ROCCAT Kone Pure Optical – Hardware Review
Gaming mice come in all colors, sizes and specs. We’ve have already presented our readers with a decent amount of brands that make such hardware and thus it was only normal that we should present our readers with some ROCCAT goodies. Today we are able to present you our opinion of the ROCCAT Kone Pure Optical.
Design
ROCCAT’s Kone Pure Optical presents us with a fairly simple design, with some nice attributes that give it an extra ‘touch’. Overall the mouse itself has a matte look/finish and the body is in two ‘colors’. The middle is grey and the sides are black. The ROCCAT logo is to be found on that back of the mouse that has some fun features, which are to be explained in the overview section.
The mouse itself has a dented (curved) body that looks a tad better than the conventional designs. You’ll find two buttons on the left hand side and on top you’ll see a mouse wheel, that has grooves to provide you with better traction, and two buttons to arrange the dpi settings.
Comfort
Overall the body of the Kone Pure Optical is slightly smaller than most other mice on the market. This creates a comfortable, light and slim body for those with smaller hands, whilst not being annoying for those with bigger hands.
You’ll feel a soft coating is covering the sides of the mouse, which makes the mouse feel a tad more soft, compared to the full plastic models other brands have. That being said, the grey area on top still has the normal plastic feel, which creates a bit of robustness. The side panels, with the soft coating, tend to smudge easily but it gets cleaned just as easily. Some ‘maintenance’ will keep the mouse looking clean like a whistle.
All the extra button are easy to reach and thus you will not have to make any uncomfortable finger movements in order to perform the desired command. The buttons on the side are easily reached with your thumb and your dpi buttons can easily be used with your middle finger.
The mouse itself is very light and this means that it will not become a strain when playing for longer periods of time. The lighter body also makes it seem as if the mouse itself glides a tad smoother than models that weigh a tad more.
Specs
- 4000 DPI Pro-Optic sensor
- ROCCAT Easy-Shift
- 7 Mouse buttons
- 32-Bit Turbo Core V2 Processor
- 576KB On-Board Memory
- 8 Million-Color Lighting
Overview
ROCCAT’s Kone Pure Optical has some fun features, that prove to be easy to use. For example, even with the few extra buttons the mouse has, the device allows double functions for each button. This function is called the ‘Easy-Shift’. This mode triggers when you press the Easy-Shift button (which you can assign to the key you like) and when it is being held down you can press another button to trigger its second function. Certainly a useful function if you wish to use the Kone Pure Optical to its full extent.
With 4000 dpi the mouse is not the most sensitive on the market but you’ll find 4000 more than enough for most of your gaming needs. Whilst the mouse is very sensitive it’s sad that you can’t set your dpi settings as precise as you’d like. You can only set the preset settings such as 400, 800, 1200, 1600, 2000, 3200 and 4000. Other than that you’ll of course be able to arrange other sensitivity settings to fine-tune your gaming experience. It’s fun to know that the device itself can store up to five profiles with five dpi settings each. This means you can create different profiles for all the different genres of games you play.
As mentioned before, the logo on the back of the mouse also has a few fun features. The entire logo is backlit and you are able to set the color you’d like, as well as choose to have it constantly lit or give it a ‘breathing/pulsating’ touch. You can set a whole lot of different preset colors as well as choose a custom color. Whilst the custom colors are fun to mess around with, they are often not really accurate and the preset colors will already present you with enough options. In the end you’ll probably end up choosing the preset ones.
With a great product you expect some great software to support your product. ROCCAT certainly delivers on this department, with their easy to use software. You’ll be able to adjust all the basic settings such as sensitivity, dpi, luminance and what not. On top of that you’ll be able to set a decent amount of macro’s in the button config tab. The software already has a lot of preset macro’s for popular games and thus you’ll certainly be able to find some fun pre-installed features in the software that go hand in hand with your mouse.
A fun gimmick the software also supplies is the fact it gives you achievements for the things you accomplish. A certain amount of clicks, meters scrolled and so on. You’ll also hear a voice saying you unlocked an achievement as well a voice that tells you when you change settings etc. Of course this is not the key feature that should convince one to purchase a piece of hardware but it’s certainly a fun feature that will motivate you to explore the software even further.
Conclusion
The ROCCAT Kone Pure Optical proves to be a great asset to your gaming set-up. You’ll not only receive comfort, great specs as well as good supporting software, you’ll also get a good looking product. Certainly worth checking out if you’re in need for a new mouse for your favorite games.
ROCCAT Kone Pure Optical - Hardware Review,
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