However, Roccat has moved away from its gothic roots of cheap plastic, sharp pointy edges, and jagged cutthroat designs with concept-defying features and toward something sleeker, more professional. As consumers age, their desire for more premium-looking hardware grows. This is something Roccat has been looking to capitalize on, and with products like the Vulcan 120 keyboard and its lower-specced siblings adhering to that design ethos, it was inevitable that its other products would also be hit by the sleekness hammer. That is not a bad thing. The Kone AIMO is the legendary mouse’s 2018 update. This wired right hander, available in both black and white, is ergonomically designed for those who prefer a palm grip. It’s big and bulky, but it’s surprisingly light for its size. Although not rubberized, the plastics feel soft and almost satiny to the touch. There’s a chance for greasy fingerprints to ruin the day here, but not without a fight, and it won’t be difficult to clean either. The real showpiece, however, is the lighting. Roccat is extremely proud of its AIMO lighting suite, and for good reason: they’ve worked extremely hard to get it to work properly. It not only performs the standard array of RGB patterns and waves, as well as syncing with your other products, but it also responds dynamically to what you’re doing on your desktop. Whether it’s in a game firefight or casually browsing the web. Furthermore, the lighting on the Kone is exceptional; no individual LEDs are visible, and the frosted plastic covering the multiple RGB zones refracts the light exceptionally well. It appears clean and sophisticated, far superior to any other outlandish RGB we’ve seen in the past. Combine that with the soft-satin plastic we mentioned earlier, and the crisp black accents from the buttons, scroll-wheel, and rest of the frame, and the whole thing really pops. In terms of the sensor, we’re looking at Roccat’s Owl-Eye optical sensor. It’s a beauty, with the usual adjustable 12,000 DPI, lift-off distance configuration, 1ms response time, and 1000 Hz adjustable polling rate. Officially, it’s a Pixart 3361, a refinement of the already impressive 3360. We’re not sure what Roccat did after the fact, but with minimal jitter and angle snapping, it feels like a very competent sensor, which is emphasized by the overall price point Roccat has achieved with the Kone AIMO. We recommend keeping your DPI settings under 2,500 DPI because the smoothing above that becomes quite noticeable and seriously hampers your precision, but other than that, it’s a solid piece of kit.
