Roccat Kone Pure 2017 Owl-Eye gaming mouse review / Overclockers.ua

The Kone series is the base in the Roccat line of gaming mice and today it has six modifications that differ in filling and design, but retain approximately the same body shape design. Since the company hasn’t bothered much about breeding its models by name, and the name of our today’s review subject sounds like Kone Pure (ROC-11-725), so as not to mislead the reader, we note that this mouse belongs to the 2017 model range and is equipped with an Owl-Eye sensor. And now about everything in detail.

Specifications

Equipment

The packaging of the mouse is very colorful, in every sense of the word. Even in shape, it is not the same as all the boxes, but with a bevel on the right front edge. On all sides there are images of the product, a description of its marketing advantages (in 10 languages) and technical characteristics (on the basis).

The delivery set includes an instruction manual, a leaflet with information on product disposal and three stickers. Inside the mouse is packed in another plastic tray with a transparent lid.

Appearance

The body shape of the Roccat Kone Pure is asymmetrical, designed for the right hand, with pronounced curves for gripping the fingers from the side. The coating of the entire body is a smooth to the touch, but at the same time very tenacious plastic, which Roccat calls Pro-Grip. It is resistant to scratches and the hand on it practically does not sweat. Its only drawback is the speed with which it collects dirt and fingerprints. The scroll wheel bezel is made of glossy plastic. The two keys behind it, with the symbols “+” and “-” are used to change the resolution level. They work from medium effort and sound quietly. The left and right keys are pressed with medium force without free play, and they click a little louder than usual. The switches below them have a MTBF of 50 million clicks. The fit of the solid button panels is excellent, with no play in any direction.

The left side of the mouse is made from the same plastic as the top panel. The most notable thing here is the embossed notch for the thumb. Two side buttons are raised almost to the top, which eliminates accidental pressing on them. They do not have a free wheeling reserve, the force required for activation and the volume of operation are average.

The panels of the main buttons, when viewed from the front, are tilted to the side, the gaps between them and the body are minimal. The “titanium” scroll wheel is rubberized around the rim, spins with the same crunch up and down and has clearly audible and tactile fixation positions. The middle key below it is average both in pressing force and in click volume, its resistance is chosen correctly. The cable enters the mouse body in the middle, and its anti-kink protection is small and hard.

The cable itself is quite good, despite the nylon braid, it maintains a good balance between flexibility and rigidity, maintaining a given shape without interfering with movement. The length of the cord is 1.8 m. There is no ferrite interference filter here.

The right side of the mouse also has a characteristic notch, where the little finger and ring finger fit quite comfortably.

There are no side buttons on the right.

At the stern of the mouse is the only illuminated element – the contour image of the Roccat logo.

The body shape of the Roccat Kone Pure 2017 is designed for right-handers, and left-handers will not be able to use it. The size of the manipulator is medium, it fits very well under a finger or claw grip, and holding it with the palm of your hand will be convenient only for owners of medium and small hands.

The base of the mouse has two figured Teflon legs in front and behind. The optical sensor with infrared illumination Owl-Eye (aka Pixart 3361) is located in the middle, surrounded by a sticker with a serial number.

There is only one illumination zone – the logo on the stern. It has three effect options and 16.8 million color combinations. Unfortunately, white color and most light shades are not reproduced correctly.

Proprietary software

The company’s universal software, which also supports the Kone Pure 2017 mouse, is called Roccat Swarm. In this case, software version 1.9310 was used, and there were problems with its installation. Because of what I had to roll back to an earlier version and already upgrade from it. The current mouse firmware version 1.11 was downloaded and installed automatically without problems. The main page of the software, which greets the user when downloading, contains the most commonly used settings. To bring the corresponding window to it, you must click the blue icon in the form of a clerical hairpin in the upper right corner. At the top there is a list of available tabs, and at the bottom there are slots with five profiles that can be saved in the built-in memory of the manipulator.

In the Settings section, you can configure basic mouse settings. There is an adjustment of the cursor speed, vertical and horizontal speed of the scroll wheel, a delay setting for double-click recognition and a slider that duplicates the speed of moving the Windows cursor. You can enable mouse cursor acceleration or display a trace of its trajectory. Five levels of resolution are individually adjustable in the range from 100 to 12000 CPI in 100-unit increments over the entire range of values. Extra permission levels can be turned off.

The Button Assignment defines the assignment of all keys and the direction of the scroll wheel, for a total of nine commands. For each of the commands, you can assign a main and an alternative action, which is activated when the Easy-Shift technology is triggered. The choice of command options is very wide. In particular, each button can be disabled, or assigned to a macro, an individual combination of commands, or the launch of a voice timer. All basic and advanced mouse commands, Internet navigation and media functions, quick launch of applications or documents, system commands and Windows applications are available for remapping.

