ROCCAT Ice Leopard's peripheral products have been recognized by many players for their comfortable feel and excellent design, and the KONE Magic Leopard series mouse is one of the well-known products. Last year, we gave you a review of the Kone Pro Air wireless professional version with excellent feel and appearance, not long ago, Ice Leopard ROCCAT released a new Kone series - Kone XP gaming mouse, focusing on strengthening the lighting and control performance, let's see how it performs!
Specifications
Connection: Wired
Sensor: Owl-Eye
Programmable buttons: 15
Number of RGB lamp beads: 19 pcs
DPI：50~19000
Size: 126mm×72mm×40mm
Weight: 104 g
Reference price: 599 yuan
Comfortable ergonomic shape, personalized transparent shell
ROCCAT Kone XP, like ice leopard's other peripheral products, has launched a black and white color scheme to meet the needs of different players, and we retested the obsidian black version (and also the polar white version) this time. Exteriorly, this mouse continues the Kone series, with a classic right-hand ergonomic design and thumb placement grooves.
The mold and size of the Kone XP mouse have been polished over time, with dimensions of about 126mm×72mm×40mm, which has been further optimized on the basis of Kone AIMO Remastered. The left high right low fuselage design, with a gentle height drop, whether it is grasping or lying down, can get a full feel. The mouse adopts a frosted ABS material shell, which feels delicate and dry to the touch, and the uncoated design improves the durability of the shell and avoids the difference in touch caused by sweat corrosion.
The transparent top cover with the white shell will look higher, but the black shell version is also very highly technological
In terms of buttons, ice leopard ROCCAT Kone XP is very "retro" to add multi-side buttons, equipped with a total of 15 physical buttons, which is very rare in the current pursuit of lightweight trend of new mice. There are 4 side keys in the middle of the mouse, and 2 DPI adjustment keys next to the left main key, it should be noted that the function of the regular DPI switch key defaults to the profile switch key, which can control the mouse to switch in 5 different profiles. The finger support part is easy-shift[+] shortcut key, through which 29 custom button functions can be extended, and the degree of control freedom is very high.
In addition to the buttons, the biggest feature of this mouse is the semi-transparent shell, and equipped with a 3D RGB lighting system composed of 19 RGB LEDs, which can achieve a cool dynamic RGB lighting effect. The semi-transparent shell extends from the tail of the mouse to the main key part, and the Titan Optical Switch (Titan Optical Switch) with the main key has a life of 100 million taps, the response time is faster than the general mechanical nudge, the trigger pressure of the button is moderate, and the feel is clear.
Ice Leopard ROCCAT Kone XP still uses a highly configured 4D Krystal roller this time, supporting left and right swing clicks, and the roller is also semi-transparent design, which can diffuse RGB lights and present unique lighting effects. The scrolling damping of the scroll wheel is larger than that of a normal mouse, which can improve the stability of operations such as cutting guns in the game, but it is more finger-intensive when browsing long documents. It is worth mentioning that despite the addition of a considerable number of shortcut keys and complex lighting systems, the measured weight of this mouse is only 100.5g, which is 10g lighter than the original Kone, indicating that the mouse is designed with the control experience in mind and specially optimized for weight reduction.
In terms of detail design, it borrows more from the Kone Pro Air, such as the unique horizontal non-slip line, mentioned in the previous review, this design can enhance the longitudinal friction of the mouse at the same time, to ensure the flexibility of the mouse grip (the lateral movement of the fingers on the mouse is not affected). The connecting cable uses the Phantom Flex braided thread commonly used in the ice leopard mouse, and the softness of the wire is very high. The bottom of the mouse is equipped with 4 white pure PTFE heat treatment foot stickers, which are covered with a blue protective film and need to be removed before use. The sensor is located in the front of the middle of the mouse, using the same Kone Pro Air Owl-Eye "Eye of the Night Owl" (customized based on the original phase PMW3370), with 50G acceleration and up to 19,000 DPI, the performance is very good.
