Element Gaming Beryllium Keyboard Review

Overview

 

The choice of Gaming Keyboards out there is plentiful, you could spend a whole heap of cash and buy a Razer Deathstalker Ultimate or Logitech G19s or save some money and go for the pcG Award winning Element Gaming Thorium 300? The question is; will spending a lot of money get you an amazing Gaming keyboard? Yes, is probably the answer but it’s going to take a fair chunk out of your wallet. Or do you try and save some money and find yourself disappointed with your purchase?

Well let’s take a look at the Element Gaming Beryllium, the first mechanical keyboard from this homegrown U.K. company and see if we can get everything we want for a bargain price, after…

A brief interlude. What is Beryllium? ‘Beryllium is a chemical element with symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is created through stellar nucleosynthesis and is a relatively rare element in the universe.’

The Element Gaming Beryllium is a straight out of the box plug ‘n play mechanical Gaming Keyboard. For the great price of approximately £60.00 you get a fair amount of features on this keyboard such as LED backlighting with individual key lighting, red mechanical switches, N-key Rollover, media controls and a wrist rest. The sleek ergonomic design borrows a lot from a well known company with Sails (ED: well most of the time!) in their logo, But it’s not like we haven’t seen this before! 😉 Let’s get down to the nitty gritty and see if Element Gaming’s first mechanical Gaming Keyboard is as precious as the element it is named after…

 

 

The Element Gaming Beryllium came to pcG in a modest sized black box with a matte finish and silver print wherever the word “Beryllium” is used. The front of the box features the Element Gaming Logo and the keyboard’s name “Beryllium” which is in an interesting typeface (quite Gothic!). Also, there is an image of the keyboard with another zoomed in image of the red mechanical switches. On the right we find some of the main features highlighted, these are also duplicated on the back of the box and listed below.

The back of the box highlights the Beryllium mechanical keyboard mission statement which can be found above (in italics) and a caution about loss of performance and warranty if you modify the keyboard in any way!? Also, there is a smaller image of the Element Gaming Beryllium with indicators pointing out that the keyboard has the following features:

 

 

The four sides of the box feature the Element Gaming Logo and the name of the keyboard. The black matte finish on the packaging works very well with the shiny silver logo and name printed on it, simple, but effective.

 

 

When you open the Element Gaming Beryllium box you are immediately greeted by the sight of the keyboard itself, although wrapped in a plastic bag. The Beryllium sits nestled between two C shaped foam blocks keeping it safe from movement during transit. Also, we find the light blue Exchangeable WASD and Arrow Keys in a clear zip lock bag in a space at the bottom of the keyboard.

 

 

Lifting the keyboard out of the box reveals a folded white cardboard shelf on which the Beryllium was resting, underneath this we find the rest of the box contents. The first thing we notice is the Removable Wrist Rest which is contained in its own plastic bag and on taking it out I found it worryingly light! Also there is a Wired Optical Gaming Keyboard Instruction Manual, I am not sure how the word “optical” got in there, maybe it is left over from a Mouse manual!? I was happy though to find a red key puller, so many manufacturers don’t bother to include one nowadays, also and especially as we have the exchangeable keys to play with.

At the time of writing the Element Gaming Beryllium is retailing for approximately £60 on Ebuyer and according to the Element Gaming Website “Full information about our warranties will be added here soon…”

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Element Gaming

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

 

My first impressions of the Element Gaming Beryllium was that someone had sent me a Corsair Gaming K70 RGB Mechanical Keyboard by mistake! The Beryllium has the same keyboard layout, scroll wheel volume control and mute button in the top right hand corner as the Corsair design, but, of course it’s not. Apart from those similarities you can see that it is also missing the rest of the Media controls and lock button that the Corsair offered and quite frankly the Beryllium (somewhat surprisingly) seems to look a lot sleeker so far…

The Beryllium doesn’t waste any space and is predominantly made up of the keys themselves, the keyboard area is approximately 440mm x 135mm and at its thickest part it’s only 20mm. The keyboard’s surface has a brushed aluminium finish which at the front and back does not have an edge and almost floats above the front edge of the keyboard. Overall the general aesthetics of the keyboard are of a sleek design with a very tactile quality finish. Not forgetting that the Beryllium also comes with a removable wrist support for added comfort and more Gaming appeal.

 

 

The Element Gaming Beryllium has a pretty standard layout, the function keys run along the top of the keyboard with the numerical pad and arrow keys over to the right. There are no Macro keys as there is no software to support this kind of feature on the Beryllium, this is to be expected of course when you take the price in to consideration. In the top right hand corner there is a volume control scroll wheel and mute button and this is where you can see how much this differs from the Corsair K70. The wheel that controls the volume is made of plastic and not metal, also, it has a rubber Tyre wrapped around it. The same is to be said of the mute button which looks like a wheel but is not, I feel that these two buttons actually make the keyboard look and feel cheap whereas the rest does not. There are three indicator lights next to the scroll wheel, these are for Caps lock, Number lock on/off and Scroll lock. The actual keys themselves are spaced well and angled well in my opinion, they do have the look that they are floating on top of the keyboard base. I chose to exchange the black WASD and Arrow keys for the light blue ones as I felt this gave the keyboard a little bit more style.

