If the Gods play like this, then we have a reason to envy them!

Introduction

Gamdias is a Chinese company, but I wouldn’t dare say it’s like most like what you come across on our site. They are already far from the emerging, and they are not just producing for the Chinese market. A clear sign of this is that their products are already available at home, so they reached us as well. After a letter from a lovely Chinese lady, two peripherals came to our table, the first we took out of the keyboard mentioned in the title, which will have some interesting, noteworthy features.

The name of the company was formed from a word combination. The first part, GAM, is not an abbreviation for the word game, but a word picture made up of the words Gaming Art Motion, and the second part, DIAS, is a Latin word that can perhaps best be explained as a divine feeling, to feel like God, so somehow the he wants to be divine.

The Hermes keyboard is no longer the first in line, and as a novelty, it also needs to flash something to get people to say, that’s what I need! Well, before we even go into the presentation very much, we will reveal that this novelty in this case was the use of optical mechanical switches.

We have also been very familiar with the meaning of the term mechanical switch on a keyboard, and players know it very well. For those who don't even know, all we write now is that there are no rubber sheets under the keys that we squeeze when knocked out, not a hybrid solution where a latched, rubber-padded mixture works, but large mechanical switches that work on a very mechanical basis. However, there is another important term here, optical.

Optical mechanical switches are special goods. The mechanism of the switch itself has remained the same, so for example, different colors indicate the force required to press a button, and different switches are recommended for typing or gaming, for example. However, there is one extremely important thing that is missing, and that is the contacts. In traditional solutions, the good old analog system works, we press the button, two contact locks, the circuit closes. In the optical solution, as you probably already guess, the physical contact is lost, the keystroke of the keyboard is not indicated by the closing of the circuit, but by the interruption of a beam of light. This has several benefits. For example, the switch will certainly not have a contact fault. There is no such thing as something that is in bad contact. Then there is also the advantage that the mechanical structure has to contain fewer moving parts, which will hopefully extend the life, in this case the manufacturer promises that your keyboard will withstand 50 million keystrokes, of course that much per switch. Well, that's when our fingers wear out sooner than the keyboard breaks.

What else we want to say so quickly is that the Gamdias Hermes P2 is an RGB keyboard. Nowadays, let’s say it would be a miracle if a keyboard for gamers didn’t get RGB LEDs. All in all, the point is that we can entertain ourselves with all sorts of lighting effects while playing, which is good for some reason, supposedly.

Okay, enough of the chatter, let's tap into the show!

Packaging, accessories and documentation

The packaging for the Hermes P2 is the kind we used to say it wants on the shelf. I mean, on a store shelf. We find all the important information on it, we also get nice big color pictures, so the many pictures and images on the black background almost force us to take it off and rotate it, and from here it’s just a step to put it in our basket.

On the left side of the cover you can see the keyboard, while on the right you can see the most important features such as the presence of optical switches, RGB lighting, the possibility to swap the WASD keys with the arrow keys for comfortable use by both right and left handers, software, which we will cover later.

On the back, we are notified of other important features in ten different languages, among which Hungarian is of course not available. Of course, if someone sees online firmware update support, they will know what it is all about without more serious English knowledge.

On the right side of the back of the box we can get acquainted with the physical characteristics. If we are already here, we can quote them to see what kind of device we are talking about. The Gamdias Hermes P2 displaces air from a space of 458 x 220 x 44 millimeters and weighs no less than 1,1 kilograms.

When you open the box, you will find a keyboard and a pair of tweezers that you can use to remove the keys from the switches. Let’s say it goes smoothly by hand too, but with this tweezers it’s more elegant. No other accessories. The user manual can be downloaded from the net, which is why it is not worth getting angry, as we do not destroy any tree by printing it.

External

The Gamdias Hermes P2 is made entirely of plastic, with a single, but heavier, more massive part made of metal, and that’s the tab under the keys where the switches are planted. In keyboards intended for gamers, this is quite common, as the keyboard is puffed hard enough, so it is important that it does not bend or warp over time. The lower part no longer has such a load-bearing role, it really only serves as a solid stand under the metal plate.

The Gamdias Hermes P2 has been given rainy, radiant lines, with the hind legs folded down at just the right angle to the table for comfortable use. The folding support does not even look like a completely separate unit from above, it is molded together with the lower plastic part. For this reason, it is not adjustable, but it may not be necessary, its size is appropriate, thick and wide, it holds the wrist perfectly.

The keys, as we are used to on most mechanical gamer keyboards, “float” over the metal base. There are no frames around them, so you can see the switches from the side, and the light from the RGB LEDs that illuminate the key labels bounces off the gray, matte metal plate that doesn't collect fingerprints at all.

