You might of not heard of the Brand ‘Element Gaming’, I did not, until they reached out to us to see if we would like to review their products. We were sent two products this being one of them, both of them are Element Gaming’s Premium range of peripherals ‘for gamers by gamers’, but premium does not mean it comes with a high price.
The Arrival
When the keyboard arrived, I was pleasantly surprised; it was well encased in a well-designed box with all the basics you would expect to see printed on the back, sides and front, from technical specification to design. The keyboard itself was snuggly protected inside, with a small manual and CD. Yes, I said CD something we do not see much of these days, most companies now place their software for their products online, this might be something for Element Gaming to think about, save a little more money with construction costs and then pass the saving on to the customer. Also, I would recommend that ‘One software 2 rule them all’ this would help with system resource speed, and save loading up different software for different products.
The Design
The first thing that comes to mind when I look at the keyboard is ‘Qwerky’ ‘Futuristic’ ‘Fun’, it’s very well designed to please us gamers. The keyboard is fully LED, oh yeah, back lights behind every key, operation and sides with a choice of three colours Blue, Red and Purple. A nifty little feature, is if the keyboard is not being used, it’s well set itself to standby mode, all the lights will go off apart from the big E logo at the top.
You can also control the brightness of the LED’s via the FN Keys and pressing either No2 or No8 on the number pad.
Looking at the keys, this is a full keyboard, so you get all the standard keys which you would expect to get and the number pad, you also get a set of media keys that control Windows Media Player and another set of keys that control and launch the following applications,
- Search
- Camera
- Internet
- My Computer
There is an E key on the top left, which launches your profiles; you can set a total of 5 profiles to your keyboard. The profiles do not launch the games, but once the game is launched, that has been set to a profile; the keyboard will automatically change its colours.
I would not say that the keyboard is heavy or light, it’s just about right, the keys have been very well laid out, the only issues I have would be the space bar, which I would feel would be better angled towards the gamer instead of towards to the keyboard, and the G1 through to G5 keys, maybe move them from the side and make them more like the media keys and put them around the E logo at the top, since currently the lights around the E logo serve no use.
Personal use
Now a gaming keyboard requires games to play and test with, of course, and I have a huge selection of the best and latest games on the market. So I first tested out the profiler, and set Shadows of Mordor to a sweet Blue, The Evil Within too bloody Red and Alien Isolation to Purple (There is no green), and then spent a few hours maybe 2hrs on each tops give or take a min or two either way.
I can safely say other than the space bar which I found a little strange, everything work well, key response was fast and efficient, each key felt really nice under the finger and the feel of the plastic around where your palm would normally rest feels smooth and comfortable.
Using the media key to control the music, if I had any in the background from the media player I had installed worked great with no delay. When using the function keys like mail, browsers, etc. they all automatically launched the default program you had set, for me it was Firefox for the browser and windows live for mail.
Features of the Thorium 300 gaming keyboard*
- Comfortable ergonomic design
- User defined keys
- Multimedia function keys
- LED backlighting
- Designed by gamers for gamers
Technical specification*
- Transmission mode: Wired USB
- Dimensions: 493.3mm (L) x 211.4mm (W) x 34.8mm (H)
- Keyboard weight: 925g
- Number of keys: 120
- Key pressure: 50g
- Key travel: 2.0mm
- Colour: Black
- Rated voltage / current: DC 5V / <200mA
Final Thoughts,
This keyboard for the price is an absolute steal at £24.99 from Ebuyer (http://www.ebuyer.com/630170-element-gaming-keyboard-thorium-300-eskb-8y66) you cannot ask for anything more, if built well, has LED’s for the OOOO pretty effect, both on the key and around the edges. With profiles that you can set to games, media keys to control your music or movies and function keys to launch the most used applications on anyone’s daily use is all good. For anyone on a budget and wants something that looks great and not cheap, then this is for you.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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