ROCCAT Kiro Mouse Review
Overview
Over the last few weeks we’ve been taking a look at a lot of ROCCAT peripherals and all have impressed us, simply because they’re real Gaming products designed for real Gamers. Before we come to a close we’ve got just one more to look at and that’s ROCCAT’s newest mouse the ROCCAT Kiro
The ROCCAT Kiro is a super ambidextrous Gaming Mouse with a 2000 DPI (4000 DPI with Overdrive) Pro-Optic R2 sensor. Super thanks to its modular design that allows the mouse to cater for both Left and Right handed players courtesy of its hot-swappable Sideparts. In addition to this the Kiro features 16.8 million colour RGB lighting and eight programmable buttons.
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‘Meet the Kiro, the bigger brother of the Lua. With its highly modular, superdextrous build, the game has been changed for ambidextrous mice. Perfectly optimizable for both left- and right-handed gamers out of the box, it ticks all the boxes for gamers who thrive on a highly functional mouse with a clean, ergonomic design. With no-sweat parts comprised of a ROCCAT-pioneered soft-touch surface, the Kiro is the flexible ergonomic mouse that lets you win your way.’ |
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The ROCCAT Kiro arrived at pcG in another one of those ROCCAT odd shaped boxes, the front of the box highlights the following in addition to the Brand and product:
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There’s more information on the left side of the box also. Here ROCCAT highlight their the Extendable Build, Overdrive Mode and ROCCAT Swarm. Looking at the back of the box we find another image of the Kiro from the side pointing out the 2D Titan Wheel, 32-BIT Turbo Core V2 Processor and the Hotswappable Sideparts. In addition to this there’s a list of features (see Specifications/Features below) in English and various other languages.
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The Kiro was found to be both adequately packaged and presented and inline with the current retail price. Getting into the box is a rather frustrating affair (again), thanks to that odd shape and the plethora of tabs, trying to keep the box in good condition was almost impossible, but easier this time around as I had the same problem when I unboxed the Kova!
Inside the box we find find two additional Sideparts (left & right), a Quick Installation Guide (Important Document!) and a Disposal Guide!? Not sure what these disposal guides are all about maybe I should read one… 😉
At the time of review the ROCCAT Kiro is available from Amazon
Specifications/Features
courtesy of ROCCAT
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DIMENSIONS / WEIGHT Width 6.7 cm , Height 3.0 cm , Length 12.0 cm , Weight 103 g SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows® 8, Windows® 7, Windows® 10 USB 2.0 Port Internet connection for driver installation |
* Additional details available here
First Impressions
First impressions of the ROCCAT Kiro are pretty good, once again ROCCAT have produced a good looking, well made mouse. The Kiro is also a good size (quite small really) and the ambidextrous shape seems to fit my bastardised Claw Style Grip well. Then of course there’s the party trick of effectively being both a left handed and a right handed mouse, but the clever part is not necessarily with the buttons. This is of course thanks to the hotswappable Sideparts, a clever idea, yet something that will probably only be used once.
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Out of the box the ROCCAT Kiro is effectively an regular ambidextrous mouse with both side being the same, as can be seen from the images above. Each side features two very well placed thumb buttons, something ROCCAT seem to have now nailed and still something so many other manufacturers get wrong. The sides of the Kiro are plastic while the top of the mouse features a nice rubberized surface treatment. The buttons themselves are simply shiny plastic which unfortunately cheapens the look a little I feel.
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Looking at the front of the Kiro we can see the centrally mounted captive rubberised cable. Left and tight of this we have the two main mouse buttons and the central Titan scroll wheel.
Looking at the back of the mouse there’s not too much to see, well while the mouse is powered off anyway. What we can see though is the nice rubberised surface that covers the top section of the mouse and the area of illumination that will light when the mouse is on.
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The top section of the mouse features a nice rubberised surface while the scroll wheel itself features a rubberised grip and has decent palpable gradations. Behind this we see the only other button (well that’s useable) that by default is setup as a DPI cycle button, supporting up to four user definable DPIs.
Flipping the mouse over onto its back we can see the centrally mounted Pro optic sensor and just two large glides front and back. The sensor itself is a 2000DPI sensor that can support up to 4000DPI via ROCCAT’s Swarm software. The cutouts left and right are for unclipping the Sideparts, see below for more information.
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The Sideparts, of which there are four logically speaking, are simply clipped into position and held in place by way of magnets. The cutouts beneath the mouse allow the Sideparts to be easy detached from the mouse itself. It’s your choice to either have buttons both sides or not, I guess you could even opt for no thumb buttons at all!? Above far left you can see the right handed setup that I opted to use in testing.
Hardware Installation
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Installation of the ROCCAT Kiro couldn’t be simpler; just plug in the USB 2.0 plug found at the end of the 1.8m rubberised cable. The cable itself is nice and thin and very flexible, at the far end we also find a rather nice ROCCAT Kiro branded plug. |
Hardware Performance
For full operation of the ROCCAT Kiro the ROCCAT Swarm software needs to be downloaded as it is not supplied. I downloaded version V1.45 from here and this version was used throughout testing. Version 1.20 of the Kiro’s firmware was also used throughout testing.
