Today’s review is going to be on the HyperX Alloy Origins 60. This is a compact mechanical gaming keyboard from a Hyper X, and talking about the design and builds quality of this keyboard. It features a full aluminum frame, so everything is very firm and rigid. There is no bend or flex anywhere in the body of this keyboard.
Buy On Amazon: HyperX Alloy Origins 60
You’re also getting double-shot PBT keycaps, and as most of you already know, PBT is known for its durability. These keycaps are going to last you a very long time. They’re not going to get that shine on them as some ABS keycaps do with extended periods of use. They are smooth keycaps, but they do have the slightest bit of texture, and they feel really nice to type on.
Also, because of that aluminum frame, you are getting a nice bit of heft to this keyboard, which will allow it to be firmly planted on your desktop. It’s not going to slide around on you a lot or anything like that. So overall, the build quality of this keyboard is excellent as far as the design goes; it’s available and only one color at the moment, and that’s the black color. It does come with a plain spacebar. If you don’t like the design on this one, you can swap that out, but I really like the design on this keyboard, and I sometimes get a lot of questions about how these space bars feel with these etched-in designs. Spacebar feels really good. You can feel just a little bit of texture from this design, and it’s not as pronounced as some other keyboards, even like the Ducky One. There’s a little bit more of a textured feel on that one. This one feels very subtle.
Being a 60% keyboard, you do lose several keys. You lose the function row up top, number pad, dedicated arrow keys, page up, down, home, print screen, etc. But like most other 60% keyboards, it does have front-printed legends. So, in combination with the function key and those buttons, you retain that functionality. This keyboard only comes in the black color, and the Hyper X red switches at the review time.
The RGB LEDs on this keyboard are very bright and vibrant, and the RGB just in general looks exquisite. It’s probably got some of the best RGB lights on a keyboard that I’ve seen in a while. On the back of the keyboard, it’s got some very subtle Hyper X branding there, etched into the case, and then you do have adjustable feet on the back that adjust at three levels. The angles for this are 3 degrees, 7 degrees, and 11 degrees. So, you do have some height adjustment there on the back. As far as the switches go, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t sure what to expect from Hyper X switches, but overall, they sound and perform very well. These are modeled after Cherry MX red switches, so they are linear, and they have a similar sound profile to them, but they are slightly different, mainly in their actuation distance and total travel distance.
The Cherry MX red Switch has an actuation distance of two millimeters, whereas this is 1.8 millimeters and Cherry red switches have a total travel distance of 4 millimeters, whereas this is 3.8 millimeters, so there are some very minor differences there, but if you like linear switches, and especially if you are a fan of the Cherry MX Reds or the Gateron Reds, you’re probably going to like this switch a lot. I’ve noticed that I like the stabilizers that come on this keyboard. They sound and feel pretty nice for a pre-built keyboard. The spacebar is a little “clacky”. But overall, not bad at all for stabilizers coming from a pre-built keyboard straight from the factory. This keyboard sounds good for switches that haven’t been lubed or filmed or anything like that.
This keyboard does come with the software they call their software NGENUITY, and you can download this directly from their website. When you open up the software, you will see on the left-hand side are going to be any of your connected compatible products. You can adjust a couple of settings for the keyboard, such as having this program startup with your computer and resetting your keyboard or the software. Then you’ll have the two tabs up top that will do your main functionality for this keyboard. On the top-right menu, you can change the brightness, and you can also put it into the game mode or select from a couple of different presets that HyperX has loaded on there. If you hit keys, this will bring up your macros, and it’s going to allow you to adjust the base and function layers.
So, if you need to adjust any keys or add any functions or macros to these, you can do that, and then the tab that most of you are going to be concerned with is the lighting tab. On the bottom left, you can choose between three different triggered effects, your reactive modes, whereas if you decide on an explosion and hit a key, it ripples out from that key.
