ROCCAT Kone Pure Gaming Mouse

Introducing ROCCAT Kone Pure Inferno Orange Edition

ROCCAT Kone series has received a lot positive reviews from the public and being popular among the gamers. ROCCAT proceed to introduce more variations based on the same award winning formula, such as the Kone Pure optical version and now the colour version.

Today what he have here is the laser version Kone Pure, but with a very special treatment, namely colour edition. There are 5 available colours to be choose from, Black, Hellfire Red, Polar Blue, Phantom White and Inferno Orange.

Read on for our review on this mouse.

SRP for ROCCAT Kone Pure Inferno Orange Edition is RM245. 
*Kone Pure(black) is RM235, Kone Pure White is RM255, others are RM245. 

Tech Specs

Specs straight from ROCCAT's site.

• 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

Packaging

Front of the box.

Rear of the box with loads of product information. I find that ROCCAT tend to have long paragraphs of product feature explanations. Just look at all the words throughout the box and their official website.

Though most people don't pay much attention to it, but I think they're particularly useful especially for walk-in customers.

Front lid can be opened to showcase the mouse.

Closer Look

What you get in the box:

• ROCCAT Kone Pure gaming mouse
• Quick installation guide

No extra accessories, just the mouse and written documents.

Included USB cable is 1.8 metres which is sufficient for most desktop setup.

By the way, the cable itself is braided for extra durability.

The build quality of this mouse is astonishingly amazing. The first moment I put my hands on it, I just can't believe the smoothness of the mouse surface. Unlike any other manufacturers that choose to have slightly rough rubberised surface finish, this mouse however have a silky smooth yet non-slippery surface finish.

My thumb would sweat easily while using a mouse no matter what kind of surface finish it had, be it ABS or rubberised. Kone Pure however gave me a totally unique experience, which if I have to put it into words, it is like having the mouse surface sanded down a couple of times using different grit of sandpapers until the surface is finally smooth. I'm in love with this mouse.

The ROCCAT logo will be illuminated when the mouse is plugged in.

There are fairly large clearance for clicks.

Sculpted mouse body suitable for right handed users.

There are a total of 9 buttons available including up and down scroll.

The primary click buttons are responsive and provides good feedback. The scroll wheel, in my opinion, is properly design and works amazingly well. The wheel is big and the surface is sculpted for better grip.

Bottom view of the mouse.

Laser sensor which capable of clocking 8200dpi and 2 large mouse feet. Speaking of the mouse feet, I'm impressed of its smoothness. It easily glides through any type of mouse pad surface, be it cloth mouse pad or hard surface mouse pad. It looks like any other mouse feet provided by 3M, yet feels completely different.

Plugged in.

The illumination of the logo has 16.8 million available combinations since it is lited by RGB LED. To configure the colour, you need to have the driver software installed in your computer.

Red

Green

As I mentioned, there are 4 other colours available for the Kone Pure colour series

Black

Phantom White

Hellfire Red

Polar Blue

Software

Driver

The software does not come with the mouse, therefore you need to download it from the official website.

First panel would be the main control of the mouse where you can set the mouse sensitivity, DPI, scrolling, and clicks.

Second panel would be the button assignment. One special feature for Kone Pure would be the Easy-Shift[+] - which means you can map a second layer of function on the same button and you can trigger it by holding down your designated Easy-Shift[+] button and the clicking on your desired button.

I think this is particularly useful since the Kone Pure itself does not come with a lot of buttons.

Moving to the third panel would be the advanced controls where you can set in depth customisations to your mouse.

The the colour control panel for you to customised the illumination options.

I find this panel to be rather interesting, not just because it shows all your mouse usage statistics, you can even unlock trophy achievements with it. Just like how I recently unlocked the scrolling master trophy.

The finally we have the update and support panel.

ROCCAT Power-Grid

Other than the driver software, ROCCAT has something special up their sleeves - the Power-Grid. The idea of this software is to use your smartphone to connect to your PC, then use it to monitor and control your PC. Download the PC software from here.

After you registered an account, you can start using the Power-Grid. The first panel would be the "Grids", where you can set up the control grids.

There are numerous preset Grids available to choose from, you could even control your mouse's lighting from your smartphone through the Power-Grid app!

"Editor" panel to setup the buttons for the Custom Grid.

"Settings" panel for various configurations including your social media settings for displaying news feeds to your Grid.

Finally, the "Support" panel which houses various information regarding the Power-Grid.

ROCCAT Power-Grid Android App

The companion of the desktop Power-Grid software is the smartphone Power-Grid app. Available for Apple iOS and Android at the time this article being written.

Connecting the app to your desktop is fairly easy, just run your Power-Grid on your desktop, then follow the instructions on your smartphone app to connect to your PC. Get to know your PC's IP address would help if you have problem establishing the connection.

Default, it came with a few preset Grids. For instance the System Stats showing your PC status.

Remember just now we configured the social network settings? It is used for Incoming Center where it displays your favourite social media activities without switching from your game window.

Sound Control instead of just configuring the volumes, you can even control you media playback from here.

Then things got even intense with certain presets, for instance this Windows controls. You can even customise your own Grid.

Yeah, in-app purchase for additional tab if you think the 2 free tab slots is not enough.

Lastly the App settings to keep your app behaves accordingly.

Final Thoughts

ROCCAT Kone Pure Inferno Orange edition

Pros

• Smooth and comfortable grip
• Great build quality
• Responsive clicks
• Several colour editions to choose from
• Intuitive software
• Power-Grid - creative use of smartphone

Subjective

• Sculpted for right handed users

Cons

• Lack of accessories
• Lack of ergonomic customization
• Power-Grid need to cater boarder range of screen resolution

At first, I was skeptical whether this mouse would live up to its price tag or not, given that it comes with minimum accessories and hardware features. Most of the competitors' gaming mice selling at this price tag would at least have weight control system, or tonnes of buttons, or ergonomically adjustable. The Kone Pure has none of them.

The moment I put my hands on the mouse, immediately I realize I was wrong. The build quality and finishing gave it a very special characteristic. I'm not trying to overreact but the mouse do feel extremely comfortable in my hands. Not to mention the mouse feet itself has the smoothest glide I ever had. Even some of my friends who used the mouse also commented as so.

The buttons are nice to click and responsive. Although there's only a few of them but with the help of Easy-Shift[+] feature, we can double the buttons' function.

Meanwhile, the software side, the driver software itself is extremely useful and intuitive. It wasn't that difficult to use although it might seem a bit crowded with with different configurations. One thing you can't miss is the Power-Grid app. I am absolutely agree with the idea of utilizing your already smartphone instead of purchasing an expensive keyboard with a tiny LCD screen.

The desktop and smartphone app are nicely developed, especially when it only took me several minutes from registration to start playing around with it. One thing however, the Android app doesn't work well with high resolution screens, such as phablets or tablets. Even there's a few comments at the play store stating the same issue. I hope ROCCAT would take different screen resolutions into consideration, especially tablets.

Overall, this is a real performer mouse, even though it lacks quite a bit if compared with competitors' mice at the same price range. But I absolutely enjoyed using it, partly due to its comfortable construction and smooth glide. There isn't any serious downside with this mouse, just that if the price tag is slightly lowered, it'll definitely grab more attention from potential buyers.