The following games were used during testing:
Once powered on the Kiro came to life and its illumination could be seen. There’s only one illumination zone at the back that comprises of a ROCCAT logo, Name and Kiro. The illumination can be controlled independently via the ROCCAT Swarm software where there’s support for full 16.8 million RGB colour.
During Gaming I found the ROCCAT Kiro to be very comfortable indeed, even with my bastardised Claw style of grip. I would go so far as to say that due to the simple ergonomic shape of the mouse the Kiro will suit many grip types and small and large hands. Comfort is further aided by the excellent placement of the two thumb buttons, which ever ones you may have fitted.
Let’s just think about the hot swappable Sideparts for a minute. As a right handed Gamer I could either leave the right hand buttons in place or swap the part out for the blank one, which seems logical as the buttons on that other side are next to useless. Once done you’re unlikely to ever change it again, therefore the worth to the Gamer is minimal. But ROCCAT have still managed to produce an ambidextrous mouse that doesn’t have to have superfluous buttons on the side that’s not being used, which I guess is kind of clever…
Performance wise the optical sensor aboard the Kiro performed extremely well on our test mouse surface of choice (OCUK Mega Mat 3XL). During testing I settled on DPI of 1600 and the Kiro performed flawlessly in game, with no sign of any hardware or software assistance. The Kiro performed particularly well in Overwatch where the speed of the game is pretty fast paced, especially if you’re playing Tracer. Fast paced or slow paced I have no complaints about the tracking of the Kiro. As I’ve already mentioned the thumb buttons were also beautifully placed for my bastardised Claw grip.
Of course we’ve seen the ROCCAT Swarm software before when we took a look at the Kova and here again the software performs pretty much the same with the Kiro. The software consists of three main tabs (Settings, Button Assignment & Advanced Settings) although any section from any tab can be pinned to the first tab for convenience. There seems to be no Profile Manager and no Macro Manager for the Kiro, the Swarm software has (seems) to have been nerfed for this, more budget conscious mouse, a shame I feel…
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The first tab (ignoring the pin) Settings allows basic Windows type settings to be tweaked, all of the usual suspects are here from Double Click Speed to Pointer Speed. What is rather alarming (again) though is that Mouse Acceleration can be also found here, on by default, but best turned off! In addition to this it is here you can mange the five user definable DPI settings from 250 to 4000, DPI’s can also be disabled, which can often be more handy than you’d think…
The second tab (Button Assignment) allows control over the eight (effective) buttons. Note that you need to tell the software what buttons you have attached via the Sideparts (see image above centre). The layout here is simple and very easy to use; buttons can be bound to keyboard functions, Windows functions, Media functions but not Macros, from what I can see!? Other more advanced functions are also supported such as DPI cycle and Sensitivity Cycle.
Finally we have the Advanced Settings tab, here you can adjust the Polling Rate (I used 1000Hz), Reset the mouse to factory settings (often useful!), change the Kiro’s orientation for left or right handed users and turn on Sound Feedback. This latter feature I really like and as you can see (screenshot above right) you’ll get a voice announcement should you change either DPI, Profile or Volume, if ticked! It is here you can also mess with the Kiro’s 16.8 million colour illumination, with various effects on offer.
Final Thoughts
Simply put the ROCCAT Kiro
The Kiro arrived at pcG in a smart odd shaped box, the contents within were both adequately packaged and presented and inline with the current asking price. Although getting into the box was a bit of a task thanks to all those tabs and seals. Once out of the box the Kiro itself was found to be a good looking, small (ish) mouse that’s also well made using high quality plastics. But we also have some other parts in the box, these two are the additional Hotswappable Sideparts. This allows the Kiro to be set up as either pure left handed or right handed mouse, or effectively both with thumb buttons both side. Now while this is a clever and novel idea, I do feel that it’s a feature that used once and never again and that’s a little odd I think!
I immediately felt at home using the Kiro even with my bastardised (right handed) Claw grip. This is thanks to some good ergonomics and beautifully positioned thumb buttons. In Game the performance of the 2000 DPI Pro-Optic R2 sensor was found to be nothing short of brilliant, especially when mouse acceleration was turned off. In fact I have to confess that I was somewhat amazed and surprised at just how well I got on with the Kiro. Tracking was spot on even in Overwatch when using characters like Tracer and Genji. During gaming I found that the best DPI for me was around 1500DPI. AT this setting the tracking was found to be spot on.
ROCCAT’s Swarm software that I’ve become very accustomed to over the last couple of months has already impressed me greatly. This is thanks to its unified design and good looking yet simple UI. It again impresses here with the Kiro, although it’s evident that some features have been removed such Profile support and Macros. But I guess we must consider where the Kiro lives within the ROCCAT lineup, as I know these features are to be found on the Kova, one of ROCCAT’s higher end mice.
As you can provably guess from the award I really rather liked the Kiro and if asked why I liked it so much my answer would be: The Kiro simply felt like an extension of my hand and brain, everything I wanted it to do it did and it did it well. The comfort the button positioning and the tracking, all spot on and at just £35 (at the time of review) I’ve really got nothing to bemoan. Good job ROCCAT! 😉
Verdict
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Many thanks to ROCCAT for providing this sample for review
