WHIRLWIND FX ELEMENT

Elementary, my dear Watson

AFULL-SIZE MECHANICAL gaming keyboard with addressable RGB lighting on a per-key basis, for just a hundred bucks? We were immediately intrigued by the Element, with its promise of highquality construction and performance, as well as super-immersive lighting that could react dynamically to what happens on screen. It’s an enticing prospect, but we’ve been burned before, so we approached it with a grain of salt in hand.

Since this is the first Whirlwind FX product we’ve reviewed in Maximum PC, let’s take a brief look at the company that brought us the Element. Whirlwind FX is an American company dedicated to improving PC gaming immersion, first releasing the Vortx, a strange little box that produces wind and heat in response to pre-coded actions in any game. The Element keyboard is a more conventional approach to PC hardware for the brand, but that dedication to immersion is definitely still present.

The RGB lighting under each of the Element’s durable plastic keycaps is impressively bright and colorful, with a number of preset idle animations downloadable via the Whirlwind Engine software. The clarity and rainbow color gradient that this keyboard can achieve in lighting easily matches that of far more expensive keyboards from Razer and Steelseries. The interesting part, though, is how the Element’s lighting can react in real time to games and other media.

In its default state, the Element will break the display into an invisible grid that corresponds to each LED on the keyboard, and continuously replicate (with no noticeable latency) the color in each grid square. This looks great in some games—the keyboard’s edges flaring red as you take heavy damage in Overwatch is undeniably cool—but this isn’t the first keyboard to do that. The Element’s unique ability here is to enable gamers to code their own response patterns to the action happening on screen in any game; with the right knowhow, there’s no limits here.

It’s not a simple process, mind you. Creating your own custom lighting schemes is done through a combination of HTML5 and Javascript, so you will need at least some coding knowledge to make it work, but resources to learn those skills are widely available. Once your script is ready, you can chuck it in Whirlwind Engine’s files and it’ll pop up in the app for you to use. At the time of writing, there’s only a few pre-made lighting modes available for specific games, such as Fortnite and CallofDuty: Warzone, but users can create and share their own custom modes on the platform.

SWITCH ME ON

In practice, it’s very cool. Playing Warzone with the Element’s lighting fully synced makes the keyboard pulse in alarm when you run low on ammo, and slowly illuminates green when I stop to heal my wounds. The lighting profile engages instantly when you load up the game; no tinkering needed. But fancy lighting can only carry a keyboard so far, so how does the Element feel to use?

The key switches hold the secret to the Element’s relatively low price. These aren’t the Cherry MX switches you’ll see on pricier keyboards, but cheaper switches from Kailh instead, available in Red Linear or Blue Clicky models (we’re reviewing the Red version). They’re good for gaming, with a 1.7mm actuation distance that doesn’t require too much force to register input. They’re great for gaming, but fast typists might not enjoy the travel time feedback.

The Kailh switches won’t last as long as high-end Cherry or proprietary switches, but they’re durable enough, and many gamers won’t notice the difference. They are a bit loud, too, but are definitely not the worst we’ve heard. The rest of the keyboard assembly is as solid as promised, with an upper plate of brushed aluminum and thick rubber feet to keep it from moving during use.

The real failure of the Element is its lack of dedicated media control buttons, or a scroll wheel for volume and brightness. The function keys can be used as hotkeys for this, but it’s not ideal. The Element also doesn’t come with a wrist rest, although Whirlwind FX was kind enough to send us one of its own $25 padded rests, which was extremely soft and comfortable—a worthy purchase even for use with a different keyboard.

For $100, we’d say that the Element is very well-priced and comes with plenty of great features. If you’re big on funky synchronized lighting, this is a must-have; even if you’re only mildly enthusiastic, it’s still a great choice of keyboard. The keyboard as a whole is well made, and the sheer potential of the lighting options is incredible, so it’s comfortably worth the asking price. 8

VERDICT

TORNADO Good value for money; RGB lighting has huge potential; high overall build quality.

Whirlwind FX Element

BREEZE Key switches aren’t the best for typing; no dedicated media controls; lighting profiles demand some coding skill.

$100, www.whirlwindfx.com