Page 2 - A Closer Look - Hardware and Software
At first glance, the ROCCAT Kone XP has a very ergonomic look to it. It looks like it is built for gaming with all the different programmable buttons on it. The mouse has an asymmetrical shape; designed specifically for right-handed users. This is evident by the left side thumb rest. Both sides of the mouse are very smooth and easy to grip. I enjoyed how this felt in my hand, as it made holding it very easy. The mouse shell is covered in a smooth white plastic with the ROCCAT logo located at the back and on the right primary button.
There is a single button in the middle of the mouse, which toggles between user-configurable profiles. The DPI buttons are adjacent to the left primary button. There are two RGB zones on this mouse, which are the scroll wheel and the entire back of the mouse. The RGB LED lighting can be seen shining through the translucent shell of the Kone XP.
The ROCCAT Kone XP has smaller physical dimensions compared to an average gaming mouse, coming in at 76mm in width, 126mm in depth, and 40mm high. The Kone XP weighs 104g, which is not the lightest mouse ever, but also not uncomfortably heavy. Like most mice today, the weight is balanced to the center, meaning it will feel balanced when you lift it up. When using the Kone XP, I found that I was most comfortable using a claw or finger grip due to its small size. Being a person who prefers using a palm grip, I still found this mouse to be generally comfortable to hold for short to moderate periods of usage.
A PhantomFlex braided cable is fed out from the center of the front end of the mouse, likewise to pretty much everything I have used in the past. A paracord cable would have been better in my opinion, since it is lighter, but this is still pretty good. Aside from looking nice, the braided cable also provides less friction than a regular rubber-coated cable, allowing for smoother mouse movement. The 1.8m length is industry-standard and does the job well if you like to keep your PC off your desk or somewhere at a reasonable distance. The mouse connects through a USB Type-A connector with the ROCCAT logo printed on the end. While adding gold plating would have looked nice, it would not affect performance. Not having a gold-plated connector makes sense in this case as it adds no performance benefit, but raises the cost. The cable is very flexible, making it easy to run through difficult areas when connecting it to a USB port.
The ROCCAT Kone XP comes with common buttons you would expect on a standard gaming mouse, including the forward and back keys on the left side as well as the sensitivity increase and decrease buttons. Unlike your standard gaming mouse though, the DPI toggle buttons are located adjacent to the left primary button rather than in the middle of the mouse as aforementioned. The single button in the middle is for toggling between user profiles. On top of that, there are three additional buttons. Two of these buttons are located immediately below the side buttons, and are defaulted to typing “G” and “R”. The last button is located on the thumb rest and is programmed to be an Easy-Shift[+] function. The primary buttons have Titan optical switches, which are the same switches found on the ROCCAT Burst Pro and ROCCAT Kone Pro Air. The rated lifespan is around 100 million clicks. Both mouse buttons feel very crisp when pressing them.
The Kone XP includes five sensitivity levels that can be adjusted and preset into the mouse using the ROCCAT Swarm software, which we will touch on shortly. There are two sensitivity adjustment buttons located adjacent to the left primary button to increase and decrease sensitivity. I also like it when mice have separate increase and decrease buttons, as it makes reaching your desired sensitivity easier as opposed to having only one toggle button, which requires you to cycle through each sensitivity before reaching your desired DPI. While the RGB LED lighting will briefly turn static when you cycle through profiles, there will be no visual indication when the sensitivity has been toggled, which is a bit disappointing to me as I like knowing whenever I move up or down DPI levels. The buttons are close enough to each other such that your fingers will not have to stretch much to reach them, but also far enough away from each other to avoid accidental clicks when using a claw or finger grip. I also realize that this could be different for people with larger hand sizes. All the buttons feel very nice to click with good travel and response times.
Continuing on with the Krystal 4D scroll wheel, I found the grip on the wheel was good, as I found no problem with the scrolling when I browsed the web. The scrolling performance was adequate and comparable to any other mouse I have used. As mentioned earlier, the scroll wheel of the mouse is translucent for one of the RGB LED lighting zones. The lighting comes with a variety of modes that can change the display of the light. I tried all the different color combinations through Swarm to see how it looked on the mouse wheel, and every color I tested looked accurately represented.
At the bottom of the mouse, the feet and sensor can be seen. The pads are made of PTFE, commonly known as Teflon. This is fairly standard across mice in general, so you know what it is. The two Teflon pads allow the mouse to glide smoothly when being dragged across any flat surface. The big highlight is the ROCCAT Kone XP uses an Owl-Eye 19K optical sensor capable of sensing up to 19,000 DPI, which is a relatively high figure, but we will see how this sensor actually performs in our subjective performance tests. The Owl-Eye optical sensor is based off the PixArt PAW3370, which is designed to be efficient with power. While this is good for wireless mice, the ROCCAT Kone XP does not have to deal with such constraints, so this was likely done as a cost reduction method. When adjusting your sensitivity, you are able to adjust the DPI by intervals of 50, which gives a decent range of precision. The Kone XP runs at a polling rate of 1000 Hz, which can be adjusted at three other settings of 125 Hz, 250 Hz, and 500 Hz. Lighting and sensitivity settings can be saved on to the mouse itself.
The ROCCAT Kone XP works along with the latest version of ROCCAT Swarm, which is a 161MB download from ROCCAT's website at press time. This program unifies all your ROCCAT peripherals into one application. After installing the corresponding hardware module, you will be prompted to update the mouse firmware. Updating the firmware was a quick and painless process.
After selecting the ROCCAT peripheral you want to configure at the top, the graphical user interface is separated into four separate tabs: Settings, Button Assignment, Illumination, and Advanced Settings. The Settings tab allows you to customize the mouse's scroll speed, tilt speed, Windows pointer speed, and double-click speed. There are also five DPI settings that the user can adjust here. The Button Assignment tab lets you assign functions to different buttons. These functions include macro, hotkey, timer, basic functions such as left click and advanced functions such as increase sensitivity, internet, and multimedia. I personally linked the pause/play function to the thumb button, which made working with music very convenient as I could pause and un-pause the YouTube stream without having to open the tab. Some functions are available for all buttons while some buttons will only have a select amount of functions available to them. The macro manager lets users directly link to actions from a preset list of games.
In the Illumination screen, users are given six lighting options. These are AIMO Intelligent Lighting system, wave, fully lit, blinking, breathing, and blinking. Users can also adjust the lighting speed and brightness here. In the Advanced Settings tab, users can adjust the Kone XP's polling rate, distance control unit, LED time out, debounce time, angle snapping, and sound feedback. You also have the choice to reset the ROCCAT Kone XP to its default settings.
Overall, I found ROCCAT Swarm to be the most straightforward and easy to use. Unfortunately, it seems like the software has stayed the same forever, which makes it feel outdated compared to other programs like Corsair iCUE or Razer Synapse.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look - Hardware and Software
3. Subjective Performance Tests
4. Conclusion
