Roccat is one of my favourite peripheral makers primarily because of their incredibly gorgeous gaming keyboards. But they haven’t won me over when it comes to gaming mice so far. The new &190 Roccat Kone Pro Air does little to break the general mould of previous Roccat mice. Which means that overall, it’s a great mouse — fast optical switches, excellent ergonomics, great performance and love-it-or-hate-it RGB lighting. But it’s 2021 and being a great mouse is par for the course, especially at these prices. So manufacturers need to add some special sauce to their devices to entice consumers. I’ve spent a few weeks with Roccats new flagship mouse searching for that, ‘je ne sais quoi’ and honestly, I can’t really put my finger on it.
Roccat Kone Pro Air Review
The Kone Pro Air isn’t much of a looker aesthetically but that’s pretty irrelevant unless all you want is a mouse that looks good for your instagram posts. Roccat instead focused their design efforts on ergonomics which you’ll feel the instant you rest your palm on it. It really does feel like it was moulded exactly for my hand but chances are, you’ll feel exactly the same. The shape clearly favours right handed gamers who use palm and claw grip styles.
The plastic outer shell has a smooth yet slick finish that give the Kone Pro Air impressive grip during intense movements and flicks. It’s a truly odd sensation especially when I go back to my Razer Basilisk V3 mouse that depends more on textures to provide the grip. Just like the Kone Burst Pro, this mouse also uses Roccats hole-less honeycomb Bionic shell that is a light 75g without needing to expose the inside of the mouse to dust and dirt.
Adding to the comfort is the almost perfect thumb groove, large tactile thumb buttons and the now patented Titan Optical Mouse switches that have a nice, meaty feel to them. There’s a slight bit of wobble on the left mouse button but nothing that detracts from using it. The scroll wheel is a bit of an odd one — it’s wide, flat like a little hamster wheel to remind you of the futility of scrolling Twitter and Facebook. However, it doesn’t click left or right like other high-end gaming mice and you also can’t adjust it’s resistance. I can’t lie I’ve been royally spoilt by the HyperScroll on the Basilisk V3 and firmly believe every mouse should have this.
Roccat has implemented a variation of the RGB lighting design from the Burst Pro but this time, it’s on the front of the mouse rather than the hump — so you actually get to see it more often. It’s interesting because of the honeycomb pattern but I still feel the lighting is quite dull given it’s trying to pass through a translucent black piece of plastic. Nevertheless, it’s there if you want it and the usual customisations apply via the Roccat Swarm software.
The Kone Pro Air connects to devices via Bluetooth or Stellar Wireless via a teeny-tiny USB dongle. A switch at the bottom of the mouse toggles between the two so you can have two devices connected at the same time. Three actually, if you include wired mode. I use a MacBook for work and I often have a Windows PC or Laptop in for review at the same time so this was really useful to me. Your battery life will vary depending on which connection mode you use but I was getting close to a week on a single charge of mixed use which is close to the back of the box quote of 100 hours. There’s also Rapid charge that’ll give you 5 hours with just 10min of charging.
For the puritans out there, the Kone Pro Air uses a custom ROCCAT Owl-Eye 19K optical sensor with a 50g acceleration. This is more than any normal person will ever need and I mention it for completionism. The rest of us mortals don’t use anything above 3000DPI anyway but the Kone Pro Air is meant to be the best of the best for pro-gamers who want a wireless, competitive mouse and on that, I’d say it delivers in spades.
The Swarm software allows you to customise a host of key bindings, macros, DPI settings, lift off and acceleration to your hearts content. These profiles with everything saved to the mouse and accessed via a handy switch underneath the mouse. Speaking of, Roccat put a handy little nook to store your USB dongle which is something I really appreciate. I also noted that the Kone Pro Air is Nvidia Reflex Compatible which will give you an extra edge if you have the requisite monitor.
Verdict
The Roccat Kone Pro Air is a wonderful gaming mouse that wastes no time with fanciful designs but focuses rather on nailing the ergonomics. It’s undoubtedly one of the most comfortable gaming mice I’ve ever reviewed and I enjoy using it everyday for my design work and for gaming. There’s very little to fault with it and my only complaint that scroll wheel which is surprisingly basic for a mouse of this calibre as well as the rather dull styling. I’m still waiting for the same team that designed the insane Vulcan keyboard to take a crack at a mouse to match.
At $190 though, the Kone Pro Air is slightly cheaper than competitors like the Razer Viper Ultimate or Steelseries Prime Wireless but more expensive than the excellent Corsair Sabre Pro. Either way, in that price bracket, it really boils down to your brand preference as actual performance differences are negligible.
