Element Gaming Beryllium Keyboard Review

A Closer Look

The Beryllium comes hard-wired with a thick USB cable.

The cable has a thick black and blue braiding which matches the colour scheme of the keyboard, keeping everything looking nice and uniform, while also improving the durability of the cable.

As I said before, this is a full-size keyboard, but unlike a lot of mechanical keyboards, the chassis of the keyboard is quite slim, meaning it’s not going to be too overbearing on your available desk space.

Under the keys, you’ll find a black brushed metal finish that looks absolutely stunning. The metal finish is accented with a bright blue casing that covers the base and sides of the keyboard, giving a nice contrasting effect, which also matches up with the custom key caps and the cable braiding.

As you can see, that blue really stands out, although admittedly my camera flash does make it look a little more luminous than it actually is. There are four rubber feet on the base of the keyboard, not the biggest, but combined with the weight of the keyboard, it feels surprisingly well planted on wood and glass desktop surfaces; don’t forget there are two more grips on the wrist rest, which also help.

The flip-up feet are pretty standard, but durable enough to withstand a bit of punishment; I’ve seen better, I’ve certainly seen worse.

Right, on to the cool stuff! This keyboard comes equipped with Kailh Red switches, if you’ve never heard of Kailh, they’re basically an alternative brand to Cherry. The Red’s here feel a little heavier than Cherry MX Red, but certainly nowhere near as heavy as MX Blacks.

The keys are fast and responsive, making them superb for gaming and those who have a lot of typing to do on a day-to-day basis, as it doesn’t fatigue your fingers as much as some membrane keyboards do. To boost productivity, you’ll also find a range of FN-shift accessible shortcuts, there’s pretty standard stuff, but handy to have.

Multimedia controls are here too, meaning you can skip music tracks from your media player without having to quit out of your game, or tab away from your work.

More shortcuts here, although the F12 one is interesting, as it allows you to change through the keyboards lighting profiles.

The Insert and Delete keys also have an FN-shift function, allowing you to switch between 6Key and NKey rollover, handy for all of those who take the technical side of their gaming a little more seriously.

The spacing on the keys is really nice and even without the wrist rest, this is a very comfortable keyboard to work and game on. The Up and Down keys also have FN-Shift functions, allowing you to adjust the brightness of the LED lighting, including turning it all the way down to zero.

There’s a full-size number pad, which is great for work and gaming alike, but the coolest thing over here is the master volume control.

The volume wheel is coated with a thick textured rubber and is great for making quick volume adjustments; there’s also a master mute button here for when you need to quickly kill the audio.

The included key-cap removal tool came in handy here, allowing me to take a look at the switches. As I said before, they’re Kailh switches and you can see the LED lights located at the back of each switch.

The custom key-caps that were included in the box look fantastic and while I touch type and don’t really need the visual indication of where my gaming keys are, I still enjoy leaving these installed regardless; it looks cool, that’s about all they do.

The final addition to this setup is the wrist rest, which does increase the desk space required quite a lot, so may not be suitable for slimmer desk spaces, but the bonus is that it’s incredibly comfortable to use. When working and gaming, I found the elevated typing angle helped reduced wrist strain quite a big and it’s deep enough that you can rest your palm on it; I’ve seen many rests on keyboards that are simply too small to be of any use.

As I’ve already said, gaming on this keyboard is a lot of fun. It feels snappy and responsive when typing and I didn’t have a single issue with responsiveness during many games of League of Legends, ESO, CS:GO or anything else I played throughout the last few evenings. I’ve been using this keyboard for work for a few days now too and I’m certainly impressed with how it feels, but also how quiet the keys are compared to virtually any other mechanical I’ve tested in recent memory.

The LED lighting is staggeringly clear, even in a well-lit room and while you’ve only got a single colour to choose from, you can enjoy a few pre-set zones, or reactive lighting effects.