An ergonomic mouse, with some clever features
Roccat’s splendid line-up of gaming mice has a new arrival in the form of the Kiro, a modular ambidextrous gaming mouse with a unique design taken from the company’s Nyth range.
Looking to the technical specifications first, the Roccat Kiro is certainly an eye-opening mouse. Within its ergonomically designed body, you’ll find a Turbo Core V2 32-bit ARM-based processor at 75MHz and with 576KB of on-board memory.
It has a native DPI of 2000 through the Pro-Optic R2 sensor, but the sensor can effectively overdrive the DPI up to a pretty decent 4000, making the Kiro a good gaming peripheral for those who prefer a higher than normal sensitivity setting.
The 1ms response time, 20G acceleration and 1.5m/s maximum speed put the Kiro on the same level as the more highend examples from Roccat’s range of mice. However, the emphasis isn’t so much leaning towards serious gamers. It’s the design of the Kiro that makes it stand out from the crowd.
Following on from the introduction of self-3D printing modular parts, from the Roccat Nyth gaming mouse, the Kiro features two removable sides that can be swapped out for a buttoned or blank side. The sides themselves can be 3D printed, with the STL files available via the Roccat site, with many more user based designs soon to follow.
The use of custom made 3D printed modules is a concept we find very interesting. Naturally, the Nyth had more buttons available to it, with the Kiro having eight possible button clicks, but as this is an ambidextrous (or, as Roccat refers to it, Super-Dextrous), you can swap out the sides depending on what hand you prefer, and you won’t accidentally hit any buttons that were designed for a right- or left-handed user.
Furthermore, the Kiro has a rubberised effect feel to the set of default sides, which give it a non-slip grip.
For us, the main draw of a mouse isn’t so much the fact that it can display 16 million LED colours or that is has a processor inside that’s nearly as powerful as some laptops we still use; it’s how it feels in the hand and how it performs not just in gaming, but also in everyday tasks.
Thankfully, the Kiro managed to tick all our comfort and functionality boxes. It feels a little wider than the Roccat Tyon, and it rises gently into the palm for a more comfortable grip. Ideally, it could do with being a centimetre or two wider, since we seem to have bigger than average hands, but we never felt like we were assuming a ‘claw’ grip during its use.
The 4000dpi rating is more manageable to control over the much higher settings of the Tyon and the Nyth. It’s good enough for fast-paced gaming, and it can easily accommodate more general computing tasks without becoming an annoyance.
On the whole, the Roccat Kiro is a splendid, comfortable and technically interesting mouse. There’s plenty to enjoy about it, and it’s priced pretty well to at around £38. All in all, a good example of design and technology. David Hayward
Well-designed, comfortable and technically impressive.