Usage & Final Thoughts
I have been using the Kone Pro Air as my main mouse for the past couple of weeks and while I was not all that impressed at first it has really grown on me. My daily driver has been the Razer Viper Ultimate, which has a rubber grips on the side so switching from that to the Kone Pro Air was a little weird. The Kone Pro Air almost felt slippery at first, which is never good for a mouse, but over time I really got used to it and I didn’t think it was slippery at all. Overall I feel the size and shape of the mouse is just right and it is pretty impressive that ROCCAT was able to build this mouse at only 75g.
The mouse feels solid in your hand too. With so many lightweight mice they are built out of material that can by flimsy at times. With all lightweight mice I press on the sides as hard as I can I and there was not flex in the mouse at all. Talking about the wireless connectivity I did not run into any issues with the supplied 2.4 GHz wireless dongle, and for the first week I did not even install the software or update its firmware. So out of the box you shouldn’t run into any connectivity issues. It is also nice that the mouse supports Bluetooth if you happen to forget the dongle at home.
As far as performance goes the Kone Pro Air makes use of ROCCAT’s Owl-Eye 19,000 DPI optical sensor, which is based off the PixArt PAW3370. I did not notice anything issues with the sensor at all and all of the buttons on the mouse were easy to access and responsive. The two main buttons are powered by ROCCAT’s Titan optical switches which they also use in many of their keyboards. The mouse glided effortlessly across my mousepad and that is a big deal to me as I play a lot of FPS games at very low DPI settings. Talking about DPI settings it was weird not to see a DPI button on the top of the mouse, but rather it is on the bottom of the mouse.
The ROCCAT Swarm software, while not needed for the mouse to work will allow you to fully reprogram it, set the lighting, and change different settings. I’ve used this software in the past and it has not changed all that much. It gets the job done, but is definitely not the best gaming software out there. When it comes to lighting on the mouse I really think ROCCAT has done something unique here. Instead of the typical RGB around the base of the mouse or in the mouse wheel they have embedded two RGB LEDs in the main buttons of the mouse. Now this wouldn’t be all that unique except for the fact that ROCCAT has made the front part of these buttons transparent so you can see the honeycomb shell of the mouse. It really makes this mouse stand out!
The Kone Pro Air is selling at our favorite online retailer for $129.99. The Razer Viper Ultimate sells for about $20 cheaper and comes with a cool charging stand. Overall ThinkComputers gives the ROCCAT Kone Pro Air Wireless Gaming Mouse a 9 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award!
Pros:
– One of the most comfortable wireless gaming mice I’ve used
– Larger than other wireless mice, yet only 75g
– Really unique lighting
– Great performance
Cons:
– DPI / Profile switch button on the bottom of the mouse
– No charging stand, has to charge via cable