ROCCAT Kone Pure Core Performance Review

Introduction
ROCCAT isn't a new in the gaming equipment market, their previous Kone + had shown it can compete with the top brands (Razer,SteelSeries). ROCCAT released a few more models in the gaming mice lineup. But in this review we will be focusing on the budget laser mouse, the Kone Pure Core Performance. Lets get started.
Technical Specifications
• 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
ROCCAT is quite amazing when it comes to packaging. However the box is big. So what’s inside it? The whole package is consisting only the mouse and a quick installation guide. Now they don’t include a CD for a driver, I feel that’s a wise move. Who will ever use CD these days? Most of us have a good enough internet connection. However this isn’t the point. I will get back to you about this later in the review. And yes, ROCCAT doesn’t include stickers like the other brands in the gaming equipment industry.

The Mouse
I will be covering a few aspects of the mouse. The design, hardware, software and actual real world performance.
Design


Side By Side Design Comparison with the Razer DeathAdder 3500DPI
The ROCCAT Kone Pure Core Performance is living up its name. Nothing fancy here other than the glowing ROCCAT logo on the body of the mouse. I believed this is a smaller version of the Kone + and Kone XTD. But it features the same shape as the higher end Kones. The size is just right for my semi claw grip. However I still love a bigger sized mouse. For people with smaller sized hand can palm grip with this mouse, no problem. The mouse features 7 buttons.  6 of them are fully programmable, including the scroll wheel. The whole mouse is rubberized while the bottom of the mouse features a matte finish with 2 huge Teflon mouse feets. And the same as all the other mousefeets, this also attracts dust.

The Hardware
Okay let’s get inside the hardware of the mouse. The mouse uses A9800 sensor. Which is the same as the SteelSeries’s Sensei MLG Edition and the Kone XTD. The mouse features a 8200DPI sensor. The mouse button utilizes Omron switch. Many gamers prefer the Omron switch compared to the conventional TTC switch. It offers a more tactile feedback compared the TTCs. It also includes a 576KB of onboard memory that can store up to 5 profiles.

The Software
Now this is what amazes me. ROCCAT nailed it in the software or ‘tuning’ department.


1st stop, main control.
Here you can set the sensitivity options, vertical scroll sped, horizontal tilt speed, dpi and the double click speed. I recommend to set the sensitivity option to 0 to prevent any software interpolation on your mouse movement. The DPI switcher ranges from 200 to 8200 with increments of 200.


2nd stop, button assignment
You can set your button to anything you want. They include a macro recorder for easy macro assignment. From the picture above, you can see the Easy Shift button. What easy shift allows you to do is that it creates a temporary profile that you can use all the remapped button on the easy shift section. This is one of the main features that ROCCAT have but the other two main competitors don’t. The other one is ROCCAT Talk. This features allows you to activate ROCCAT’s Keyboard (mainly ISKU, and maybe RYOS in the future) Easy Shift Function. This features may help MMO players who requires a lot of keys but doesn’t want to move around his hand around the keyboard. But for me, I’ll pass on this functions as the games I played doesn’t really require a lot of keys.


3rd is the Advanced Control tab. In this tab it allows you to control X and Y Axis sensitivity. Based on my opinion, I find this control rather gimmicky. It also allows you to control the lift distance and tracking control. I personally set TCU to off and the distance control to normal. Normal is just nice for me, the lift distance is estimated around 1mm here. And of course, every gaming mouse MUST have a polling rate controller. And this is also another ROCCAT exclusive, sound feedback is only available if the driver is installed. It makes sure you don’t get lost in which DPI you are at or even the profile you are at.


In the color control tab, nothing fancy here. Just the setting for the logo lighting and how you want it to behave.


R.A.D is basically your mouse’s mileage. It records what you do with your mouse. And this is my record for 5 days since I got my mouse


Lastly the support tab, previously I mentioned software CD is useless because it tends to get outdated. When I 1st got this mouse last week, immediately after I downloaded the software, I was prompted to update the firmware version. Great after sales service from ROCCAT to update your mouse.

Real World Performance
Yes, having 8K DPI is awesome. But ask yourself if you ever going to use 8200DPI in game. But it’s great to have that DPI just in case you are gaming with 3 monitors. But for me 1800DPI is enough for me( I’m using single monitor anyways). I may not have to keyboard to pair it with now, but I can imagine having macros button for quick chat setting for DotA 2 and HoN. (for example ms mid etc.)

Conclusion
The Pros:
-Great hardware for the price tag
-Great Software
The Cons:
-DPI increment can be more flexible
With the price tag of RM269, you can’t really go wrong with this mouse. Powerful performance with a suitable price tag. Gaming mouse from other brand can’t even come close to this price tag.