 Roccat Kone Pure Owl-Eye Gaming Mouse Review - by Ino



Roccat released an update of the famous Kone Pure series. This update mainly consists of a new sensor, using the same Owl-Eye (3361) as the Kone EMP, and a new and improved coating.

Let's take a closer look.











Packaging







The packaging is similar to the latest Roccat releases. The most prominent features on the front are the 2D Titan wheel and the new Owl-Eye sensor (which is a version of the top of the line PixArt 3360 sensor). Both deserve positive mentions because I know of no other mice with wheels as nice as Roccat's and the 3360 (and its derivatives) is the best sensor currently available.





The box has an angled edge at the right side, which looks nice I guess, but it also makes the box weird to open because of the top flap being held in place with little wings in two places. I had to be really careful not to rip the one at the angled edge off right away.





The back of the box gives you some more detailed information about the specs of the mouse.





Inside is a plastic packaging containing the mouse and a small plastic envelope with the quick installation guide, a warranty and three stickers.





And finally the mouse freed from its cage.







Shape and Weight



The shape of the Kone Pure stays exactly the same as the previous Kone versions. So if you ever held a Kone Pure Optical or Kone Pure Military you are already familiar with the shape.



Weight: 87 g

Height: ~39 mm

Width: ~70 mm

Width at grip area: ~56 mm

Length: ~118 mm

Number of buttons: 7



The shape feels very good in general, but for my hands (20 cm x 9 cm) it is a bit small for a ergonomic mouse. I grip it more like a ambi mouse.











Above you can see how I hold the mouse. I gave the mouse a few evenings in Overwatch and realized that the shape is too small for me unfortunately, in the picture from the bottom you can see that my pinky is stretched flat against the outwards curve, after a while this causes some discomfort. I could still use the mouse fine, but there are other shapes better fitting to my hand.



Comparison



Roccat Kone EMP - Roccat Kone Pure Owl-Eye - Logitech G Pro





Zowie EC2-A - Roccat Kone Pure Owl-Eye - Logitech G403



Actual weight



You can see the weight on my scale being even lower than the proclaimed value of 88 g, which is a very good thing for me.



In my Review of the Kone EMP I criticized the high weight of 116 g, the Kone Pure sits right in the sweet sport for weight for me, but of course it is also a lot smaller.



Below are pictures of the weight of the parts.





And finally the weight of the parts together without any influence of the cable.









Performance



As mentioned earlier the name of the sensor is "Owl-Eye optical sensor", which is a name by Roccat for the PixArt 3361, a custom version of the 3360.





Close up of the sensor and the MCU



The sensor behaves like you expect a top end sensor to perform: perfectly. The tracking feels very smooth and direct, it adjusts to small movements easily and even very fast flick shots can't make it malfunction.



To showcase the performance I tested the mouse in MouseTester at various CPI steps and tried to move the mouse as fast as possible across the area of my mousepad. The result is excellent, showing no signs of tracking loss even at 5.5 m/s. Roccat claims the sensor tracks up to 6.35 m/s and on a good surface probably even faster. So it's fair to say that it's fast enough for any human to never worry about hitting malfunction speeds.







CPI accuracy

The CPI steps are also very close to the proclaimed value set in the software. There usually is a slight variance to CPI with all mice (i.e. you set 400 CPI but it really is something in between 390-410), however the more accurate the better. I test these because in the past certain mice had very high divergence at the higher steps where 6000 CPI would really be 4900 for example. So the CPI accuracy you see below is actually very good and most of all consistent.





As you can see the CPI steps are all a bit above the proclaimed values, however they are very consistent in that and you get used to it quickly anyway. So here everything looks perfectly fine.



Speed related accuracy variance



With this I test how accurate the sensor reports movement at different speeds. You can see me move the mouse at varying speeds from a starting position and back again with a different speed. In the top right corner you see the showpos command in the source engine. The second row shows the viewing angle of which my point of reference mainly is the second one, the x-axis angle. With a script I set my viewing angle to 0 0 0 at the start. After every swipe back to the starting position, I then record the deviation from the starting point. There is obviously a degree of error here that is due to me doing this test manually because I lack a test bench that is able to limit the movement to the x-axis. But as I have done the same test with a variety of different mice and sensors it's possible to compare. In this test the angular displacements were



0.53, -0.53, -0.95, -1.45, 2.55, -2.51, -0.11, -1.68, -1.52, -0.27



Which is actually a very good result, as was expected with a 3360 sensor type. The biggest outliers are from my test going slow right and fast back, my fast movement back is really inaccurate because I can push away the keyboard, which I use as a stop, while doing that with enough speed.



