HyperX Alloy Rise Keyboard Review – Fun Customization Options With Few Options

HyperX recently added to its small yet growing selection of gaming keyboards. The HyperX Alloy Rise Mechanical Gaming Keyboard brings new talking points to customizable products, with the ability to interchange the faceplate cover on the fly, swap personalized badges, and more. At $199.99, the customization options aren’t as standout as I would like, but this set of keys has other prominent benefits worth your attention.

Ergonomic Elegance: Design That Plays to Comfort

If I can sum up the way the look and feel presents itself on the HyperX Alloy Rise, it would be comfortable. The design isn’t too in your face, and there aren’t too many outstanding cuts or grooves, no major bolts or screws showing. It is just a simple, clean-looking product.

Visually, the keys have a fine yet present texture that adds a certain appeal rather than just having a smooth surface throughout. By the look of it, you would think it would feel more gritty, but it actually is very soft while providing grip. HyperX brought an original take here in a product category that seems to be uniform.

Swappable Lift Cover for Personalized Aesthetics

Beneath and around the keys, one can find the replaceable lift cover that adds a contrasting smooth, metallic texture—a much-needed balance from the foreground. This is a key element of the keyboard for those who can’t make up their minds and often change the look of their surroundings.

As of this review, you can only purchase the black keyboard variant, and from what I can find, there are no other color options available. The brand does have blue and white cover plates, but right now, they’re only a tease. HyperX has more to come in May 2024, but who’s to say if it will hit home? Remember, this hardware asks for $199.99.

Cover Conundrum

A big flaw in the design of the HyperX Alloy Rise is the cover plate can easily fall off when you go to pick up the keyboard. Unless you properly grab it from underneath with two hands, the plate falls off when grabbing the product one-handed. Yes, I have big hands, and I ferociously lift my gear with one hand. When I do this, my Alloy Rise slips off the plate and comes crashing down. This could be a me-only issue, but I think it’s worth a mention as it’s another stupid thing I have to remember day to day.

Anyway, the front cover comes off a little too easily with magnets for simple plug-and-play. Nicely enough, provided in the box of a new front face plate is a color-matched volume knob. It certainly would have been a bummer if they left out the knob, but HyperX is saved. White keycaps are not part of the package deal, but at least the contrast between white and black looks fresh and intriguing.

Removable Logo Badges, Branding, and Style

Luckily enough, the HyperX Alloy Rise is a product that promotes subtle branding, hosting a debossed logo on the front plate above the up arrow key and a removable logo badge on the right side. The badge is magnetic and stays on firmly but comes off effortlessly.

These HyperX Alloy Rise badges can be purchased online in due time. It’s difficult to give the Alloy Rise a fair review since nobody can even buy the badges yet, so based on the 4 samples provided with no real vision as to what options might be available, the concept of the badges seems a bit disconnected, and just another avenue for meaningless a la carte marketing. It’s highly likely people won’t resonate enough with the designs, leaving them with fewer selling points for this rather expensive keyboard than the one originally promoted.

I’m only digging so deep on this topic since it’s basically a major selling point for this product. I think both aspects of the frame customization and frame badges are a bit of a stretch. HyperX certainly knows how to play Santa Claus on this one, that’s for sure.

In contrast, a win for the HyperX Alloy Rise is the addition of sleek media keys for music lovers especially. These keys offer a favorable, firm, and tactile response that makes you feel like a DJ every time they are pressed. Media keys are often mushy, but these offer a pleasant contrast. Adding to this, the volume dial has large rotational notches, so it does take a few spins and re-grips to go from 100-0. I think the volume dial could be a bit more fluid, but it does match the adjacent styling of all media keys, so it works well in the grand scheme.

Gaming Grip

The HyperX Alloy Rise holds its ground with strong rubber grips on the bottom and in each corner. Nicely, when you fold out the feet, HyperX also places rubber here, so each configuration maintains similar levels of friction.

The height of the keyboard is actually really nice, allowing my wrists to distance themselves properly from the keys without hurting myself. It would be nice if HyperX gave us a wrist rest for this price point, as it goes a long way in my book, but no cigar here.

Typing Heaven

This leads me to discuss how amazing the typing experience is on the Hyperx Alloy Rise with the kitted red linear switches. Some might prefer a more clicky feel, in which you can purchase entirely replaceable switch kits to get the perfect touch or kickback where you want, and I am happy to say that these switches are available now. Regardless, the provided keys feel soft, responsive, and pillow-like. It’s hard to speak about it, but there is something heavenly about the sensory experience of the Alloy Rise, and this emotion continues days after the product feels new to me. A major win for HyperX here.

As a relatable mention, I did find the process of removing the switches rather stiff and challenging on this PCB. It could be the provided tool, but either way, be very careful when removing switches, as I almost broke them myself.

USB Demise Once Again

More points on the visual appeal: The lackluster attention to detail regarding the USB cable and cable mounting area is frustrating. It just seems tossed in rather than integrated into the look and feel of the Alloy Rise.

RGB Experience

Touching on the RGB experience, the lighting and opacity through the keycaps seem very serene yet sharp and defined. I never found the five stages of brightness to be irritating or too in your face. The most intense setting looks full of saturation and does not look dim.

I didn’t immediately notice the RGB underneath the frame until a few days into this review, and I would like to think the visibility of said lights is for you, but they are for your LAN friends to see. They are appealing, if you can see them, but they don’t even light up enough or point at a good enough angle to show on your desk as underglow, so it’s an empty selling point, in my opinion.

The caps lock toggle can be improved, as I can see why HyperX chose this route due to the nature of the customizable frame as the light indicator for the toggle is on the key itself, so I find myself covering this part of the keys with my hands and can’t actually see the change happen. It might seem silly, but sometimes I prefer to quickly check the status of my caps lock without lifting my left wrist.

Digital Breakdown: Opening Up The Software

Let’s jump into the digital experience of the HyperX Alloy Rise, starting with the software. The Ngenuity app from HyperX shows up with a fresh face that brings a very satisfying and easy user experience. There are plenty of RGB options to choose from, the usual macro and profile menus, but this time these features are accompanied by a click-and-drag system, which works great. It makes it much easier and faster to mass-select certain keys to customize separately.

Gaming With The HyperX Alloy Rise

There isn’t anything exceptional or different from the gaming experience with the HyperX Alloy Rise. That’s not to say it’s bad, but in this category, it’s just a keyboard that works, and that’s okay. If you are into gaming products, sometimes brands do specific things to cater to gamers, such as giving a different feel to the WASD area, but the product keeps itself uniform and aesthetically simple.

The provided red switches do need a deep, full press to actuate, so take that as you will. The blue switches provided by HyperX offer a similar actuation distance but with more spring-back for quicker spam clicks and a bit more of a mechanical sound. In general, if you want an extremely sensitive actuation distance, the Alloy Rise does not offer that experience.

Conclusion

The HyperX Alloy Rise is a very effective product when it comes to comfort, typing experience, and general keyboard use, but it seems to forget about the gamer. It is more closely related to the streaming community, who are looking for a new shiny object to put on camera or for kids who need something fun and entertaining to fiddle with.

More compromises arise where the major selling points of switch, color, frame, and badge customization seem a bit premature and misguided. I don’t think gamers will resonate as much as they want with this product or the additional accessories that aren’t even available in mass. By the time the Alloy Rise keyboard has a large amount of add-ons or colors, a new product will be released, and life will go on. This is just my prediction, as I hope they prove me wrong, but this item release seems big-headed.

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