[section_title title=”Real World Performance”]Real World Performance
As usual for mice, I will split the real world performance side of things into the three sections which I feel deserve equal and thorough mention.
Ergonomics
Design wise the Kone Military is a right handed, ergonomic mouse. Where it sets itself apart though is in size, this is a compact mouse indeed which although a problem for me personally is actually very nice to see. The reason for this is most medium sized mice tend to be ambidextrous whereas this is a proper ergonomic mouse that just happens to be on the smaller side. I’m sure there are loads of you out there with small or medium sized hands that will find that a very attractive proposition!
Even though it’s too small for me I still don’t really have any comfort complaints with the mouse, as a claw grip mouse its got curves in all the right places and the button placements are all pretty good in my opinion. My only real complaint is that I feel the scroll wheel protrudes from the body a little too much, I think it would be nicer to use if it were recessed back into the body by about 1.5-2mm.
Buttons
The buttons are on the whole very good on the Kone Military, but the thumb buttons and DPI switches do feel a bit hollow which is a shame on a mouse in this price point where we are accustomed to seeing nice clicky TTC switches in the ancillary buttons.
That said the primary mouse buttons more than make up for that, the OMRON switches are very well implemented and offer a good tactile click over a nice medium travel which will be well suited to a variety of games. The real treat here though is the scroll wheel, this is often an area where manufacturers drop the ball but that’s not the case here. This has to be the the best scroll wheel I have ever tested; the resistance, the weight and the grippy rubber coating all combine in a sublime packaging which not only feels great but I also reckon it would last a good while too.
Tracking
What can I say about the Avago 3310 that I haven’t before? Even in a package that is less than ideal for me ergonomically the mouse performed admirably, the best way I can explain the difference between this and something like an Avago 9800 or a Philips Twin-Eye is that the optical sensor feels like 60 FPS to the 45 FPS of the laser 9800 and Twin-Eye.
It’s that raw tracking with no acceleration or snapping which makes me consider this the best sensor on the market and in ROCCAT’s high quality implementation it is as much of a pleasure as ever. If you have small or medium sized hands and the feature set of the Kone Military appeals to you then I cant think of a performance based reason to tell you not to buy this mouse.
So overall the Kone Military is a great performer, the testing here almost validates the results of the synthetic testing in the sense that the only thing really holding this mouse back is the ape handed idiot who cant keep a proper hold of it which is why I feel it is so important to have both the black and white perspective of the benchmarks but also to actually use the product! Lets wrap up with a conclusion on the next page.