 

 

The underside of the Element Gaming Beryllium is made up of a light blue finely textured plastic, at the front we can see the clip for the Removable Wrist Rest (more on that later). I do like the colour Element has chosen for the underside and sides of the keyboard, the light blue makes the aluminium and black keys pop quite a bit.

 

 

At the back of the Beryllium we find the attached blue and black braided cable which is pretty thick (approximately 7mm) but nothing compared to my standard Mionix Zibal 60 which could be used as a mooring rope for a cruise liner1! 😉

 

 

There are four small standard rubber feet in each corner and two height adjustable plastic feet at the rear. The adjustable feet raise the back of the keyboard a further 15mm approximately and give the keyboard a better angle in my opinion.

 

 

The sides of the Element Gaming Beryllium are made of the same light blue plastic as the underside, but they are more textured here and have a very nice feel to them, if you happen to pick up your keyboard. As you can see from the photos the keys are of a good angle especially when the adjustable plastic feet at the rear are raised.

 

 

As you can see from all the photos above I have taken shots of the Beryllium with and without the Removable Wrist Support, this is to give you a better view and idea of what the keyboard looks like in both situations. I am a big fan of wrist rests and like using keyboards with them when at all possible, so it was nice to see that Element Gaming included one even at this low price.

 

 

Overall I am pretty taken by the Element Gaming Beryllium and its sleek design. Look what you are getting for its price, red mechanical switches (not Cherry I know) with individual LED lighting, detachable wrist support, full N-key rollover and media controls. Let’s see how this all performs when we do some Gaming on the Beryllium…

 

Hardware Installation

The Element Gaming Beryllium connects to your Gaming Rig by way of a single gold plated USB plug. This plug is found at the end of a 1.8m thick black and blue braided cable. The cable is not the thinnest in the world but is surprisingly flexible.

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

The Element Gaming Beryllium was tested on our Test Rig, as no software is included or required for full operation of the keyboard no fresh installation of Windows 7 Ultimate N 64bit (service pack 1) was performed.

 

The following games were used during testing:

• Survarium (BETA)
• Battlefield 4
• Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• Submerged

 

Hardware Performance

 

• BACKLIGHTING

 

 

The backlighting for the Element Gaming Beryllium is a bonus for a mechanical keyboard in this price range, offering not just good illumination but functionality too! The keyboard has four levels of brightness and five different illumination functions allowing you to at least have some sort of customisation even without software.

 

 

To change the brightness of the Beryllium you just need to press the FN key in conjunction with the arrow up and down keys. Pressing FN and F12 cycles through the different lighting configurations, Mode 1 is full lighting, Mode 2 is lighting off, the next three are more for personal preference. Mode 3 illuminates the WASD keys, Enter, Space Bar, Arrow Keys on the Number Pad and Arrow Keys. Mode 4 illuminates all these plus keys 1-10 on the main keyboard, Tab, Shift Left, Shift Right, Right/Left CTRL and Right/Left ALT. And finally, Mode 5 illuminates the key you just used for approximately one second. There is no WASD only option, which I feel is an oversight and would obviously be simple to add! Let’s not forget the three LED lights in the top right hand corner, these light up when you have the Caps Lock on, Number Lock on or Scroll Lock on.

Overall the illumination and backlighting for the Beryllium is top quality, not only for this price range but for illuminated keyboards in general. The brightness levels are in good increments and bright enough in the daytime even, also the preset configurations are ample for a keyboard without software. 🙂

 

• REMOVABLE WRIST SUPPORT

 

 

I love a keyboard that comes with a Wrist Rest, Palm Support or Wrist Support, whatever you want to call it. But, with the Element Gaming Beryllium this was not the case, oh yes it comes with a Removable Wrist Support but in my opinion you can only use it when the height adjustable back legs are not being used. When you use the Beryllium in the higher position and with the wrist support what you basically get is a desktop trampoline, trust me, it is not as funny as it sounds! Because the wrist support is made from one solid piece of plastic and without a hinge what happens is that it lifts the front end of the keyboard up ever so slightly. This then means that every time you use the keyboard it ends up bouncing, this may not sound like much but it is truly irritating. This does not happen when the legs are not being used as the whole thing lies flat, this keyboard position might suit some people, but certainly not me!

