Roccat first came to my attention a few years ago at one CeBIT trade show in Hannover before the company came to these shores. The kit looked good and offered some neat touches. This far down the line though, has it managed to fulfil all its Germanic promise with the release of the Kone mouse?
Well, impressions didn't start out particularly well for the poor ol' Kone mouse. Initially I began testing on my review machine, that however is running under the Windows 7 RC1 and as such refused to open any of the Roccat software. No biggy really, after all that's a pre-release OS.
The issue though was that it wouldn't even operate as a normal mouse until I unplugged it, rebooted the machine and plugged it back in again. Twice.
Still, I thought that was a Win7 issue again so transferred to a Vista box. Unfortunately that had exactly the same issue leading me to go through the whole unplug-reboot-plug process all over again.
After that initial stumbling block though things started to improve significantly. The standout feature of the Kone - the one that really separates it from the competition - is the Tracking Control Unit.
This is a secondary sensor residing on the base of the mouse towards the front that allows you to accurately calibrate the li'l rodent for whatever surface you're gaming on. Within reason.
You'd have trouble tracking on ice for example, but then why would you want to? But it's quick and simple to do, and more importantly, very effective.
If you're the sort to be travelling around with your PC then you might be used to changing the surface that you're operating on - the Kone then would perhaps be your perfect mouse.
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gogopogo
May 1st 2010
1. For BIG people with BIG hands!
There's no doubt that the Roccat Kone is a high-tech precision gaming mouse with many great features.
It has a 3200 DPI Pro-Aim Gaming Sensor to reduce Pick-Up-Flight; a TCU (Tracking Control Unit) to calibrate the laser power to match the mouse pad surface; an Integrated Turbocore to save CPU power; 128kB of Internal Memory to save up to five Game Profiles; a customisable light system with 5 LEDs capable of displaying the full spectrum of colors; and a FastClip Weight Kit to change the weight of the mouse from 118g by 5g, 10g, 15g and 20g.
But the so-called Ergonomic Hybrid Shape that is supposedly suitable for people with both claw grip or palm grip fails to impress me. If you have large hands then you should find this mouse very comfortable and easy to dominate.
However, if you're like me and have small-medium sized hands then don't be surprised if you get wrist ache and have trouble moving it quickly from side to side. My wrist ache got so bad after the first 5 days I put the Kone back in it's box and got my old faithful Razer Diamondback mouse back into action. The Razer is such a fantastic mouse; it's fast, accurate, and lightweight so you really feel in control of the mouse rather than the mouse controlling you.
In summary, if you've got big hands (Roccat is a German company) then buy the Roccat Kone, otherwise get something smaller like a Razer Diamondback.
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