ROCCAT is a well known name within the eSports community and their hardware is even better known internationally as some of the most solid gaming peripherals on the market. They sent us their Kone[+] mouse and their ISKU keyboard(review coming soon) to review, and after some lengthy testing (and a bit of troubleshooting) this is what we thought of their well known mouse.
To start things off, the ROCCAT Kone[+] is considerably larger than the last 2 full size mice I have used. Fortunately it’s size does not interfere with it’s ability and the Kone[+] fully fits my hand quite nicely. While the size is a little surprising, the mouse is still incredibly light, which isn’t something I was expecting. However, there are 4 5g weights that can be added to the mouse, which allowed me to give it a weight that I found to be much more acceptable. Another cool little thing is the LED lights that are in the mouse, allowing for many different options on the mouse’s track lights.
With the ROCCAT’s Kone[+] driver, almost everything can be customized on the mouse, from button assignments to the colors of the LED lights. I was extremely excited to try to use these features when I first unboxed the mouse and plugged it in to get to the driver and get things rolling. Unfortunately, the mouse didn’t work initially. Apparently, the mouse wouldn’t function while other mouse drivers were active, which is irresponsible on my part but still kinda wonky. After some trial and error, I figured out the issue, deactivated my other peripheral drivers and was able to use the mouse and start messing with all the settings. Once I got in, I was absolutely impressed with the options available. I set a few keys to only a few of the Kone[+]‘s 12 customizable buttons, found a few comfortable DPI settings and then played with the colors and patterns of the lights on the mouse, then I was ready to go.
I found that the Kone[+]‘s hot-swappable DPI settings were actually pretty handy while playing a myriad of games. Now, I am sure you are thinking “Well, Josh, don’t most gaming mice have options to change their DPI?” and the answer is yes. Something a little extra the this mouse does, though, is announce the DPI setting you have your mouse set on when you make a change. Literally, I could hear “800 DPI” or “3200 DPI” every time I made a change, and these weren’t just presets that only worked for set DPI levels, they actually worked for any setting I could choose. The mouse felt great in my hands and all the buttons functioned as I hoped they would.
As far as tracking, the mouse worked well on most surfaces, with the exception of glass, which is ok since most mice aren’t glass friendly. As with many mice with awesome tracking features, dust and hair can still be a huge pain in the ass. After picking up a rogue dog hair, I found myself desperately trying to get it off the sensor while losing almost all ability to move my cursor around. While not a huge deal, I do feel that I have used other mice that may have been a little less susceptible to that. Outside of that, I found that the mouse functioned awesomely, button placement for the two thumb buttons were absolutely perfect and I didn’t have any other technical issues outside of those mentioned.
With all of this being said, I thought that the Kone[+] was a great gaming mouse that boasts a Swiss Army-like amount of features. There is also a ROCCAT TALK feature that we will revisit in the ISKU review.
The ROCCAT Kone[+] is a great mouse that we award a 4/5 to.
