The Kingston HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Keyboard Review

Conclusion

Kingston released the HyperX Alloy Elite as a step forward from the Alloy FPS, a gaming keyboard that was designed to be minimalistic, compact and easy to carry around. The Alloy Elite is a design that ditches the portability for additional practical features, making geared towards gamers who do not plan on frequently moving it around. Despite the “Elite” characterization, the company did not try to pack the keyboard with features, nor did they step into the RGB quadrant. (Or at least not yet, as the company does have an RGB version of the Alloy Elite planned for the future.)

The HyperX Alloy Elite is a product of excellent overall quality. Cherry’s mechanical switches are of renowned quality and the thick steel frame makes it almost impervious to damage. Internally, the assembly job is immaculate. Even the plastic top bar that holds the low-profile buttons and volume wheel is very thick and well designed, although it is not as resistant to scratches as the metal top plate is. The weak part of the Alloy Elite is the plastic volume wheel. It works and feels great but its plastic axle will definitely not survive a serious blow. Gamers with temper issues should aim their punches elsewhere.

Moving on, due to its soft, responsive Cherry MX Red switches, the HyperX Alloy Elite is something I consider very comfortable for prolonged gaming sessions. Some gamers may dislike the standard bottom row – as they may be accustomed to expanded Spacebar keys – but most will endorse its implementation, especially modders that enjoy swapping their keycaps. For professional use, the HyperX Alloy Elite is comfortable when the typist can type without bottoming down most of the keystrokes. The softness of the keys can make this a little difficult at first and the lack of feedback does not help but, once mastered, the HyperX Alloy Elite is very comfortable for professional use, especially if there are other people in the vicinity of the user.

The Achille’s heel of the HyperX Alloy Elite is its simplicity, especially in such a competitive market. When gamers decide to invest over $100 for a quality mechanical keyboard, they usually want it to be loaded with all the bells and whistles. Most >$100 keyboards are fully programmable and come with proper software for it, or at least feature basic hardware macro programming. The Alloy Elite completely lacks programmability, which although doesn't hurt its basic keyboard functions in any way, leaves it at a competitive disadvantage. Otherwise, despite its popularity, we do not consider RGB lighting to be a vital feature and we certainly enjoyed the clear, even backlighting of the Alloy Elite. However, there are also many mechanical keyboards that feature programmable RGB lighting that are currently selling for less than $100, making the Alloy Elite an even less competitive option.

What Kingston wanted to do is to develop a high quality, beautiful mechanical keyboard that can retail at an affordable price – something that is more practical for everyday use than the Alloy FPS, yet not significantly more expensive. The Alloy FPS, however, had very little competition to deal with, as there were very few really compact full-size mechanical keyboards available. We feel that Kingston is diving into dangerous waters with the HyperX Alloy Elite, as the competition it is going to face will be enormous. A few years ago, $110 for a high-quality gaming mechanical keyboard would be a reasonable investment. Today there are myriads of mechanical keyboards available around this price range, with some offering full advanced programmability, some programmable RGB lighting, and some even both at the same time. Although the HyperX Alloy Elite is a very high-quality product, we feel that it will be very difficult for Kingston to stand above the pack in a rather crowded keyboard market.