In Advanced Settings, additional sensor parameters and backlight modes are adjusted. In particular, you can set the polling frequency within 125/250/500 or 1000 Hz. Voice accompaniment of certain commands is also available – changing resolution, profiles, sensitivity level or sound volume. It’s all possible to turn it on or off and adjust the notification volume. The Distance Control Unit tab is responsible for adjusting the liftoff height (LOD). There you can set only two values ​​- Low or High. All settings can be reset to default settings. In the highlight section, you can individually set any color for a single zone, select an option for it and the speed of changing the lighting effect, or turn it off completely. Of the effects, a constant glow, blinking, breathing and pulsation are available. Plus, you can use a sequential enumeration of all the colors of the spectrum.

The Profile Manager stores all the profile options that a user has created for their mouse. Five profiles fit into the mouse’s memory, the rest can be stored for future use in the PC’s memory. It supports editing profiles, linking them to autorun along with individual applications and automatic switching.

The macro editor contains a huge library of ready-made macro commands for almost all the most popular modern games. But you can write your own version. It supports mouse and keyboard input and setting time delays. Recording the position of the mouse cursor is not supported.

Swarm Connect allows you to connect your mouse to a mobile device like a tablet or phone and control its settings remotely and wirelessly.

The AlienFX section will allow Alienware owners to sync their devices with Roccat products.

And the Talk FX section is responsible for synchronizing individual Roccat devices with each other.

There are three tabs in the program settings. General – here you can configure how automatic software updates work (on / off and silent installation or with notification). In addition, you can choose one of the 17 supported languages ​​of the program.

The Update center has a report on the current software and firmware versions of the product, as well as the Recovery Tool – rollback to the latest working version of the mouse firmware.

In the monitoring section, you can select the parameters that will be displayed on an additional screen when connected via Swarm Connect. In particular, this is information about the current state of the PC, the number of clicks per minute and erroneous clicks. Statistics can be reset if desired.

The Help section is more than helpful. Here you can directly send a request to the support service, or read the most frequently asked questions.

Ergonomics and testing

Roccat Kone Pure 2017 mouse tested on Razer Goliathus WoT (Speed ​​medium). The shape and size of this mouse is ideal for the right hand and any form of grip for owners of medium-sized palms. For those who have a large hand, this manipulator will seem slightly short and narrow. The mouse coating is generally pleasant and not slippery to the touch, it evaporates sweat well, but tends to get dirty quickly. The degree of rigidity of all switches is well chosen, they are tactilely responsive and not particularly noisy. The scroll wheel is crisp, but it pays for it with a crackle when spinning fast, which isn’t particularly annoying, though. The implementation of Easy-Shift technology allows you to actually double the number of commands executed on the manipulator, which will appeal to fans of MMOs. To call it, it is most convenient to use one of the side buttons. The weight balance of the case is well maintained, the manipulator is convenient to lift and rearrange on the surface. The legs are quite slippery, because of this, the Kone Pure has a noticeable inertia during fast movements. The cable, although not the softest, does not interfere with movements. The backlight here does not look very good, and when using the mouse it is not visible at all. Built-in memory for five profiles allows you not to use the software at all, except for the initial setup.

The Pixart PMW 3361 Owl-Eye sensor performs well. It is undemanding to the quality of the surface, does not break, does not have parasitic moments in its work, there is no acceleration, if it is not forced to turn on, the separation height is well chosen. Tracking accuracy of 1:1 is achieved by the sensor in the range from 400 to 3000 dpi. Above this threshold, the level of smoothing increases and the accuracy sags slightly.

Results

The mass distribution of the top Pixart PMW3360 sensor and its variations in modern models of manipulators in the middle price segment cannot but please potential buyers. Especially considering that their performance is close to ideal, and the cost is not so high. Today, in fact, this is the gold standard for a gaming mouse. Moreover, the leading manufacturers have finally focused not on increasing the number of dpi, but on fine-tuning the accuracy of the sensor in the “reasonable” resolution range that is most often used by players.

In this context, the Roccat Kone Pure 2017 with its proprietary Owl-Eye sensor can be considered a very successful update to the old line. There is practically nothing superfluous in it, and there is a full set of necessary functions, including advanced software in combination with on-board memory. There is a normal cable, a comfortable body, slippery feet, a small and balanced weight, good switches, a clear wheel, in general, a complete “gentleman’s” set of a high-quality FPS mouse. However, it should be noted that the body of this mouse is deliberately slightly cut in size and therefore will not be very comfortable for large hands.

The main disadvantage of the manipulator is that its surface is quite dirty and requires regular cleaning every few days. In addition, the backlight does not look very good here. Without it, it would be quite possible to do without, thereby reducing the cost of the product. Well, the software in the current version contains some errors, although this is quite fixable over time.

The Roccat Kone Pure 2017 mouse can be recommended for owners of medium and small hands, for the right hand and any type of grip. It will suit any genre of games, but the main thing is that it meets all the requirements of the most dynamic FPS games.