Hi there everyone, it’s review time again and I am back with another new mouse for 2020. ROCCAT are a well respected peripheral manufacturer, now with the financial might of Turtle Beach behind them, products continue to be released at a fairly speedy rate.
Today on the desk I have the Kone Pure Ultra, an entry by ROCCAT into the lightweight mouse category while using their popular styling and sensor to lure gamers away from some of the brands that have been in the media of late.
ROCCAT Kone Pure Ultra Gaming Mouse Specifications & Features
Sensor
| ROCCAT® Owl-Eye optical sensor with 16000dpi |
| Adjustable lift-off distance |
| 50G acceleration |
| Angle snapping: on/off |
General
| 1000Hz polling rate |
| 512kB onboard memory |
| Cable length: 1.8m |
| ARM Cortex-M0 48MHz |
| Weight: 66g (Ash Black), 66.5g (Arctic White) |
Dimensions
| Height: | 3.90 cm |
| Width: | 7.00 cm |
| Length: | 11.50 cm |
Compatibility
| System requirements: | USB 2.0 Port, Internet connection for driver installation |
| Operating system: | Windows® 10, Windows® 7, Windows® 8 |
ROCCAT Kone Pure Ultra Gaming Mouse Closer Look
Arriving in a familiar ROCCAT box, the front features a large image of the mouse along with the name and some branding reminding us of the German heritage.
The back of the box gives us some more information including a cut-away image showing the honeycomb style inside that helps make the mouse lighter, many competitors don’t coat this frame to take away even more material. Information is given on the AIMO lighting capabilities and also some descriptions in various languages.
Looking at the box contents I will again ask ROCCAT to reduce the amount of plastic used, at least here we don’t have the pointless USB connector cover, but the plastic shell and bag for the manual along with those protectors over the glide surfaces just add to the waste. In this image we get a good view of the underside of the mouse, the Owl-Eye Sensor in the middle with an unprotected donut of glide surface around it, surrounded by labelling with large glide surfaces front and back.
Looking at the mouse from the top we see there is a right handed bias, with a pleasant ergonomic slope to help reduce strain during use. Down from the scroll wheel we have two rather large and protruding DPI buttons this may be an issue during intense gaming using the scroll wheel and accidentally activating DPI changes. The forward and back buttons off to the left are placed quite high up on the shell and can be depressed from the top. Towards the back we have the familiar ROCCAT logo which is opaque and covering an RGB LED. The shell is made from fairly hard and smooth plastic, while the grip is ok it could be a little slippery especially in heavy gaming sessions.
From the front the mouse has the distinct sloped shape with the mouse buttons merging into the shell. The cable with standard plastic wire is in the centre, the scroll wheel has a fairly basic tyre on it, which more or less matches the steps in the wheel with its grooves.
Viewing from the right hand side there is not much to see, the texture of the shell remains the same all over without any rubberised pads.
The left view shows the buttons that can be activated both from the side and the top, there is quite a nice indentation for the thumb which certainly helps with grip and comfort.
The connector is as usual branded with the ROCCAT logo, no special gold coating or anything however that doesn’t really make any difference to USB performance, this should do just fine.
When the Kone Pure Ultra is plugged in we don’t get a massive RGB lighting array, just the company logo at the back of the mouse cycling through colours which can be tuned in software.
ROCCAT Swarm Software
Launching the ROCCAT Swarm software immediately goes for an update to accommodate the new Kone Pure Ultra, once done the menus become available, the main screen allows you to scroll down all the pages if you wish.
The settings tab includes all the DPI settings, 5 of which can be configured per profile . We also get the calibrate button for surface calibration which ensures accurate reading with the sensor. Other mouse behaviour settings are also in here such as Double Click Speed and Horizontal Tilt Speed.
Button Assignment is as expected, allowing the enabling, disabling and reallocation of mouse buttons. A unique feature found on many ROCCAT mice is the Easy Shift+ functionality which gives a second set of functions for each button without losing the main set. This is quite a clever feature which is best described as being similar to using the Alt or Fn key on a keyboard to give most keys dual functionality.
In the Illumination tab the AIMO sync and other lighting controls are available to manage the ROCCAT logo on the back of the mouse.
Advanced settings handle some more fine tuning for the mouse; Polling Rate can be adjusted here along with Angle Snapping and the like. A couple of nice extras here include the Sound Feedback to notify of things like DPI Changing, Profile Switching and Volume Adjustments, the other extra is the Zero Debounce setting which changes how the mouse detects a double click.
The profile manager delivers access to the 5 profiles that can be stored on the Kone Pure Ultra’s internal memory, further profiles can be stored on your PC and switched out with the onboard profiles, granting a large amount of flexibility.
No serious gaming mouse would be complete without a Macro Manager, used to set access to a combination of controls at the click of a button. ROCCAT include a whole bunch of preset macros ready to take on some popular games however I think most people may wish to customise further and record their own macros.
The Roccat Kone Pure Ultra Gaming Mouse Review: The Verdict
Having spent some time with the Kone Pure Ultra, the overall construction seems to be of a good quality even with a smooth shell. The size is fairly small but not as bad as some other esports-based examples and the lightweight nature of the build does make you think more about rapid movements. The sensor is accurate and the main features perform well, the DPI buttons are a little large though and do suffer from accidental presses.
What’s hot:
- Lightweight without holes in the shell
- Excellent Sensor
- Very good software features
What’s not:
- Smooth slippery texture casing
- Might be a little small for some users
- Priced a little higher than the competition
At the time of writing this mouse is available at around £55 depending which colour you buy, it is hitting around £10 more than the Glorious Model O- which would be it’s main competition as a lightweight wired mouse. It is however well built and has excellent software, the Swarm unified application is very stable and well thought out which does give the ROCCAT the upper hand in software implementation. Ergonomically the mouse is pretty well designed for right handed users, the forward and back buttons can be activated from both the side and above which could help people with differing grip styles, the DPI buttons however are a bit large. The scroll wheel is stepped nicely and just about matches the grooves in the tyre.
General use:
For normal desktop use the mouse is quite a pleasant experience, the accurate tracking and wide array of DPI settings available are great for fine-tuning image editing for skipping around documents.
Gaming use:
Gaming is a familiar feeling if you have experienced ROCCAT’s Owl-Eye sensor technology before, as the sensor’s accuracy and overall flexibility of the mouse give the user a worry free experience. The size of the mouse did cause me to shape my grip differently which wasn’t always comfortable despite the ergonomic design, this will differ from user to user though. Being lightweight I could flick easily in FPS games without sacrificing accuracy but overall if it were a little bigger it would be spot on for my hand.
I’m Awarding ROCCAT the Performance Award for the Kone Pure Ultra mouse as the sensor combined with the excellent software do make this an attractive package.
Thanks to ROCCAT for sending a sample of the Kone Pure Ultra Gaming Mouse in for review.
