ROCCAT Kone Pro Review

Software

The Kone Pro is compatible with ROCCAT Swarm, which is used for other ROCCAT devices as well. Though a bit crowded and dated in its design, Swarm leaves little to be desired in terms of functionality. All options are accessible through separate pages. The first of these includes the basic Windows pointer settings and CPI adjustment, which ranges from 50 to 19,000 CPI for up to five levels. Typically, the 3370 allows for CPI adjustment in increments of 50 until 10,000 CPI and increments of 100 from 10,100 CPI onward. On the Kone Pro, increments of 50 can be entered across the entire range, though I’m unaware of whether this is intended or merely an oversight, and the non-standard values aren’t actually applied. CPI values can be entered manually, but non-native values are truncated to native ones. The second page has button remapping options, which allow one to remap all buttons to mouse, keyboard, or media functions, and EasyShift allows one to designate a shift button that can be pressed to access a second set of bindings. Though the Kone Pro lacks a dedicated CPI button, this can be easily rectified by binding “DPI Cycle” to the profile button on the bottom. The third page concerns lighting options and is detailed below. The fourth page features miscellaneous options, such as polling rate adjustment (125/250/500/1000 Hz), LOD (very low/low/custom), and angle snapping (on/off). By default, LED sleep timer is enabled, which turns the lighting off after a set period of inactivity. In order to disable this option, “None” ought to be selected. Lastly, a macro editor and profile management are included as well.

When applied, all settings are saved to the on-board memory, so the software does not need to be running (or be installed) all the time. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of 80 MB on average when running in the foreground, which doesn’t change when minimized to the task bar, but goes down to 26 MB upon closing the application (minimized to the system tray). Oddly, I’ve noticed Swarm hogging the CPU quite a bit, to where I’ve encountered FPS drops and hitching in games, which wasn’t the case when I was using earlier versions of Swarm for reviews. Upon exiting the application, all processes are terminated, as they should be.

Lighting

The Kone Pro has but a single physical zone for RGB lighting, which is the front of the main buttons. A total of six pre-defined lighting effects are available in the software. These are AIMO, Wave, Fully Lit, Heartbeat, Breathing, and Blinking. For most effects, it is possible to set custom colors and adjust brightness as well as transition speed. By now, a dedicated “Lighting Off” option has found its way into Swarm, which allows one to conveniently disable all illumination. Oddly, “Lighting Off” retains the speed and brightness sliders, which serve no purpose whatsoever.

Color accuracy and vibrancy are excellent throughout. Here’s a short demonstration video in which I go through the AIMO, Wave, and Breathing lighting effects. Please note that the dithering seen in the lighting is a recording artifact:

The Kone Pro is compatible with ROCCAT Swarm, which is used for other ROCCAT devices as well. Though a bit crowded and dated in its design, Swarm leaves little to be desired in terms of functionality. All options are accessible through separate pages. The first of these includes the basic Windows pointer settings and CPI adjustment, which ranges from 50 to 19,000 CPI for up to five levels. Typically, the 3370 allows for CPI adjustment in increments of 50 until 10,000 CPI and increments of 100 from 10,100 CPI onward. On the Kone Pro, increments of 50 can be entered across the entire range, though I’m unaware of whether this is intended or merely an oversight, and the non-standard values aren’t actually applied. CPI values can be entered manually, but non-native values are truncated to native ones. The second page has button remapping options, which allow one to remap all buttons to mouse, keyboard, or media functions, and EasyShift allows one to designate a shift button that can be pressed to access a second set of bindings. Though the Kone Pro lacks a dedicated CPI button, this can be easily rectified by binding “DPI Cycle” to the profile button on the bottom. The third page concerns lighting options and is detailed below. The fourth page features miscellaneous options, such as polling rate adjustment (125/250/500/1000 Hz), LOD (very low/low/custom), and angle snapping (on/off). By default, LED sleep timer is enabled, which turns the lighting off after a set period of inactivity. In order to disable this option, “None” ought to be selected. Lastly, a macro editor and profile management are included as well.When applied, all settings are saved to the on-board memory, so the software does not need to be running (or be installed) all the time. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of 80 MB on average when running in the foreground, which doesn’t change when minimized to the task bar, but goes down to 26 MB upon closing the application (minimized to the system tray). Oddly, I’ve noticed Swarm hogging the CPU quite a bit, to where I’ve encountered FPS drops and hitching in games, which wasn’t the case when I was using earlier versions of Swarm for reviews. Upon exiting the application, all processes are terminated, as they should be.The Kone Pro has but a single physical zone for RGB lighting, which is the front of the main buttons. A total of six pre-defined lighting effects are available in the software. These are AIMO, Wave, Fully Lit, Heartbeat, Breathing, and Blinking. For most effects, it is possible to set custom colors and adjust brightness as well as transition speed. By now, a dedicated “Lighting Off” option has found its way into Swarm, which allows one to conveniently disable all illumination. Oddly, “Lighting Off” retains the speed and brightness sliders, which serve no purpose whatsoever.Color accuracy and vibrancy are excellent throughout. Here’s a short demonstration video in which I go through the AIMO, Wave, and Breathing lighting effects. Please note that the dithering seen in the lighting is a recording artifact: