Sharing a gaming computer when I was younger with my father was a nightmare. He’s left handed, and when it was his turn to play first person shooters, he’d have to switchc his mouse over to the other side of they keyboard. You can imagine how much time was wasted when we played one death each. You can also imagine as well that when I was a child, I was never allowed one of those cool gaming mice that I longed for either. This is where a mouse like Roccat’s Kiro would have come in handy.
As you’ve probably gathered from that descrioption above and my feeling of resentment, the Roccat Kiro is an ambidextrous mouse… with a twist. The side panels are interchangable, meaning you can have two large thumb buttons on either side of the mouse. For right handed people, there is a blank plastic side panel for the left hand side, and for lefties, there is the same blank plastic panel for the right. There are definite advantages to having a blank side panel. For me for example, I never program functions to my right side buttons as I haven’t got the flexibility in my pinky to reach them. So a blank panel on the right side would mean I won’t accidentally click a button and waste time during crucial stand offs in Battlefield 1.
The entire mouse is made from plastic, shaded differently from black to grey. It’s not the kind of mouse that’s going to turn heads when you take it to a LAN party to use and probably won’t impress your friends as it doesn’t have a million lights glowing from it. It does however have a dim glow where the Roccat Kiro sign is under the palm rest which looks quite classy. This is RGB so you can at least customise it to match your setup. I’m using the Roccat Skeltr as my main keyboard driver at the moment and have both devices set to a blue colour.
There is a decent amount of buttons to get you started on your online gaming career. There is a left and right click, a maximum of four side buttons, two each side if you don’t opt for the plain side panel, a scroll wheel with large interval clicks for switching guns on first person shooters and an adjust DPI button just underneath the scroll wheel. The scroll wheel is a clickable button too. The mouse is pretty comfortable to hold in the hand. The rear hump of the mouse is very compensating for larger palms. Those who choose to claw grip their mouse probably won’t get on.
Performance wise the Roccat Kiro mouse has a 2,000 DPI optical sensor attached. This is rather low compared to other gaming mice on the market, however can be ‘overcharged’ to 4,000 DPI. You do this by entering the Roccat Swarm driver software which is a free download. To be honest, a maximum of 2,000 DPI is more than adequate for most gamers on the planet, unless you have some kind of ability to track objects on screen using extremely minimal movements. For first person shooters, it’s fine.
The Roccat Kiro may be an entry level budget mouse, but it really goes perform well with regards to gaming. The software although quite clunky gives enough customisation to suit any amatuer gamer’s needs. There’s a lot to love about the Kiro, and at a solid price of around £34.99, there is no reason for you not to upgrade from your universal mouse and keyboard bundle and get more immersed in the wonderful world of gaming.
