Turtle Beach Kone II Air PC Gaming Mouse Review – Ready for the Big Time
PC gamers with medium- to large-sized hands rejoice! Turtle Beach Kone II and Kone II Air have finally arrived! While the Kone lineup has been around for a very long time, it’s taken a staggering five years to develop a worthy successor to the Kone AIMO, a gaming mouse many consider to have one of the greatest ergonomic designs ever to grace a PC gaming mouse. So, unsurprisingly, hype and expectations for Turtle Beach’s latest offering are relatively high. Lucky for us, we’ve been putting the Kone II through vigorous testing, which has resulted in perhaps one of the company’s best yet.
An Ergonomic Fit for Bigger Hands
You know, I’ve reviewed plenty of other Turtle Beach and Roccat gaming mice in the past, and though I’ve had little to no complaints about them prior, I’ve realized that those mice have been relatively small in size. It’s not something that bothered me then or now, but I have to say, when comparing the Kone II to those past ones, it’s a pretty big gaming mouse.
This actually made me realize that I may have some decently large hands, or at least long fingers, because, despite the Kone II’s bulkiness, I found the design and shape to be a perfect match for my hand. Yes, it’s a large gaming mouse, but the shape allows your hand and fingers to rest comfortably over the clickers without arches.
As a gamer and someone who enjoys PC as their main gaming platform, I could never fully commit myself to using a mouse and keyboard. I’ve always preferred the use of a controller, even in competitive gaming, where I know a mouse and keyboard would offer me better precision and reaction time. The big reason is that my hands tend to cramp up, as my fingers never got used to the positioning of a mouse and keyboard.
Holding a controller just feels more natural to me — that is until I started using the Kone II when my hands and fingers felt like they were curved to the mouse’s comfortable shape. In production, I could use the Kone II for hours without pulling my hand off it and shaking it around. The same was true for gaming, where playing shooters, RTS, and many other genre felt good.
I could see why so many loved the original AIMO mouse, as the Kone II offers some of the best comfortability I’ve ever had in a gaming mouse. Of course, that’s all thanks to years of research that Turtle Beach has done to create the new design for the Kone II, and looking at the mouse, it not only promotes itself with several features, such as 12 buttons (23 programmable functions with easy shift), but it also maintains a stunning look, with comfort in mind.
On the left side of the mouse is a rest for your thumb; that way, you can drag the mouse around without feeling your thumb against the surface of your desk. Below it is a button, while above, where your thumb rests, are two more additional buttons. All three are easily accessible, while also having enough room so you don’t have any accidental presses.
On the top are your standard left and right-click buttons with a rubberized grip 4D wheel in the center, and below are two more buttons. By default, those buttons control the DPI speed, and my favorite feature of the mouse is a dedicated button to control how the scroll wheel feels. You can either set up the wheel so it’s a smooth, seamless motion that allows quick flicks, or you can have it so it has a tactile feel, much like a ratchet twist, that gives it enough of a click-y scroll to feel satisfying. The wheel can also be pressed in, which is a standard, but it also has left and right tilt for two additional buttons.
Connectivity is via a USB 2.0 for the wired version, with the wireless (Kone II Air) having a USB 2.0 to a USB-C cable for charging and a dongle for a lag-free 2.4GHz wireless connection with Bluetooth support. It comes with a small USB-C to USB 2.0 adaptor, so you can run your dongle straight out of the charging cable and have easy access whenever you want to take the mouse on the go. There is no having to go behind your PC to unplug that dongle when it can sit right on your desk in a convenient spot and out of the way.
Underneath the mouse, sports heat-treated PTFE glides for smooth movement, your connectivity and on/off switch, and a small storage department for that USB wireless dongle. The optical sensor is also surrounded by a PTFE ring for protection and to help with movement.
It wouldn’t be a Kone mouse if it didn’t feature RGB lighting. In the past year, the studio opted for a honeycomb shell design that would be highlighted by the RGB lighting, but now it seems they’ve gone back to more traditional stripe panel lighting that is more prominent. It still has a bit of fading, so it’s not insanely bright, and with the dedicated app, you can customize those colors to your liking.
Overall, the design comes together nicely to offer a smooth range of motion with just the right amount of comfort for mid-to-large hand gamers. It’s a gorgeous mouse, too, with quite the performance under its hood in accuracy and customization.
A Speedy Little Thing
Regarding performance and how well the Kone II does while playing games, you can expect pretty good pinpoint accuracy and precision. Its TITAN Switch Optical allows for quick and responsive clicks and customizable DPI settings, which helps counter the mouse’s size and weight (110g makes this a big heavy boy). However, if you have large hands, you’ll likely see more benefit from the mouse than using one of their smaller offerings due to its ergonomic design targeting larger hand sizes.
That’s not to say that the 110g of weight isn’t felt because there’s drag when moving, and for those with smaller hands, you’ll notice it a lot more. It’s a bit funny to call the wireless one “Air” and be much heavier than the wired one (90g), though again, that may all depend on your hand size. It was a perfect fit for me, and I didn’t mind too much about the weight and thought it performed wonderfully during the Black Ops 6 beta. Omnimovement especially, and mapping out crouching and sliding to the mouse made gameplay feel like a breeze with this mouse.
NVIDIA Reflex support also allows latency to be measured with an NVIDIA Reflex-supported monitor for those looking for that support.
What’s a highlight, though, is the battery life. 130 hours of uninterrupted gameplay and productivity using 2.4GHZ, which can amount to 16 days of usage under a continuous 8-hour period. If you stick solely to Bluetooth, you’d be looking at a whopping 350 hours, which can last months, depending on your hours of usage.
To help conserve battery, the mouse also auto-turns off after it hasn’t been used, going into a sleep mode that can be instantly woken up when you move it.
Verdict
I understand that Kone II isn’t for everyone. It’s geared towards the larger hand type, and if you have small hands, you’ll probably find it too bulky and heavy for everyday use and gaming. But as someone with large hands, I found it to be the perfect design for comfort, allowing me to not only work better but also enjoy playing through some of my favorite PC games with the use of a mouse, instead of a controller.
Though I wished it had a bit more flair to the RGB design, the Kone II is an excellent gaming mouse aimed at bringing comfort and performance to those needing a bigger mouse.
Score: 9/10
Pros:
- Design perfect for mid-to-large hand gamers.
- Comfortable.
- There are plenty of buttons that are easily accessible and programmable.
- Fast and responsive.
- Long-lasting battery life.
Cons:
- Kone II Air (wireless) is on the heavy side despite not being tethered by a cord.
Where to buy the Kone II mouse:
Kone II review hardware was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.
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