A Menacing Red: HyperX Alloy FPS Mechanical Keyboard Review
July 4, 2017
HyperX announced the Alloy FPS Mechanical Gaming Keyboard earlier this year. We’ve seen a lot of information about it floating around the net from credible and popular sites. But today we got the chance to get our hands on one, and this article will be all about the HyperX Alloy FPS Mechanical Gaming Keyboard.
Unboxing –
The Alloy FPS Mechanical Gaming Keyboard ships in a thick black box that has a slip-on cover with all the basic information about the Alloy FPS Gaming Mechanical Keyboard.
Inside the box are the Alloy FPS Gaming Mechanical Keyboard (encased with foam), Keyboard Travel Pouch, Detachable USB cable, a Quick Start Guide, Congratulatory Letter, Eight extra red gaming key caps and the Key cap puller.
Layout –
The HyperX Alloy FPS is of the 104-key layout compressed to a compact design. It has everything that you’ll need from a basic keyboard and some other nifty features, which we’ll get into detail later.
Underneath the keycaps lie the Cherry MX red switches which are known to be fast and responsive due to its linear design. One of the best switches out in the market for FPS games like CSGO and Overwatch, which require fast, timed, and rapid actuation. The MX red switches are also not as clicky as the blue. But you’ll still have the premium feel that you get from a mechanical switch, minus the audible clicky sound.
A daily driver for a gamer and typist –
I’ve been using a large design keyboard as my daily driver for about a year. I thought the compact design of the Hyper X Alloy FPS would really be hard to get used to, but with just a couple of hours typing and gaming with it, I fell in love with its compact design.
Its compact design shortens the travel time of my fingers to the keys, which is good when typing. However, if you are not that familiar with the design, you’d end up typing or pressing the wrong key. But with just a couple of hours of getting yourself familiarized, you’ll be surprised that your typing work would be less strenuous. That’s what it did for me. I do hope the same would happen in your situation.
Having FPS in its name, I tried it out with games like CSGO, Far Cry 4 and Battle Field 1. Well, I’ll say it again, for me, its design needs a couple of hours of getting use to, but if you’re familiar with compact designed keyboards, then there’s nothing to worry about. The HypeX Alloy FPS was able to let me strafe right to left while throwing a grenade in Battle Field 1, and thanks to the additional red key caps for the “wasd” and “1234”, moving around and changing from main weapon to secondary weapon didn’t need me to check if I was pressing the correct key.
Games like Dota 2 and LOL was a different story, its compact design was a bit too much for me on these games. Since the proximity of the keys is a bit short, I ended up pressing the wrong keys, thus rendered me to miss a kill and an assist. But, i’m not blaming the keyboard tho. Maybe, I just need some more time with it and play more MOBA games with to familiarize my fingers with the keys proximity.
Lighting effects, lighting levels, and charging –
The Hyper X Alloy FPS offers six lighting effects. By default or out of the box, its lighting effect is set to the usual Static lighting effect. Its other lighting effects are Breathing, Trigger (per key strike lighting), Ripple, Wave, and Gaming (the keys “wasd”, “1234” and space bar are only lit). Its lighting brightness has 5 levels which are off, 25, 50, 75, and 100.
It also feature a USB pass-through which lets users charge their phones while playing or just browsing. This feature is so useful, especially for me, because there is shortage of power outlet in our house. So whenever I need to charge my phone while using the computer, I end up going out of the room just to charge my phone on the available power outlet.
Conclusion –
The HyperX Alloy FPS is a straightforward HID with a couple of lighting effects to play around with. The compact design required time to get familiarized, but once you get the lowdown, it begins to be enjoyable for both gaming and typing. Its Cherry MX Red version offered accurate and fast response, but if you’re not a fan of it, you can check out the Cherry MX Blue or Cherry MX Brown versions of the HyperX Alloy FPS.