Gaming: Gamdias HERMES E1 Keyboard Combo Review

Review: Gamdias HERMES E1 Combo

It’s been one heck of a busy year for the gaming hardware manufacturer Gamdias. With dozens of products introduced in 2016, they’ve created quite the buzz around their brand in and out of the gaming arena. With the end of year approaching, they kept their right foot on the pedal and continued to introduce new products like HEBE headsets, ZEUS mice, and the HERMES E1 keyboard and mouse combo. So without any further delay, welcome to our Gamdias HERMES E1 Combo review.

Want to win this HERMES E1 combo? In cooperation with Gamdias, we’re giving away this keyboard + mouse combo beginning Monday at 12:01 AM. Enter the Giveaway. It could be yours before Christmas. Good luck.

Introducing the HERMES E1 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

Design and Features

For those of you who own or have looked at a HERMES keyboard, you’ll notice many similarities in this HERMES E1 keyboard. When it comes to appearance and features, the HERMES E1 looks closest to the HERMES LITE. As a mechanical gaming keyboard, the E1 has the same GAMDIAS certified Kailh blue mechanical switches/TTC switches as found in the HERMES RGB. Because it uses the Kailh switches, the HERMES E1 has a 50 million push button life cycle. Like the previously reviewed Gamdias keyboards, this board is connected via one USB port.

On the HERMES E1, the keys are raised making it easy to see the red lights underneath them. The keys have an handsomely-finished aluminum plate for added durability. When it comes to gaming keyboards, I’ve noticed complaints from reviewers about the use of metal plates. But I disagree with them. I believe an aluminum (metal) plate stabilizer is an excellent addition to a keyboard. Not much force (45 cN) is needed to register as a key press. While the keys are audible, they are not loud or annoying.

There’s a removable wrist plate, which I believe is a good thing for hardcore gamers. Keyboard dimensions are 17.64 x 7.97 (or 6.2 w/o wrist plate) x 1.45 inches. Flip the keyboard over, and you’ll notice three channels to direct the nearly 6′ braided cable. Like previous reviews, this HERMES E1 keyboard has very stiff legs. Unless you have a thin thumb, you’ll be using an index or middle finger to raise the legs. There’s also a handy key puller attached to the underside of the board. You can also completely lock the keyboard out, for when you want to vacuum it or pull a key out.

Specifications courtesy of Gamdias, Inc.

When it comes to features, this HERMES E1 keyboard comes loaded with them. The keyboard comes with three lighting effects: Normal, Breathing, and Responsive Fade Out. There’s also the ability to change the five backlight brightness levels (Off, 30%, 60%, 100%, and Monochrome Breathing) to your liking.

The media player controls are well marked on function keys F2, F3, and F5-F8. You can switch “WASD” to the arrow keys and vice versa. The Windows key is located on the left side while the Fn key is center-right on the board.

Wondering about N-key rollover? Here are the 21 keys: Q, W, E, R, U, I, O, P, \, 7, 8, 9, +, Enter, Backspace, F9, F10, F11, F12, Scroll, and Pause.

Upon downloading and installing the HERA software, you’ll have access to the listed features. This software has to be installed if you want to use all the keyboard features. Your customizations are where the built-in 256K of memory comes into play.

I have only one complaint with this keyboard, and that is the type font. Even though I’m well versed in the use of a QWERTY keyboard, the futuristic font initially threw me for a loop. It took about two weeks to get past particular letters and numbers having gaps in them.

Introducing the DEMETER E2 Optical Gaming Mouse

Fortunately, the DEMETER E2 mouse is not as complex a device as the HERMES E1 keyboard. The DEMETER E2 is your standard gaming mouse. The mouse comes in a black matte color with a very comfortable texture to it. Looking at the photos, you would see that if you were to cut the mouse down the middle, it would be nearly identical on both sides with one exception being the two buttons on the left. Additional specifications are listed below.

If you install the HERA software, you can control the cursor speed, enable acceleration, configure the DPI level from 1200 to 3200, set the polling rate, vertical scroll speed, double click speed, lift-off setting, and straight path correction. The mouse produces an attractive repeating color pattern of blue, violet, and red.

In our testing, the DEMETER E2 gaming mouse, like the HERMES E1 keyboard, worked perfectly without any glitches.

I have only one complaint with this mouse, and that is its shape. My critique may apply to some of you readers. You see, I like to firmly grasp a mouse with all of my fingers. As a right-handed person, my hand would be better suited if the right side of the mouse did not have the protrusion to rest the ring or pinky finger on. To get around this, I had to learn to hold the mouse with a less firm grasp so as to not cause soreness in those two fingers. I now keep the pinky finger away from the mouse entirely. Hence the discomfort has dissipated.

Specifications courtesy of Gamdias, Inc.

Final Thoughts

Keyboard and mice combo sets have their purpose in the gaming and non-gaming sectors. These products make good purchases for the budget-conscious consumer (or business) by providing plenty of bang for the buck. It also removes one purchasing decision as you only have one product to consider as opposed to two (i.e. separate mice and keyboard purchases.) I can say from first-hand experience that there will always be something you don’t like about a combo as having previously purchased ones from the likes of Microsoft, Logitech, and Thermaltake. None of those three combos came with a mouse pad. While my two peeves (as stated above) are legitimate concerns, they won’t affect the minds of all potential buyers as we’re unique creatures with slightly different habits.

The list price of the HERMES E1 combo is $79.99. The great news about this combo is that while Amazon is out of stock, the folks at Newegg currently have it for $49.99. I would call this a steal. Here in the USA, each gaming keyboard combo product comes with a 1-year warranty from date of purchase.

Have you tried the HERMES E1 keyboard and mouse combo? Do you agree (or disagree) with any part of this Gamdias HERMES E1 combo review? Let us know in the comment section below or via social media. We’re eager to hear your thoughts.

Feel free to follow Gamdias on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube as well as this very blog on Twitter and Facebook. And don’t hesitate to head over to the Gamdias website to see their latest gaming hardware.

FTC Disclosure: Gamdias provided Beantown LLC with one (1) HERMES E1 keyboard + DEMETER E2 mouse combo sample for review purposes. This writer’s opinion is 100% his own and not a paid product ambassador.

All photographs are the copyrighted property of Beantown LLC © 2016 or Gamdias.