Immersive lighting effects are cool, and there are many custom buttons to play
The standard for measuring the performance of esports peripherals is not only a variety of parameters, but for most players, RGB lights are an indispensable "core" configuration. The lighting effects of the previous generation of Kone Pro Air are very distinctive, while the lighting effects of the ROCCAT Kone XP are gorgeous. The light guide plate of this lighting effect system is arranged in the shape of an "eight" inside the mouse, because it is placed longitudinally, from the top of the mouse, it looks very much like the circuit on the PCB board or the overlapping front lip structure on the Formula 1 race car, visually has a strong three-dimensional effect, but the sense of technology in the case of turning off the lights is slightly inferior to the BIONIC SHELL honeycomb structure on other ice leopard peripherals.
Only when the lights are on, the mouse will show its true form - the 3D RGB light effect composed of 19 RGB LED beads and 8 light guide plates, dynamic strip light effects and high-brightness diffuse lighting intersect, which can bring an immersive light effect visual experience. In the ROCCAT SWARM driver software also provides AIM lighting effects, waves, full light, PHOTON_FX and other seven kinds of preset lighting effects, each preset has more detailed adjustment options, and can be linked with other and other ROCCAT products to create a unified personality lighting effect.
Mouse with eight-zone adjustable backlight (partial screenshot of the software interface)
Another great feature of this mouse is that it is equipped with the largest number of physical buttons at the same price point, and you may be worried about whether so many buttons can really bring convenience to the mouse control and use, after all, multi-button mice are no longer mainstream. However, after our experience, we can really feel that the efficiency and ease of use of this set of buttons are quite high.
The first is the 4 side keys in the middle, the subjective feeling is easy to mistakenly touch, in fact, the use experience is even better than the Kone Pro Air's double side keys, no need to move the thumb sharply to trigger. Then there is the Ice Leopard's unique Easy-Shift[+] button, which can realize the multi-combination key customization function by pressing this button to achieve "one key and multiple uses". For example, holding down the Easy-Shift[+] key and then scrolling the scroll wheel can quickly adjust the system volume, Easy-Shift[+] plus the configuration toggle key to turn off the lights, the above functions are supported for customization, bringing convenience to the player.
SwARM driver software also offers advanced options such as stabilization, line correction, LOD silent height adjustment, and more
In addition, ROCCAT Kone XP has also added support for NVIDIA Reflex, which can be used with monitors that support this technology to effectively reduce system latency and help players improve their competitive performance in the game. In the actual game experience, the performance of this mouse is very stable, thanks to the weight of 100g and high-performance optical engine, the mouse feels solid, the response of optical micro-motion is very sensitive, and the click rebound is crisp and clean. When playing PUBG, a game that requires a lot of shortcut keys, the multi-button advantage of ROCCAT Kone XP is reflected, and the operations that require a keyboard such as backpacks, maps, and perspectives can all be mapped on the mouse, which enhances the competitive experience of the game to a certain extent. If you're a big fan of building games like Minecraft, Kone XP can help you become a DC mogul.
Summary: The most anticipated all-rounder
As an important branch of the Ice Leopard mouse family, the Kone series has maintained a strong innovative vitality in design, and the 3D RGB light effect on the ROCCAT Kone XP cleverly makes use of the light guide plate and RGB LED to achieve a unique stereoscopic light effect. On the other hand, it can also be seen that this mouse integrates the design of many previous generations, such as the multi-sided keys of KONE TYON, the thumb buttons and 4D scroll wheels of KONE AIMO, the mold of Kone Pro Air, and then fuse them to create a balanced performance and full-featured gaming mouse. Ice Leopard ROCCAT Kone XP's comprehensive game experience is not lost to the current lightweight mouse, both have their own focus, if you want to start a good feel, reliable quality gaming mouse, Ice Leopard ROCCAT Kone XP is a good choice, and we believe that if you still have the idea of creating a cool desktop, Ice Leopard ROCCAT Kone XP can also become a cool "table" product in many desktop ornaments.