Roccat’s Kone Pro Air, the wireless take on its newest mouse design, does everything right. It has strong specs, a good shape, and decent battery life. It even has a nice visual flourish in its unique click-panel lighting. It lacks a signature feature—something that changes the way you use mice or simply makes you say, “I need this one”—and that’ll keep it out of the history books, but it’s still useful and fun to play with. Straddling the line between esports mice and traditional gaming mouse design, the Kone Pro Air is a strong all-around wireless gaming mouse that everyone who can stomach the $129.99 list price should consider.
Clear Skies
The Roccat Kone Pro Air is a wide, ergonomically right-handed mouse. The five-button design includes two click panels, a wide scroll wheel, and two thumb-side buttons. A hidden sixth button, which cycles through your full mouse profiles rather than DPI presets, is on the underside of the mouse, next to the power switch.
The first thing you’ll notice about the Kone Pro Air is its slick design. Measuring 1.56 by 2.88 by 4.97 inches (HWD), its wide chassis flares at the base, giving it a traditional shape. (It feels like this is becoming less and less common). The top is smooth, slightly slippery plastic. The sides have a light ribbed texture that doesn’t quite act as a grip but is easy to grab. RGBs are scant: just two lighting elements below the click panels, which glow to reveal a honeycomb pattern underneath the shell. It’s a neat-looking riff on Roccat’s design for the Burst Pro. Unfortunately, you’ll only see once in a blue moon, as your fingers cover it most of the time.
Substance supersedes style, and the Kone Pro Air has a fairly strong ergonomic shape. A crease on the left side guides your thumb into a resting position without need for a full thumb wing. It isn’t perfect: Though supportive, the base “hump” feels slightly shallow, and you probably won’t be able to just drape your hand over the mouse without grabbing it.
The lack of a hump may have been a design compromise to allow for a lightweight frame. At 2.54 ounces, the Kone Pro Air is just on the cusp of hitting the “ultralight” weight class. Even if it doesn’t quite get there, it’s still close enough to be considered for competitive play, while also delivering a genuinely comfortable grip. That’s a best-of-both-worlds situation if I’ve ever seen one.
Internally, Roccat uses proprietary designs for the Kone Pro Air’s key mouse components. The Owl-Eye sensor, which Roccat has used in some of its recent mice, tracks at up to 19,000 DPI. It’s quick, it’s accurate, and it gets the job done. Under the click panels, it sports Titan optical mouse switches, which are rated to last through 100,000 clicks. That’s approximately twice as long as Omron mechanical mouse switches. Despite this reliance on optical actuation (a laser activating the input when the panel is pressed down), you won’t feel a difference between the Kone Pro Air’s soft click and a standard mechanical switch.
Across the board, the Kone Pro Air excels as a wireless mouse. It supports both Bluetooth and a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connection via a dongle. Though a direct Wi-Fi connection is preferred for gaming, as it cuts out perceivable input lag, Bluetooth uses less power and makes the Kone Pro Air compatible with more devices. Crucially, there is a storage compartment for the Wi-Fi dongle in the underside of the mouse, reducing the odds that you’ll lose it in storage or transit.
According to Roccat, the Kone Pro Air lasts over 100 hours on a single charge when connected over Bluetooth with RGB lighting off. In my anecdotal testing, I found the mouse lasted for nearly a week of daily use in 2.4GHz mode with the RGB lighting on. When the battery runs dry, plug the USB charging cable into your PC and use the mouse wired while it charges.
Swarm-by-Air
The Kone Pro Air relies on Roccat’s Windows-only configuration app, Swarm, for all of its customization. Using Swarm, you can remap buttons, customize the mouse’s lighting, and adjust power-saving settings. Though not quite as modern as Razer Synapse or Logitech G Hub, Swarm remains a top-tier configuration app. It’s easy to find all the settings you need and adjust them. It also tends to give you more ways to customize your mouse than most. For example, Roccat’s AIMO lighting system attempts to create a lighting profile based on your behavior. In the Kone Pro Air’s case, that means calibrating off-mat distance control and an option to create a Windows tray icon to show the mouse’s battery life, among other things.
The Kone Pro Air allows you to store up to five mouse profiles in onboard memory. (That’s standard for a high-end mouse). You can create and store additional profiles locally on your PC as well. All profiles, local and onboard, can be tied to specific apps, allowing you to create game-specific mouse profiles as you like. Though Swarm isn’t unique to the Kone Pro Air, it does add an extra burst of personality to Roccat’s gear, including the Kone Pro Air.
No Strings Attached
I really like just about every aspect of the Kone Pro Air. It’s light, it looks cool, it has a nice shape, and it gets good battery life. That’s most of what you need in a gaming mouse. That said, it’s a bit pricey. At $129.99, it’s in line with many top-tier wireless gaming mice, such as Razer’s Basilisk Ultimate, and even some of the new elite wireless esports mice, such as the Logitech G Pro X Superlight. At that price point, amid that competition, it’s hard to say what exactly would make the Kone Pro Air a top choice. It’s better than good, but less than essential. But if something about the Kone Pro Air catches your eye, I’d urge you not to hesitate: It carries its weight and then some.