The connecting cable is connected to the base at the back of the back of the keyboard. The cable is fabric-covered so you don’t have to worry about it clumping, and the USB connector on the end is gold-plated for the best possible contact. A thick breaker has been placed at the junction of the cable and the keyboard, a little maybe too thick too, it doesn’t bend too much, so if the wire breaks, it will break at the end of it.

On the keys, of course, you will also find the extra functions associated with the FN key. F2-F8 is for multimedia, F9 is for recording a macro, and F11 is for locking the keypad. The middle keys for text editing -Ins, Del, etc- can be used to change the lighting effects of the keyboard. In the upper right corner of the keyboard, above the indicator LEDs, is a wide, scroll-up volume control.

In general, we can only set up a lot with the help of the keys, without the Hera software that can be downloaded next to Hermes, but the real thing will still be with the program.

Hera software

The first thing to mention about the software is that it can not only be installed but also downloaded in a portable version. It's also a pleasure for those who don't like to install all sorts of programs on their machine, so it's slow to slow down Windows, but they'll be really happy to think it's enough to take their favorite keyboard to a LAN party and set up the settings with Hera software copied to a flash drive. transferred from one machine to another.

The program itself is pretty good, if you don't feel like reading the manual, you can get by quickly.

You can program six different profiles for the keyboard, so you must first select the one you want to set on the right. The manufacturer kindly pre-programs six different sample profiles for us, so we can easily navigate through the settings based on these, based on these, we can set up new profiles in a matter of seconds.

On the left side of the program window, you can select the actions, here you can generate different macros, set different lights for each key, or assign sounds to each key.

For macros, you can create directories into which you can organize the recorded keyboard combinations for each game. For the backlight, as you may have read above, you can even set a different color for each button, and you can also specify how bright the backlight is for each setting. If you also want to assign sound to the keys, you don’t have to rely on factory sound samples, you can also record your own, thus driving your opponent crazy. You can also create separate libraries for these sounds so that you can even use different sound patterns for each game. But to make sure that is not enough, we can set OSD messages next to them, which are displayed when the given key is pressed. You can adjust the position of these messages, where they appear on the screen, choose from three different character sizes, and control how long it takes for them to disappear from the display.

Through the Hera software, you can check at the touch of a button whether the software used on the machine or the firmware version of the keyboard is the latest, if not, the update can go.

Usage and Rating

We do not want to dedicate a separate point to usage in this article, because by describing this we also appreciate the keyboard.

First, it is important to note that there is no noticeable difference in the operation of optical mechanical switches and normal mechanical switches, and that is good. After all, the goal was to retain the benefits of mechanical keyboards, but also to take the last analog slice out of the process, that is, to eliminate the contacts. We feel that there was no fault in this, the old mechanical feeling was preserved, we did not experience any fault in the operation, ie it is likely that the optical sensing also works well.

The keyboard is stiff and heavy enough to withstand even greater forces. Of course, this does not mean that after a lost match we can boldly smash to the table, because if we assume the best case, we will only be able to search the buttons on the floor.

The switches work perfectly, at least according to the finger sensing. The sensing point can be felt well, but there are no serious obstacles in the way of the button down. We are just feeling the place of the click. And in a game, this is important, you need to know whether the button was actually pressed or just touched. Of course, it helps a lot in the latter thing to be able to assign sounds and OSD messages to the buttons, so you can be sure, for example, that the selected macro has actually started running.

The Gamdias Hermes P2 is a bloody gaming keyboard and as such is usually not very comfortable to type. We don’t want to put this as a negative, as it’s not designed for that, but for anyone who buys it, it’s good to know that if you type a lot, it’s worth getting another solution designed for that as well.

There were only two small negatives during use. The first is the noise generated during keyboard operation. This is generally true for most keyboards of this design, unfortunately. Due to the floating buttons, there will be noise from every ness, so if the family wants to watch TV and you play in the same room, there will be a lot of litigation. The second is that the keyboard is quite large, making it cumbersome to carry. perhaps it would have been better if the wrist rest remained detachable than in the case of its predecessor. True, we may lose out on robustness, but something for something.

The Gamdias Hermes P2 is a very good keyboard with which the manufacturer has pioneered the use of optical-mechanical switches. However, without one thing, it wouldn’t be so great yet, and that’s the Hera software added to it. With the help of the program, we can customize the keyboard as meticulously as if it were made directly for us. And this is good not only because we can be different from the others, but also because we can be more effective in the game.

So the keyboard is basically almost perfect. The only alarming factor is the price, but if someone has that much money for it, feel free to spend it because you get so much extra, so quality for your money, you won’t be disappointed in it.

The keyboard came from Gamdias with the help of the domestic distributor, Expert. Thanks for the opportunity to give it a try! Our next Gamdias article is coming soon, where you can get to know a professional headset for players!