Lift off distance

The lift off distance (LOD) can be set in the software to be either low or high. The classic way to repeatably measure LOD was to see at how many stacked CDs a mouse would still track. In general a low LOD is preferred, as the sensor really only tracks accurately if the surface it tracks is in the optimal distance. However some people tend to hover their mice at the end of swipes and feel uncomfortable with a lower setting.

The Kone Pure has less than 1 CD LOD with the low setting. With the higher option for the LOD it seems to be just below 2 CDs, at least at 2 CDs I get tiny jittery cursor reactions. So people from both worlds should be happy with this.

The standard setting out of the box is for low LOD.







Build Quality





The inner workings of the mouse, showing the PCB with sensor, MCU and main switches. At the top you see the small PCB that holds the switches for the CPI and side buttons and sits in the top shell. Below are some more close up shots.







Buttons and Scroll Wheel

All buttons on the mouse are really good, there is no notable pre-travel or mushy feeling. The main buttons have Omron D2FC-F-K(50M)-RT switches, all other buttons are either blue or red TTCs.





The buttons are very good, nothing to criticize with them really. The wheel is actually one of the best I've ever used, just like the previous Roccat mice it's amazing. The steps are very light, but defined and the wheel click is so good that you could actually use it as a main button.





Right mouse button using the same switch as the left one.





Also the button response of the Kone Pure is great, here it is compared to the Logitech G Pro. Logitech is currently the Gold Standard for button response time and while the Kone Pure is losing against it the difference is minimal. In this comparison B is the Logitech G Pro and A would be the Kone Pure.





And a close up of the lens



Cable

The cable is a relatively thin braided cable. It comes with all the quirks you'd expect from a braided cable, as in it is rather stiff and inflexible. I understand Roccat's approach here as for years somehow premium mice were expected to have braided cables but aside from aesthetics they offer no benefit over a good flexible rubber cable. Still, it's at least the good version of a braided cable, not as stiff as say the one on the original Steelseries Kana.



Mouse Feet

The mouse features two big feet, one at the top and one at the bottom of the underside. The glide is actually very good with them, very little resistance and a smooth feeling all the way. And contrary to the Kone EMP which has new feet you can actually get new ones easily as they are the same as the previous Kone Pure versions, so there is a variety of aftermarket skates at your disposal.



Surface

The surface of the mouse is definitely one of the best I've ever seen. Not only does it look and feel like high quality, it also sticks to my hand really well, even during high speed motions. This means I can grip the mouse in a rather relaxed way, optimal for prolonged gaming sessions. I'm not sure what the surface is exactly, as it doesn't look like a coating.

This is to me at least as much of an update to the mouse as the new sensor is. The previous Kones were always slipping through my fingers. Especially the Kone Pure Optical. With this new coating it sticks.





Software



The Kone uses the Roccat Swarm software. I'm just going to focus on the mouse related setting options here and not go into more detail with the macro/profile managers or Swarm Connect for example.





In the settings tab you can set your CPI level that you want to use, up to five are possible. In this example I used 400 CPI as my main CPI step and 1600 CPI for certain scenarios like tank turrets in Bad Company 2 for example. The software also allows you to conveniently set the Windows pointer settings directly. You can also set sensitivity (which I don't see a need for as CPI is exactly that, a sensitivity setting), vertical scroll speed, horizontal tilt speed and double-click speed. I've left all of these at their default values.





In the button assignment tab you can do just that, assign functions to buttons. You can also set one button as a dedicated Easy-Shift[+] button which then changes all the button functions accordingly. It's also possible to assign macros to buttons here.





In the advanced settings tab you can change polling rate, enable sound feedback for certain functions, change the LOD (distance control unit) which I was testing in the high setting right here and also reset to factory defaults. The lighting options are also in the advanced tab, allowing you to set the lights for the four LEDs separately and use one of four effects. You can also enable a color flow effect that will cycle through the color palette.







Conclusion



The Roccat Kone Pure Owl-Eye is objectively one of the best mice I've ever had. Contrary to the EMP where I like the shape but not the weight it's the other way around here. But the shape is less of an issue than the high weight on the EMP was. And with a different grip than I use it should be fine for a lot of people.



The sensor performance of the mouse is perfect, the buttons are great, the wheel is one of the best you can get and the coating is just great. So for me other than the shape I have nothing to criticize.



I highly recommend this mouse for everybody to try, because if the shape suits you there is no competition really.