HyperX Alloy Elite Keyboard Review

1. Introduction2. Unboxing and First Look3. Testing4. Closing Thoughts5. View All Pages

The HyperX Alloy Elite ships in a dark box with a large product photo visible on the front. There is also some red accenting which ties in with the red backlight of the keyboard.

Inside, users get one quick-start guide, a ‘welcome to the HyperX family' greeting card and then 8 replacement keycaps – these are for WASD and numbers 1-4, and have a metallic look and textured feel. A keycap puller is also included.

The other ‘accessory' is the detachable wrist rest, which is one area where the Elite improves on the original Alloy FPS. It is made from plastic and attaches using two small clips. The left-hand side of the rest has a textured finish, presumably to help grip while typing or gaming, while the right-hand side is smooth.

Next we come to the keyboard itself. Without the wrist rest attached, it does look very similar to its predecessor though there are a few differences that we will come to shortly. However, the Elite is still made from the same steel alloy (hence the name) and build quality is excellent – but more on that on the next page.

Two of the more obvious differences between the Alloy FPS and the Elite are the dedicated LED and media controls. Above, left, you can see the LED controls that are on the left-hand side of the board. From left-to-right, these buttons are as follows: brightness, LED mode, and the game mode enabler.

On the right-hand side of the board we have dedicated media keys (play/pause, skip, mute) as well as a volume wheel. These are very good inclusions and definitely elevate the Alloy Elite over its predecessor, while also going a long way to justifying that extra £20.

One more thing to mention is that the small plastic-looking strip under the top controls is actually a LED strip which glows once the keyboard has power.

Prising off two keycaps reveals the Cherry MX Red switches used below. This is an interesting area of discussion as the Alloy FPS originally launched with only MX Blue switches available (though other variants popped up a bit later), and I am now told that the Elite will only be available in the UK with MX Red switches, though other regions will have the choice of Brown and Blue switches as well. We will discuss this more on the next page.

On the back of the board there is a single USB 2.0 port, and this is another area where we see an improvement from the original Alloy FPS – on that keyboard, there was a secondary USB port but it only provided power. With the Elite, this is now a proper USB pass-through port, so you can plug a mouse or headset in and it will work as normal.

Turning to the underside of the Elite, we find four anti-slip rubber feet as well as two height adjustment stands.

Lastly, the keyboard connects via two USB connectors – one for the keyboard itself, one for the passthrough. The braided cable measures 1.8m long.

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