I think this is a classic case of “less is more” in my opinion, if you are going to do something then do it right, put a hinge on it so we can all be happy. If not, then don’t do it at all because it is just going to bug you as a consumer, I just keep looking at the wrist support thinking how I would love to have it attached to my keyboard, but, because I prefer the higher leg setting I am penalized and have to use it as a door wedge instead. ;(

 

• KEYBOARD & SWITCHES

 

So at pcG we come across many types of keyswitches, Cherry MX of various colours, Romer-G and Razer to name some. But this is my first time to use a keyboard with red Kailh switches or any Kailh switch to tell the truth. The Beryllium uses Kailh red mechanical switches and not Cherry MX red switches. This of course is to keep cost down to deliver a mechanical keyboard with backlighting to your doorstep at such a reasonable price.

 

 

The Element Gaming Beryllium features N-Key rollover so theoretically you can press all of the keys at the same time and not have to worry about missing a command. As a very basic (no scientific test) I did try this on a blank Word page and I found that it did what it says on the tin, all the keys I pressed came up and this happened wherever I was pressing on the keyboard.

The ergonomic design of the keyboard suited me down to the ground, the angle of the keyboard (no wrist support, obviously!), angle and shape of the keys and spacing between each of them was ideal for me. I found that the Beryllium was perfect for Gaming and typing, especially for those out there having a midlife crisis who want to game and write a Forum post at the same time. I feel I am a fast typist and a heavy one at that, this rolls over into my Gaming so you can imagine how much bashing my keyboard gets during a heated review or gunfight (same thing right!?).

Overall I was pleased with what the Beryllium brought to my game, I had no problem with response time when playing faster games like Battlefield 4 and Survarium (BETA). The key switches never let me down once and all the commands I hit were executed with precision and speed. The same was to be said for slower games such as Submerged or my current Novigrad location in Witcher 3.

Now, I am a big fan of Cherry MX switches and I always will be, that’s not to say that I won’t use other switch types because I will. The Kailh red switches were in my opinion just as good when it came to Gaming, I am not sure about the longevity of them though or if they have the same lifespan of their Cherry counterparts. I do have one minor niggle though and that is one of a noise issue. The bigger keys on the Beryllium such as Enter and especially the Space bar had a whole new sound of their own, the space bar sounded like you were throwing small beanbags at mice (ED: WTF is that supposed to mean!?). The smaller keys all sounded the same, but the varying noises came from the other keys and depending on what size they were this gave you different sounds. I have never encountered this range of noises from a keyboard before and it was just something that I thought was worth mentioning. You actually get used to it after a while, I know this does not solve the issue but it did not bother me over time.

 

Final Thoughts

 

The Element Gaming Beryllium mechanical keyboard is a rare find, a budget keyboard that gives you features found on keyboards twice its price. Yes, Element Gaming have borrowed the design, but they have gone out of their way to give you the best without draining your bank balance…

The Element Gaming Beryllium arrived at pcG is a sleek matte black box with shiny silver logos to catch your eye. The keyboard was well packaged and everything you needed was included to get you started; the keyboard itself, exchangeable WASD/Arrow keys, wrist rest, key puller and instruction manual (albeit Optical?!?). First impressions of the Corsair K, oops, I mean Element Gaming Beryllium were very positive with its sleek ergonomic design. I only wish that Element Gaming had made the wrist rest with a hinge to keep the keyboard from bouncing when the legs were up. To be honest, I would rather it was not in the box at all. But, overall the keyboard looked great on my desk and certainly did not look like it cost only £60.00!

I love Cherry MX switches of all colours, who doesn’t? But, that does not mean I am not open to try other types of keyswitches and even those of the budget variety. The Kailh red switches in the Beryllium were better than I thought they were going to be, I am not being a snob or anything but seeing the word “Cherry” missing before the word “Red” when reading about keyswitches kind of makes me wary. But, the Beryllium’s red switches performed flawlessly in my opinion and this was proved in a variety of Games that I tested it on. I gently picked at the keys during quieter games such as submerged and the down time parts of The Witcher 3 (you know where they are!) and I bashed on the keys like a maniac during furious combat in titles such as Battlefield 4 and Survarium (BETA). The Beryllium never let me down once, even during my test of the N-Key rollover I could not find a fault in the response. I did have a minor quibble over some of the noises produced by the bigger keys but it was not the end of the world…

You need to keep going back to the link to make sure that the price is right when talking about the Beryllium, after we talk about the illumination you may check again, yes, it really is that price! Element have managed to not only give us a keyboard with backlighting, but, with four different levels of brightness and five different modes, you don’t even have to worry about software. I found the levels of illumination were right for me, even in the daytime the Beryllium lets you know it is lit up. The modes were worthy and considering there is no software you’re still likley to find a configuration to suit you.

Do you want a keyboard that has some of the features, looks and performance of a higher end model, but you don’t want to break the bank? Well now you can, the Element Gaming Beryllium gives you that at a great price. The Beryllium is as rare a find as the precious Element it is named after…

 

Verdict

Please Share, Like & Comment below, we really value your thoughts and opinions…

 

Many thanks to Element Gaming for providing this sample for review