hate yourself forever because you pressed the Windows key at the wrong time.
- Adjustable red backlighting, so you can turn your
basementbattlestation into a red-tinted night club whenever you want. - Anti-ghosting and N-key rollover.
- Detachable wrist rest.
If you like numbers and detailed tech specs, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
- Polling Rate: 1000hz
- Connection Type: USB 2.0
- Cable Length: 1.8 meters (5.9 feet)
- Weight: 900 grams (1.98 pounds)
- Dimensions:
- Width: 359.00 millimeters (14.13 inches)
- Depth: 130.00 millimeters (5.11 inches)
- Height: 34.50 millimeters (1.35 inches)
To be honest, none of these features are that different from what you can expect to find in other keyboards, but the devil is in the details as much as it is in the execution. HyperX has built a product that includes everything that almost any gamer could conceivably want or need from a keyboard in the Alloy Elite. High-quality switches? Check. Anti-ghosting and N-key rollover to make sure that, y’know, your key presses actually register? Yup. Again, these features are par for the course when it comes to high-end mechanical keyboards, but it’s nice to see that HyperX wasn’t cutting corners when they designed the Alloy Elite.
The only thing that the Alloy Elite doesn’t have is a million different gaudy RGB lighting effects to choose from. The lighting options are limited to one color, and that color is red. You can adjust the brightness to suit your environment, or turn the lighting off entirely. Quite frankly, I don’t care about lighting effects, and neither should you, because if you’re deciding what mechanical keyboard to buy based off of how well it can recreate every color of the rainbow, then you probably need to reevaluate how you spend your money.
For what it’s worth, the red looks pretty damn sexy.
My Experience With The HyperX Alloy Elite
I’ve been exclusively using the Alloy Elite for about two weeks now, and it’s performed admirably whether I’ve been gaming, working, or simply browsing the internet. This is one of the reasons why I love the Alloy Elite–you’ll get just as much mileage out of it in day-to-day use as you will when you’re trying to style on fools in your game of choice. Other keyboards come up short in this respect. The Corsair K70, for example, is a great keyboard for FPS gamers, but for everything else you do on a computer, it feels “off.” Not so with the Alloy Elite. Whether you’re writing a novel, flaming your teammates, or 1v1-ing some scrub on LAN, the Alloy Elite gets the job done.
- The detachable wrist rest is truly a gift from the heavens.
I spend most of my day in front of a keyboard, and as I get older, wrist strain has become a serious concern. The wrist rest that comes with the Alloy Elite forces your hands to rest in a comfortable (and healthy) position, and I’ve noticed that my arms aren’t feeling nearly as strained after long gaming sessions as they were before. Major props to HyperX on this one.
- Fewer accidental keypresses.
The keycaps on the Alloy Elite are curved in such a way that your fingers will naturally gravitate to the center of each key. I’ve been making fewer typos, and in Dota, I can leave quickcast on and not have to worry about using Black Hole on a creep wave when I’m playing Enigma.
- The Alloy Elite is built to last.
This keyboard might be slightly heavier than other models, sure, but it’s durable. The solid steel frame makes it feel more durable, but it’s also indicative of a product design philosophy that’s about as far away from manufactured obsolescence as possible. This ain’t no iPhone, in other words.
I decided to put the Alloy Elite through a series of carefully designed tests to see just how durable it actually is. First, I dropped it onto a hard surface from a height of five feet. Then, I picked it up and banged it on my desk a couple times. After that, I took an eight-pound rubber mallet and dropped it on the keyboard. Finally, I filled a 1/4 measuring cup with water and slowly poured it on the Alloy Elite. (It was unplugged at the time.)
Five hours later, I plugged it back in. Somehow, the keyboard not only survived, but didn’t even have a scratch on it. I won’t claim that it’s ‘water-resistant,’ especially since you shouldn’t be pouring water on a keyboard in the first place, but I was impressed. Plenty of peripherals have been ruined by much less, and the Alloy Elite works just as well now as it did when I first took it out of the box.
If that’s not durability, I don’t know what is.
The HyperX Alloy Elite is a damn fine piece of hardware. It’s a great choice for first-time mechanical keyboard owners, but even hardcore keyboard enthusiasts will have a hard time finding something to complain about. The Alloy Elite currently retails for $109.99 USD, and while that’s certainly not cheap, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth.
Esports Edition was provided with a review unit of the Alloy Elite by the manufacturer. As with all of our game and hardware reviews, our opinions are our own, and this article truthfully and accurately reflects our experiences with the product. Please review our Ethics Policy for more information about our review process.