You can also hide the wave layer and change that to flame. It’s just going to kind of fade out. That single key is going to fade in and out. When you press it and then get rid of any of these effects, you’re just going to hit the trash icon to delete that. So, before we start talking about the real way to adjust these functions, I will go through all of their preset ones quickly. There is breathing, and for each of these effects, anything that you can do will be there on the right-hand side. For example, this is all lights red. You can change the lighting color if you would like or make a selection. Select the amount of those keys and a specific color, and you can also speed it up and slow it down. This is confetti. And then it looks like the only thing you can do with this is slow it down or speed it up. Anything on the right will apply to this effect. There’s a swipe that you can change the speed and direction. There will be two colors that will be your solid static color; Twilight and Wave.
Now to talk about a bit of a quirk, I guess, about this software, but it’s very functional. It’s just the way HyperX went about it, and it is a little convoluted, in my opinion, and I’ll tell you what I mean. For example, when we have a solid red color and down there on the left when you add these effects, you have almost to imagine that this panel down there is like layers like you would find in Photoshop. So whatever is the topmost layer is going to be the most dominant. It will be the one on top, and then you can hide layers under it.
What I mean by that is, let’s say you want to turn half of the keyboard blue and half of the keyboard red. I would choose solid, and I would make a selection. I would select these as red. You would think you could come over there and set the other half and make them blue, but that’s not how this works. You would have to select half of these as red, and then you would have to add in another solid effect. Again, think of this as a layer, and if I select the color blue. You’ll see that the left side is blue. But you’ll have to make sure that it’s under the other layer because if this is the main dominant layer, they’re all going to be blue. So, you would have to drag the blue color under the other solid effect to show both colors, and you can do this for other things as well. For example, I can get rid of the blue and pull in like a wave effect. But if I bring it down below my solid layer, half of the keyboard is in wave mode, and the other half is in a solid color mode, so the software is very functional.
The RGB settings of this keyboard are actually pretty cool, but it does take a little bit of getting used to. I was sitting trying to turn half the keyboard red and half blue by selecting different halves of the keyboard, and it just doesn’t let you do that. The other cool thing to note quickly about this is with the eyedropper. You can choose any color on your desktop, another program, or anything like that and turn your LEDs to that color. This would be really cool for is if you had a logo.
Let’s say you stream, have a business, or maybe just an icon that you like to use while you’re gaming. You can click the eyedropper tool, hover over your logo, and it will genuinely match your keyboard to that logo color. I think that’s actually an excellent feature on this keyboard. And then, when you’re done with all of this, it updates automatically. Still, you can save it to three different profiles on the software and load up to three other profiles on the keyboard, which wraps up the review.
Overall, this keyboard is excellent. The RGB LEDs that they use on this are very nice. Very bright, very high quality. There’s not much to dislike about the HyperX Alloy Origins 60. If I had any complaints, It would be that I hope they bring their other switch types to this keyboard, and I’m sure they will look at some point. I like the software that they have included. The aluminum frame feels good, and I like everything about the keycaps. The legends on them are very bold and very easy to read.
I like the shine-through for those great LEDs underneath, and it’s at a perfect price point of $69.99 to give you an idea of how that stacks up to other premium pre-built compact keyboards. You’re talking about the Anne Pro 2 at $100 and the Ducky One at $100. The Razor Huntsman mini was recently on sale, but it typically fluctuates between about $100 and $130 depending on the switch type and what kind of deal they have. And then, of course, you have more of a direct comparison because of the aluminum frame you have, the Ducky One Mecha Mini, which I believe is right there around $120.00. So really, I would highly recommend looking at this keyboard if you’re looking for a compact premium keyboard. HyperX Alloy Origins 60 would be a perfect option for you.
Most of those other keyboards, except the Mecha Mini, are very similar in build quality and functionality, except they don’t have an aluminum frame. And while the Ducky Mecha Mini does, it’s also slightly more expensive, and at least now, it doesn’t have a software option. So, if you guys are looking for an aluminum frame 60% keyboard, definitely look at this one. It’s tough to find anything wrong with this HyperX Alloy Origins 60. I hope you guys enjoyed this review.
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