At around $70, the Kone Pure occupies a mid (or upper-mid) price tier, in between Roccat’s Savu gaming mouse (around $50) and the Roccat Kone XTD (around $90) gaming mouse. All of these mice largely share the same robust feature set however.
Features
- Sensor Type: Optical
- DPI (Dots Per Inch) Setting(s): Adjustable 200-8200DPI in 200DPI increments
- Programmable macros: Yes
- Profiles: 5
- Polling Rate: 125/250/500/1000Hz
- Onboard memory: 576k
- LED Lighting: 16.8 million colors (Roccat symbol on the top back-side of the mouse)
- Adjustable lift distance: Yes, 1-5mm
- Adjustable Weight: No
- Other/unique features: Onboard V32 ARM processor, Achievement System. (And: it talks!)
The Roccat Kone Pure is both beautiful and brainy; there’s no settling for a wonderful personality here. The beauty is in the fully customizable LED lit Roccat cat and the Kone Pure’s subtle, smooth, right-handed design. The brains are in its 72Hz V32 ARM processor and the feature rich software powering it.
The Kone Pure features a complete array of sensitivity adjustments for DPI setting, polling rate, acceleration, and independent X/Y sensitivity. The Kone Pure also stores up to 5 gaming profiles on the mouse’s internal 576k of memory, and you can change the color of the glowing LED Roccat cat on the Kone Pure’s top to any of 16.8 million colors.
None of these features are unusual for a gaming mouse in the Kone Pure’s price range, but it offers a few other tricks, too. For example, the Kone Pure software can calibrate to your mousing surface, and also features customizable lift off distance (the distance from the mouse mat the mouse can travel upwards before it stops tracking movement).
In all honesty I can’t say I’ve ever noticed surface calibration to have any profound effect on my mousing. Lift-off distance can be useful for those times you hit the edge of a mouse mat and have to re-center the mouse, but don’t want to lose your cursor position. It’s not a feature I use or appreciate frequently but that doesn’t mean it isn’t nice to have.
View slideshow @ Examiner.com: Roccat Kone Pure gallery
Shift into gear
Like many other Roccat products, the Kone Pure also supports fully customizable, programmable macros, which are essentially doubled thanks to another Roccat feature called Easy Shift.
Aside from just doubling the number of macros you can store for each button on the mouse, the Easy Shift button has other practical uses for day-to-day computing. For example, pressing and holding the Easy Shift button (the rear thumb button by default) turns your scroll wheel into a volume wheel. Or you could change this function to act as a Windows Key—normally a bane to gamers everywhere, but actually pretty useful if you happen to use Windows 8.
These are just two possibilities and only scratch the surface of what the Kone Pure can do. Every button can be configured with different functions across multiple profiles, then basically doubled again with the Easy Shift button. And pair the Kone Pure with another Roccat device (like theIskuFX keyboard, for example) and they can “talk” to each other—the Easy Shift button on the mouse will shift the keyboard functions as well.
Achieve more
Like other Roccat products, the Kone Pure software also awards you achievements—mousing a certain distance, or clicking X thousand times, for example. In addition, the Kone Pure (its software anyway) will actually speak and tell you when you’ve earned an achievement.
On a more useful note, the same Roccat ‘voice’ (a raspy, edgy voice with hints of Christopher Lambert) tells you when you do certain things, like change the volume (“Volume up!”) or change DPI settings (“Eight hundred DPI!”). You can turn this feature off, but I’ve actually found it to be pretty useful when gaming (if a tad jarring).
I guess I should also note that the Kone Pure supports Roccat’s TalkFX feature, which makes the mouse flash different colors in response to in-game events—assuming any games other than World of Tanks ever actually support the feature. (Given that the TalkFX feature video was made nearly 2 years ago, I’m guessing there hasn’t been a lot of headway in getting developers to directly support it.)
My only minor quibble in all of this is with the V32 ARM processor, with which (according to Roccat) “…you can take advantage of its plethora of custom gaming functions with absolutely no delay.” Maybe that’s true in a game, but it takes a damn long time (30 seconds or so) after hitting Apply for the Roccat software to apply new settings to the mouse.
Comfort
- Material/construction: Soft touch plastic
- Shape: Right-handed ergonomic
The Kone Pure has a very subtle right-handed, ergonomic shape, and it’s wrapped top-to-bottom (And sides) in soft touch material—it’s smooth, cool, and comfortable touch. The Kone Pure is a little smaller than some similar gaming mice in its price range (Razer’s DeathAdder, for example) so it’s pretty well suited to smaller hands.
Design
- Extra buttons: 4
- Button locations: 2x thumb, 2x top (behind scroll wheel)
- Cable type: braided fiber
- Omron switches
The buttons on the Kone Pure’s 4 extra buttons are all well-placed and within easy reach. Personally, I wouldn’t mind larger thumb buttons like those on Razer’s Deathadder, but the Kone Pure’s thumb buttons still get the job done.
Roccat is proud of their buttons, too. Each is backed by an Omron switch, which provide a nice, moderately firm, tactile click when pressed. The 2 top buttons behind the scroll wheel (DPI up/down by default) are notably stiffer than the thumb buttons, but not too stiff to be problematic.
The Kone Pure’s scroll wheel is hands-down one of the best gaming scroll wheels I’ve ever used. It’s lined with ridged rubber and provides firm, perfectly precise control. And I don’t miss the lack of left/right tilt scroll wheel movement in the slightest. The scroll wheel is arguably a bit stiff for a lot of scrolling (Web surfing, etc.), but like most mice you can adjust the scroll speed if you want to take some strain off your fingers.
Overall: 5/5 stars
Roccat delivers another excellent gaming mouse that hits all the right cords: rich features, performance, comfort, and even an attractive price. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.
Compare to:
Technical Specifications
- Pro-Aim Laser Sensor R3 with up to 8200dpi
- 1000Hz polling rate
- 1ms response time
- 12000fps, 10.8megapixel
- 30G acceleration
- 3.8m/s (150ips)
- 16-bit data channel
- 1-5mm Lift off distance
- Tracking & Distance Control Unit
- 72MHz Turbo Core V2 32-bit Arm based MCU
- 576kB onboard memory
- Zero angle snapping/prediction
- 1.8m braided USB cable
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