Roccat Kiro (Mouse) review

minibois · May 22, 2016

Some time ago I won this mouse on this forum (thanks <3) and after I used it for quite a bit of time, I think it's time for a review. So without more introduction, here is the review.

The Roccat Kiro is a 'super dextrious' gaming mouse with an RGB LED on the back. Super dextrious meaning you can take off the macro buttons or add them on both sides so you can truly choose where those should be, so it is fit for left and right handed use.

I am right handed and my hand is roughly 18cm (7 inches) from the middle finger to bottom of my palm, so probably average size. Not small, not big.

My usage:

This mouse was not much used for gaming, mostly just web browsing and used in an image manipulation program in combination with my drawing tablet. I did use it a bit for gaming, so I still have something to say about it.

Unboxing experience and setting it up:

The unboxing experience was very nice. The box was not hard to open, I was easily able to take the mouse out and the cable was neatly tucked into the box. This meant the cable was well protected, but not hard to take out.

What is included in the box was the mouse, a quick start guide (which I didn't bother with, it's a mouse!) and two extra sides for the mouse with macro buttons (more on this later).

When plugging in the mouse, it will first have to find drivers and wont work for a bit (at all, the cursor doesn't move until the drivers are automatically installed). This took a minute or so. After that I went to Roccat's website to find the driver for the mouse. The download was a bit slow, but it was installed quick enough.

The ergonomics of the mouse:

The mouse feels a bit small for me, I especially felt that when first using the mouse. I typically would like to palm a mouse, but I just can't do that with this mouse, making it kinda uncomfortable. If I were to palm the mouse, my index and middle finger are on my mouse pad

The mouse is of good quality plastic though, it doesn't feel like cheap plastic. The top is a soft plastic, while the side is a harder plastic. The macro button feel a bit slippery though. Speaking about the macro buttons, lets talk more about that. The mouse is advertised as a 'super dextrious' mouse. You can take off the sides and add macro button on one side, or both sides, or non of the sides. This gives a lot of customizebility and makes it so you can choose where you want and don't want macros.

These sides are easy to take off and Roccat is promising support for 3D printed sides too, so the possibilities are endless (in theory).

Driver:

The driver was easy to install, but a bit harder to customize.

When first opening it up I just wanted to set one of the macro buttons to Ctrl+Shift+T and wanted to make it so the color of the LED would change from Yellow to Red.

That first one was kinda easy to get, but it took me some time to see the second thing was not possible.

In the button assignment page of the driver you can tell it what sides you have on the mouse (the macro or non macro sides) and can set the macros there. You can set a hotkey to the macro, but it can't be to complicated.

You can tell it what function key to press (Ctrl, Shift, Alt and Windows button) and one single other button (so in the Ctrl+Shift+T command I had to set Ctrl and Shift + choose T as the letter). This works, but for more complicated macros it wont do.

Under Settings you can change stuff like DPI, what the different DPI settings you choose with the DPI button should be, etc. You can make it so the DPI button has up to 5 different settings, which is helpful.

Under Advanced Settings you have some more mouse options, including lift off distance which I had to set to low, because otherwise the cursor would just move even if the mouse was half a centimeter off the mousepad.

Under advanced settings you can also change the LED's color, you can choose one solid color, breathing or blinking. I cannot choose breathing, but solid color + turning on color flow does the same thing. blinking is just the color flow, but with blinking instead of 'breathing' and solid color without color flow on is just a solid color.

It kinda sucks that I can't just choose two colors it should breathe with, so I hope Roccat issues a driver update soon which makes it so I can.

Sensor:

The sensor works fine for my uses, but sometimes it just feels like it's not accurate. I don't know if that is because of my mousepad, or the driver or whatever.. But it sometimes happens out of nowhere. taking it out of the USB port and plugging it back in usually fixes this.

Other than that, it feels great. Gaming feels accurate (I mostly used the mouse on 800DPI) and responsive. The mouse moved great and the cable doesn't interfere with my movement.

The mouse glides really good on my mousepad, but not uncontrollably so it's great!

Conclusion:

Other than some small complaints like the lag or whatever on the sensor very occasionally and the size of the mouse not being big enough for me, I would still recommend it.

It's not a very expensive mouse, but does everything the more high end mice do. All the buttons feel good, the driver is alright, the sensor is often very great, etc.

If you have any questions, be sure to ask them.