Page 3 - Subjective Performance Tests
After plugging the ROCCAT Kone Pure Owl-Eye in and setting up the software, I drove the mouse through our series of revised standard tracking performance tests. This includes normal office usage in the Windows environment as well as gaming. Some graphics work and testing is done with Adobe Photoshop. Games used in this test include Overwatch and League of Legends. This spans multiple genres, and allows us to get a feel as to how the mouse responds in different situations. All testing was completed on the XTracGear Carbonic XXL in addition to the pictured SteelSeries QcK Prism, which I will be covering soon. Please note these are subjective tests, but we will attempt to make it as objective as possible with our cross reference testing methods.
As I have mentioned in the physical inspection, the ROCCAT Kone Pure Owl-Eye is a relatively small mouse with its maximum height in the middle. This size alone lends itself towards claw or fingertip grip users. I personally used a claw style most of the time with the Kone Pure Owl-Eye. I think I had enough width to support all of my fingers -- even the ring and pinky fingers -- but those with larger hands will obviously say otherwise. Despite the smooth surface, the light weight and small size made holding onto the Kone Pure Owl-Eye quite easy. The sloping and shape of the mouse felt nice, and I am glad ROCCAT kept the same relative shape from the Kone EMP. The audible and tactile feedback on all of the secondary buttons were good, despite them not being Omron switches. None of the buttons exhibited any squeaks or abnormal sounds. As for weighting, I felt like the ROCCAT Kone Pure Owl-Eye was definitely on the lighter side of things, and it took me a bit more time to adjust to it. However, once I was adjusted it was fine for daily use. As for the sensitivity range, I never went above 3200 DPI, especially as the mouse is already so easy to move. I think the top ceiling of 12000 DPI is insanely high. ROCCAT recommends keeping the sensor between 400 and 3000 DPI. Most experienced gamers actually keep their mouse at relatively low dots per inch, but this flexibility is nice nonetheless.
As the ROCCAT markets the Kone Pure Owl-Eye as an FPS and MOBA approved mouse, I had to test it with games like Overwatch and League of Legends. Diving into the shooter, I immediately enjoyed using the Kone Pure Owl-Eye. Generally speaking, FPS gamers look for mice that are easy to hold and quick to respond without having much heft. As such, the Kone Pure Owl-Eye fit this skeleton exactly. The mouse was extremely responsive and it allowed me to pull off full rotations without losing track of the position. There were no signs of spin out while playing, even when I really tried to make this happen. Overall, I actually felt more and more comfortable with the Kone Pure Owl-Eye and I was able to grab a few headshots along the way. Its smooth movement also made gaming easier. In games like League of Legends, I found the mouse to be fine for quick movements. The cursor did not skip or jump and it followed my motions as expected. Multiplayer online battle arena gamers generally favor either a smaller mouse, simpler mouse, or a mouse with a boat load of buttons. The Kone Pure Owl-Eye fell more into the simplistic category and it performed fine. Tracking once again was smooth, and button clicks felt responsive throughout the game.
As for graphical work, the ROCCAT Kone Pure Owl-Eye never let me down in my use. I fired up Photoshop to test a few things. Firstly, I did some lasso testing to see if the mouse was capable of selecting predetermined elements in an image. This allowed me to check for not only tracking and precision, but also for jitter while moving about. Secondly, I performed the straight line test by trying to draw a straight line with the brush. This allowed me to test for mouse prediction. Some cheaper mice will "autocorrect" itself by predicting and drawing a flat line, which hides the intended smaller movements. For the Kone Pure Owl-Eye, it passed both tests with flying colors. There were no tracking issues or jittering while using it at my preferred settings. Every small detail was picked up when I was off from creating a flat line, showing zero signs of prediction. In daily work, the Kone Pure Owl-Eye was quite enjoyable to use, especially with its contoured shape. When testing at the maximum settings, especially at 12000 DPI, there still was no jitter or sense of lag either, but it was definitely harder to control. Thankfully, I never ended up going to this high of a sensitivity after my tests.
Overall performance of the Kone Pure Owl-Eye was superb. Gaming was made easy with accurate and smooth tracking. There was no acceleration either. The low lift off distance, in addition to the ability to change it, was also great to see. If there was anything I wish would have been possible to change, it would be to have some sort of visual indicator to show what DPI level you are currently at. Even so, it is not a huge deal, and I think ROCCAT could fix this with a firmware update to utilize the back LED for this purpose.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look - Hardware and Software
3. Subjective Performance Tests
4. Conclusion
