Roccat Kone [+] Review

German gaming peripheral manufacturer Roccat has carved out a niche for itself among reigning gaming elites such as Razer and Logitech in a relatively short time span thanks to products like the Kone gaming mouse, which has been embraced by gamers. It's only inevitable that a successful product gets a sequel, and Roccat makes no exception with the Kone brand. Dubbed Kone [+], the latest instalment to the brand, which retails at a street price of Rs. 6,200, is around Rs. 1,700 dearer than the original. This pricing puts it in the league of heavies such as the Razer Mamba; but is it really worth the extra dough for a mouse that looks like a facsimile of its predecessor with a few extra buttons?

The Kone [+], which will be referred to as the Kone Plus from now on, may not exhibit much cosmetic improvement, but that's not without a good reason. The original Kone possessed a brilliant chassis that accommodated a comfortable palm grip preferred by low-sensitivity gamers used to sniping, as well a claw grip conducive to fast paced grunt work adopted by high-sensitivity gamers. Therefore, this is a sensible design decision.

You may argue that the two mutually exclusive roles require mice with weight characteristics lying on opposite ends of the spectrum. However, Roccat has remedied that by restricting dry weight to a minimum of 126 grammes, which makes it perfect for the claw grip. Palm grip users can add weights to the bottom of the chassis in four increments of 5 g, taking the ballast to a total of 20 g. At full payload capacity, I found the added weight and inertia perfect for dampening vibrations. This can potentially bump up the accuracy of gamers with shaky hands. The Kone Plus therefore exhibits a rare design prudence that makes it perfect for both claw and palm grips.

 

The mouse looks good, with a mix of sharp edges and curved surfaces, and a prominent depression for the thumb. The design strikes a fine balance between aesthetics and ergonomics. I found the mouse agile enough without the weights for the claw grip, yet quite comfortable when used in the palm grip. The chassis has an upmarket feel with high quality soft-touch plastics all around, as well as a positive click and a nice tactile feel to all the buttons. The scroll wheel is wider than its predecessor, with a rubberised coating. The click for the four-way scroll wheel though, feels cheap and spoils the experience with poor tactile feedback. The lack of a braided cable and USB interconnect with gold plated contacts is unacceptable at this price range.

The Kone Plus has seven buttons that can be fully reconfigured through software, and possess a good balance between spring stiffness and pressure required to register clicks. The mandatory bling comes in the form of two transparent strips housing four multicolour LEDs at each end. The LEDs allow a wide gamut of customisable lighting effects that let you blend colours, control effect flow direction, and add enough gimmicks - ranging from blinking, heartbeat, to pulsating effects - to make them feel right at home at a rave party. So much so that I half expected trashy Europop to emanate from the speakers while using the mouse. But I was wrong.
Mouse functions such as Profile/DPI switch, volume up/down, and sensitivity adjustments are vocalised by a decidedly pissed-off German dude who could use some fibre in his meals. I would have loved a glib, sexy female voiceover, but I guess it's a German thing to have orders barked out by an SS Stormtrooper. The original driver revision had pointless "DPI up"/"DPI down" updates, but the mandatory driver update is more sensible, with the voiceover grunting out the actual DPI presets.


The more significant changes to the Kone Plus aren't skin deep. At the core of the mouse is a 72MHz TurboCore processor mated to 576KB of on-board memory, which allows storage of 5 game profiles and the macro functions therein. The original Kone was specced at a sensitivity of 3200DPI, a sensor with a 6.4 Megapixel resolution rated at an acceleration of 20g, and with 128KB of onboard memory. The Kone Plus packs in quite a wallop with a 6000 DPI laser sensor at a resolution of 10.5 Megapixel.

These figures translate into a much improved acceleration of 30G (200 inches per second), providing a massive 11750 frames per second. What this mumbo jumbo means is that you'll need a very good arm, and quite a violent streak to give this mouse skipping and tracking issues. The Kone Plus packs in the industry standard 1000Hz polling rate, 1ms response time, and 16-bit wide data channel, just like any gaming mouse worth its salt. The only dampener is the presence of a slight jitter, pretty much similar to that found in the Razer Death Adder. That would have been acceptable, if the latter didn't cost one-sixth of what you pay for a Roccat Kone Plus. Fortunately, the jitter shouldn't affect regular gameplay, as it's only apparent during very slow and deliberate manoeuvres.

The true hallmark of this gaming mouse is the insane customisability offered by the bundled configuration software. Roccat allows you to assign one of the two thumb buttons as an EasyShift[+] button, which acts as a modifier to assign auxiliary functions to the other buttons. That way, you get 22 more functions by sacrificing one button. This comes handy in MMO and RTS games, where the EasyShift function acts like a button multiplier, benefitting your API (actions per second).

The configuration software does a good job, with a comprehensive control of common settings such as sensitivity, polling and button assignments, and macro functions, but it takes the cake with its advanced calibration settings. All of us face issues matching mice with different mousing surfaces. Some track well on coloured surfaces, while others are more at home on black ones. The Roccat Kone has no such issues, thanks to the Tracking Control Unit (TCU) feature that allows it to analyse the surface and recalibrate settings optimally. For example, the Kone Plus tracked well on my Rantopad cloth mat, but skipped and faltered on the wooden table surface. A quick TCU recalibration later, the tracking accuracy once again became flawless.

The utility also allows you to control the height at which the laser sensor stops tracking. This is manna from heaven for low-sensitivity gamers who tend to shuffle the mouse often, leading to frequent liftoffs that cause the pointer to skip and go crazy. Set the Distance Control Unit settings to "extra low" so that the sensor stops tracking as soon as you lift the mouse and bam! - mouse shuffles no longer cause the pointer to go haywire. Roccat has put much thought into the design and it shows in these features.

This translates into real world performance, which was apparent when I went old-school and put the mouse through Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament sessions. No matter what style I adopted - high-sensitivity claw grip while rushing enemies or low-sensitivity palm grip during sniping - the versatility of the mouse shone through. If you haven't decided what style is best for you and want to try out both, you cannot go wrong with the Roccat Kone Plus. The mouse tracked well without any skipping, no matter how low I cranked down the sensitivity or how violently I flicked the mouse around. I love my Death Adder, but the Kone Plus shows similar promise by combining both agility and ergonomics in a single package.

The device shows exemplary design, but a few niggling faults such as a lack of braided cable and gold plated contacts, as well as a slight jitter at low speeds, stop it short of perfection. The massive customisability and the number of features on offer, when coupled with the performance, put it right up there with the likes of Razer Mamba and Logitech G700. The approximate street price of Rs. 6,200 may seem a bit too much, but the cost is justified in this case.