Have you ever heard of the German gaming peripheral designer Roccat? Neither had we. However, when some of their amazing PC gear showed up on our doorstep, they made quite a name for themselves. The Kone [+] Mouse, Isku Keyboard, and the Kave Headset looked a bit out of the ordinary, and it was love at first sight.
The packaging alone was enough for us to “ooh” and “ahh” over it, as it had excessively fancy anti-static bags, twisty ties, and Velcro wraps for the cords. Not to mention that the boxes themselves are beautiful. Every aspect of the presentation seemed to be thought out with some of the surfaces of the exterior box being shiny, some matte, and some both silver and shiny. If all this extravagance wasn’t enough, upon opening the box, we found that the first layer of box was a mere shell for the harder box underneath (for the keyboard anyway), and inside of that was a cardboard or thick plastic set which fit the keyboard, mouse, and headset in snug as a bug in a rug.
It may seem a bit silly to get so utterly excited about opening boxes, but when someone takes that much notice, it’s a shame not to at least make mention of it. If you were opening a present wrapped in brown paper grocery bags, then had one carefully packaged to a “t”, I think you’d notice. I had honestly left out the bits about all the plastic covers, regular plastic wrap, and little tape dots. Well, until now anyway. Alright! Seeing as I can’t really rave on about how awesome the boxing of these items are anymore, I may as well describe the function of them. We’ll be getting to the headset and keyboard soon, but let’s start off with the Kone [+] mouse, shall we?
When I finally got it out of the packaging, the Kone [+] mouse was exactly what I was hoping it would be. It comes with four 5g weights which lets you choose whatever weight you so desire, and is a rather large mouse all in all. This is not such great news for gamers with tiny hands, but there’s a chance that you could still be comfortable using it. There are two curved lines of multicolor LEDs that sit on the outskirts of where your pointer and middle finger rest. A logo for Roccat sits just under your palm on the right side, while the title and logo are hidden just ahead of where your thumb rests on the left side. There are ten buttons in all, consisting of two side keys, two standard mouse buttons, a Windows button, two buttons for DPI, and three for the scroll wheel as it has rocking capabilities. The parts of the mouse that are not covered with smooth plastic have a silky smooth rubber coating.
Quite honestly, this mouse was a bit of a nightmare to set up. It does have settings already in place, but once you realize how much you can customize, you will either be terribly excited, or horridly annoyed by how much work you’ll have to do to get everything just right. Most gaming mice seem to have a standard 5600 DPI max, which not many people use mind you, but this mouse decided to blow that out of the water, just because it could. The max DPI on this one is a whopping 6000, and this is in conjunction with its 10.5 megapixel resolution and 1000Hz polling rate. The sensors do need to be cleared of fuzzies sometimes, but I only experienced this problem twice so far, and it didn’t really inhibit anything.
You can have five different customized settings profiles that are saved in the 576kB of onboard memory. This means that you can configure button assignments, adjust the 5 DPI settings (per profile), and change the LEDs and sensor sensitivities. Another customizable feature that needs a little explaining is the Easy-Shift button. This button is basically a shift key for your mouse, and gives you the ability to have twice the amount of buttons on one profile. Let’s say you’ve mapped all of your essential buttons, but then find you need quick access to at least three more buttons of a different function than what you have available. Simply program one button as Easy-Shift, press down, hold, and voila, you have access to entirely different mapping for your buttons. Each profile contains one set the regular buttons, as well as one of the easy-shift options. Shifting through profiles is also relatively easy, as all you need to do is program a button to sift through profiles. Just don’t forget that you will need to reprogram that same button (or another of your choosing) for each profile. For every change you make, it will take a little time to apply the setting changes, so expect it. By a little time, I really mean only about 20-30 seconds, but it does feel like an eternity when you’re just wanting to change something small.
Another feature of this mouse is that it allows you to move the x and y-axis sensitivity separately, which means you can choose how fast or slow your mouse moves up and down or side to side. Even the lift distance can be customized. You can set how far away from the mouse pad the mouse needs to be before it starts to move your mouse in the game. It’s looking like the only way this thing could have more changeable features is if its body has weights, screws, and extensions like the R.A.T. Mice.
Fun fact- for every time you decide to change profile, DPI, volume, or sensitivity, you will get the voice of a gruff male telling you what has changed. This is great for letting you know which profile you’re on and such, but it scared the crap out of me the first time it happened.
If you like to play PC games for hours on end, it is extremely important to have a comfortable mouse. What with all the weight additions, and rubberized coating, I couldn’t have been more pleased with this mouse. The inset for the thumb was superb, so much so that I found myself petting it rather frequently. (I’m aware that sounds a bit disturbing.) Although I wish there were indents for the pointer and middle finger as well, it wasn’t a game-changer for me.
Once I had all my settings in place, it was time to put it to the test, and it performed rather beautifully, other than getting gummed up with a fuzz at an inconvenient time. Although, you won’t have access to it until mid-February. It seems as though everything was made to be customizable so that any gamer can use this mouse. The setup may take some time if you’re really nit-picky, but once it’s all said and done, you have a gaming machine on your hands.
As you can probably tell, this mouse has definitely been a winner for me. There isn’t much that they have missed ranging from packaging to product, and I can’t think of much more that they could do to improve it, unless the physical form of the mouse was adjustable. If you’re looking to take one of these home with you, you’ll have to be willing to pay $79.99.