Others/Mice & Keyboards by jmke @ 2013-01-07
In this group test I will focus on a specific feature and gaming goal to reduce the variables as we go on a quest to find some of the best First-Person-Shooter wired mouse out there. To properly gauge the performance of my new gaming rodents I spend several weeks with each to get to know the ins and outs, their features and deliver a good dose of my personal opinions on these mice.
The flashiest mouse in our roundup today comes from gaming pheriphal company Roccat; their Kone XTD is their latest high end wired rodent which features extremely fast tracking, right hand molded design and lights up with multi-colored LEDs when powered on.
All the features and options are mentioned in detail on the packaging, with a run-down of their Easy-Shirt[+] macro button and highlights of the many unique features of the Kone XTD version.
A summary:
When not powered on the Kone XTD doesn't look very intimidating, if you ignore the wild animal logo in the center of the mouse; the buttons are sleek and recessed into the design making the whole a compact product. Flipping it over shows you the compartment where the 4 weights are stored. Roccat also includes a small container for you to store the weights you're not using.
A closer look at the USB connector and you can also see the braided USB cable to reduce a wire tangle mess.
Once powered on the Kone XTD shows its true colors, the LED bars on each side on the mouse can be customized with fancy colors and lightening effects. Of course once you put your palm on the Kone XTD you don't see any of this.
On the software side of things, Roccat did an excellent job of providing a feature rich config panel without too much clutter.
On the first screen you set the mouse sensitivity, scroll wheel speed and tilt, DPI fast switcher allows you to set 5 different DPI levels which you can then cycle through using the dedicated buttons on the Kone. The next screen allows you to configure up to 12 actions using all the physical buttons, if you're combining them with the Easy-Shift[+] button (which is mapped by default to the IE Backward - button #5) you can go up to 24 buttons!
The advanced control screen has some interesting tuning controls which really puts the Kone XTD at the head of the customisation pack. You can set different X-Y sensitivity, next you can calibrate the tracking sensor which calibrates the laser to the surface you're using the mouse on for optimal performance. You can set the lift-off distance (how high you have pick up the mouse before it stops tracking); The polling rate is the next option worth tweaking, in recent games the 1000HZ polling rate will give you the best performance.
The sound feedback option really caught me off-guard... changing the DPI triggered a scruffy male voice announcing the DPI change and what it was set to now. At high volume it can be quite surprising, at lower volume it becomes very useful when changing in-game, you immediately know what the setting is now without having to look to an LCD screen or trying to remember what you set in the software before you launched the game. While it did come over as a gimmick at first, I came to appreciate more over time when swapping different DPI settings and profiles.
Speaking of profiles, you can link an application to one of the 5 different profiles and it when that application is launched, the mouse will switch to your favorite settings.
Helping you visualize what profile is active, you can set a color for each one to easily help identify. The LED control panel is nicely fleshed out to offer you a lot of control to make the Kone XTD either a disco attraction with blinking BLUE/YELLOW lights, or more of menacing RED pulsating rodent. For the stats lovers Roccat tracks total button clicks and other mouse actions, even giving you virtual trophies for using the mouse more intensively.
This right hand mouse from Roccat definitely impresses, the Kone XTD comes with a solid feature set, where the Cyborg RAT 7 could be extremely customized physically, the Kone XTD plays the software customization card, with great success. The default profile gets you going quickly, if however you're used having the shoulder buttons act as IE Forward <> IE Back buttons, you might get annoyed by the default Easy-Shift[+] taking the place of the IE Back; a few clicks through the Roccat configurator and this annoyance is a thing of the past. Fine tuning the weight and lift of distance does improve overall performance. It didn't take long for me to accustomed to this mouse as it lays nicely into your right hand and performed sublimely.
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* been using the SteelSeries RAW as office mouse, after about 600.000 clicks (tracking soft!) spread over left/middle/right click, the middle click button is starting to fail, need to press down hard for it to register.
* the Cyborg RAT 7 primary gaming mice, shows some erratic behavior once in a while and requires cleaning of the lens area every few weeks; otherwise it won't track, the small alcove they created for the lens is not keeping dust out, it just helps to collect more