This is a premium quality mechanical keyboard feeling heavy due to its metal construction and with no flex and no slip on the desk. This keyboard feels like it is going to last a long time.
It also features a very thick USB cable which splits into two connections which gives you a USB 2.0 pass through quite a useful feature.
Featuring cherry mx red keys and there is much to like about this. In action it feels very robust and responsive in general use and gaming. MX cherry reds are fairly quiet in operation(not to clicky) and accurate when typing they feel like nice keycaps and a back section containing dedicated media keys and a volume control roller. Much better than having to use a Fn key + another key in my opinion. Also included are some extra keycaps for the gaming side covering W,A,S,D and 1 to 4 a nice touch with a keycap puller to make the swap easy.
The keyboard also come with a wrist rest but I was not fond of it as the rubberised section only covers the main 2/3 of the keyboard leaving the arrow and number pad out, while this does look stylish it just didn’t feel right.
The lighting is pretty good and I really liked the big strip light at the top of the keyboard as it added a distinctive look to the keyboard. The lighting was bright and also had a button with off and three levels of brightness.
The software to control the lighting is easy enough to use but is also a bit limited, by the number of effects and only having two layers of effects. While its competitors have much more to offer in this department. I put this down to being new to the market for HyperX and it is not necessarily a bad thing, it comes down to what you want in a keyboard. At least two of its competitors have the ability to sync with other peripherals like mice and headphones stands within their own ecosystem but again this comes down to personal taste and requirements.
Due to the less complicated effects of this keyboard there seem to be no downloadable profiles which in themselves can be quite fun to play with but it is not really a deal breaker.
Review of a Amazon retail sample as found here http://amzn.to/2F9g7b0
Conclusion
About a 7/10
While solid maybe next year a new version will have caught up with the pack.