I saw the Roccat Kova AIMO on sale on Roccat’s website and decided to have my brother pick one up for me since they don’t sell or ship to Canada from their website. On Roccat’s website the mouse is on sale for $19.99 USD ($25.77 CAD) and to buy it here in Canada off amazon is $90.02 CAD ($69.82 USD). Just a bit of a rip off honestly.
The mouse comes in your typical packaging with all the fancy marketing all over it.
In hand the mouse feels heavy. But this is relative. I am used to sub 65g mice now and the Roccat Kova AIMO comes in at 99g! That’s pretty heavy for a gaming mouse today but it was also designed before the honeycomb hole craze all the gaming mice manufacturers are in to nowadays.
For me the height of the mouse is pretty well perfect but the length is almost too long. It works in this case because the actuation of the left and right mouse buttons works along most of the button surface. The sides are pretty contentious on this one for some but I find that it works for me where I place my fingers. The plastic feels a lot like whatever Zowie uses on their EC2-A which used to be my favourite mouse. Still way up there but not at the top for sure. The top is made of a smoother matte black plastic that picks up grease and fingerprints. Not my favourite thing on the planet but it’s not a deal breaker for me if the mouse feels good in use.
The right and left mouse buttons feel very positive to touch with a good feel when pressing them down with a nice click to accompany. The Kova AIMO is ambidextrous and as such has buttons mirrored on both sides. Your standard back and forward buttons and up top ahead of the forward buttons is a page-up button on the left and page-down on the right side. I have never seen this before and for some, the way that these buttons are raised will be uncomfortable. In lieu of no comfort curves on the left and right mouse buttons those raised buttons help cradle my fingers so they feel fine to me. The scroll wheel feels very good with just tough enough of a detent to feel it but not enough to slow down quick scrolling. Pressing down on the scroll wheel the third mouse button does not have as much travel but thankfully does not feel mushy which I appreciate. Behind the scroll wheel is the DPI button where many manufacturers put theirs as well. There is no feedback on what DPI setting you are at though.
The skates are not the best I’ve ever felt. They float around okay but not nearly as well as other mice I’ve used. And under relatively low use one of them is already finding its way off it’s position. The braided cable is a little stiffer than I’d like but not terrible.
Roccat’s Pro-Optic R6 sensor feels really good in use whether doing work in Windows or playing Cyberpunk 2077. It can be set all the way up to 7000 DPI. I have four custom settings at 800, 1600, 3200 and 6400. I’ll likely never use 6400 or 800 but they’re there if I want them. I typically run between 1600 and 3200 DPI. The sensor also offers a 1000Hz polling rate which seems pretty standard nowadays.
The Kova AIMO also offers RGB on the scroll wheel and around the bottom of the back. The mouse is set to AIMO illumination by default. Roccat says that all the Roccat peripherals you use that run the AIMO illumination will progressively more complex automatically. AIMO senses how you are playing and updates the RGB accordingly. I’ll be honest, I have no idea if it really did anything or not. Yes the colours were changing and more randomly than just a rainbow effect but it didn’t do anything for me. I prefer static colours so with the Roccat Swarm software I set it to red for the scroll wheel and white for the rear bar.
Roccat Swarm is a very well made and simple application that is not required for use with this mouse however if you want to customize your DPI levels and your lighting settings you will need to install this software. With the software you can also reassign every button on the mouse to what you like. I disabled the back and forward buttons on the right side so I don’t accidently press them in use. And if profiles are your thing it has 5 profile saves available so you can really dig down and set things the way you like for different games or situations.
I don’t know if Roccat is planning on ending the production of Kova AIMO and that’s why it’s on sale or they’re just in a giving mood but if you are in the market for a decent mouse for a great price the Roccat Kova AIMO is a pretty good mouse if you can get past the shape.
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