Reviewing hardware is always a little tricky, you can focus on one thing to the extent of all others, but that generally applies to a device like a laptop, when your review is for a keyboard, well you start to get into the technical, as well as the functional, but does the latest from HyperX, make that simple or is it more complex than that?

HyperX have had the Alloy line of keyboards going for some time, but with each iteration of the line, things have been built for a very specific purpose, the Origins is the first to blend all together. Taking the keyboard out of the box, it is easy to note how little there is of it, it is a tiny frame, this is not to say that the keyboard itself is small, thankfully it is a full size layout, the size is more to do with how little extra fluff there is around the sides. On the underside, where the feet are, you will actually find that they have multiple levels of adjustment, meaning you no longer have to be as tall as it can go, or flat, you can adjust it and that is a nice touch. The body itself, whilst small, is very rigid as it is made from aluminium, making it a little heavy, but also stable, which helps when you get into the action, the keys though, that is where things begin to shine, literally.

As has become a bit of a standard of late, each of the keys on it are mechanical, yes, but more so, they all contain a led, giving you many ways in which to illuminate your gaming session. By default, the keyboard will cycle through a rainbow of colours, which is nice, but you can use the software HyperX have made, to change the layout to whatever you want it to be. I myself have had mine stuck on the Sun setting, which has a nice effect and reacts when you press a key down, overall the keyboard looks very nice. As it is a full-size keyboard, it can take up a bit of space on your desk, but as I mentioned before, its small frame, means that there is distinct lack of excess, in fact the entire width clocks in at just over 442mm, or 44.2cm.

One area that the Origins differs from their more recent entries is that there is no longer any sort of USB hub, nor any fancy media controls, the keyboard is all about the basics and it works. There are still hot keys for things like media playback, but they are woven back into the F keys, something a lot of others do as well. In fact, most of the extra functions are tied with the Function key setup, so changing profile, brightness and even enabling game mode, all require use of the key, but its location makes it simple to use. I am a little chuffed at myself, that I am down here and have yet to mention the keys themselves and that is doing the entire product a disservice as they are amazing. The Origins is the first keyboard from HyperX to be made by them and feature the Red design. The keys themselves are linear in their nature, as opposed to something like the clicky style found elsewhere, but it is not just a difference in overall style, the keys have an actuation point of 1.8mm, which is insane.

The actuation point is how long it takes for the key to press down, before the computer registers that it has been pressed and 1.8mm is a very short time indeed. The total travel space is 3.8mm so 2mm more than you need, but what that does provide is a solid base in which to feel the keys being depressed upon use, so each press has a solid response back. In order to push the key down, HyperX estimate a force of 45g is required, but I found that sometimes, a lighter touch works as well, but this is not a keyboard that responds to puffs of air, so you will never find yourself depressing keys, without meaning to. The Linear nature of the Switch means that you won’t also get a response back, from it until it has been depressed, something that the Clicky style does, the upside to this though, is that you wont get any double click noises, only a single once from when the key is down the entire way, which in turn makes then quieter than other switches.

Of course, all this matter not, if you can’t use the keyboard in games without issue and thankfully, I found none at all, a game like Minecraft, which is slow by nature, felt even slower, thanks to the keys responding faster than I was used to. DOOM (2016) was the opposite, I found myself getting around much faster, thanks to the response time of the keys. Other games were much the same, Call of Duty was smoother, while a game like Total War had me more attuned to the battle, as there was never any doubt about if I had pushed the key or not, thanks to that small travel distance and firm click at the end. Functionally, I have very little to complain about, the keyboard is responsive, there is a proper feel to each press and moreover, it does not make itself take up a lot of space, which is nice, though with all the things it does well, there are some things it does poorly.

The first thing of note are the LED’s, which are quite bright, but the issue is that they are placed near the top of the key, so any space above them, has the lights shining out quite brightly. This is not an issue in normal day to day use, but when playing a game, you will get a lot of lights shining on your display, from the topmost row of the board, which can be distracting. Even then, there are other keys, such as the left side of the number pad, or the home cluster, here the light is bounces out from under the keys and off the aluminium frame and if you have lights that pulse, or flash quickly, you will notice it. The other issue is that the keyboard holds dust and other such things very quickly, I have been using the keyboard daily since PAX Australia and have had to clean it twice already and using it to type up the review, shows it could do with another one.

The final issue that I had, comes down to the lights, or more specifically the software you use to set them up, HyperX will currently tell you that the software is in beta, but it is functional. The issue comes from when you attempt to save the profiles, I have done everything according to the instructions, but for some reason, the moment I close the program down, the keyboard reverts back to the wave of colours, no matter what I do. This is not a ‘can no longer use’ type of issue, but it quite annoying that I spend time choosing lights and setups for my profiles, only for me to have to keep the program running, in order to get them to work the way I want.

HyperX have slowly be making strides with their hardware, be it mouse or keyboard, headset or something else, each iteration gets better and better. The Alloy Origins is not a massive leap forward, but rather a solid foundation again, no longer are there pointless additions to draw you in, the keyboard is back and that is just perfect. Some issues with the lights and dust should not distract you from looking at this, because for the price you will be paying, there are very few other keyboards on the market worth your time.