Roccat Kain 120 AIMO: a very fast gaming mouse

The Roccat Kain 120 AIMO (Check on Amazon.com) is aiming at the title of the best gaming mouse at its price range. While the PC gaming world has been in crisis for a few years now, the gaming peripheral market is an exception to the rule with a growth that cannot go unnoticed. All manufacturers are therefore redoubling their efforts to carve out the lion’s share in a market that often comes down to a struggle between a few well-established names. Roccat is certainly not the best-known brand, but its reputation grows steadily.

Roccat changed the design significantly this time around but remained faithful to its excellent optical sensor, the famous Owl-Eye. Likewise, the German manufacturer also continues its partnership with Omron, which equips the majority of high-end mice on the market with mechanical switches.

Roccat Kain 120 AIMO – Design

At first glance, the new form of the Kain 120 AIMO is very appealing. Roccat gave this mouse a much more compact body, one that is barely 124mm long. Larger hands will not necessarily be as comfortable as before. On the other hand, the relatively classic width of 65mm will offer everyone else instant comfort. Whatever your favorite grip is, you will quickly feel at home with the Kain 120 AIMO… Only the lefties will feel left out.

In terms of weight, although this is a matter of taste, we are very close to excellence. At 89 grams, the Roccat Kain 120 AIMO feels like a feather and lets you “toss it around” with relative ease even during long gaming sessions. Roccat could have added a small weight system, but that would have impacted the price.

The other standout feature is the remarkable work done on the coating. Roccat decided to eliminate the classic rubbery inserts that offer an improved grip but also have a limited lifespan. Instead, the plastic that covers the entire mouse is of excellent quality and very comfortable. Better still, it also proved very durable and the amount of comfort remained constant throughout our testing period, with debris and sweat never posing the slightest problem.

Roccat Kain 120 AIMO – Features

The Owl-Eye optical sensor developed by Roccat is an “old” tried and true classic. It is very precise, on almost any surface, and has a fairly remarkable sensitivity that can go up to 16,000 DPI.

Slightly asymmetrical, the two main buttons are not attached to the mouse’s body which guarantees a slightly higher reactivity. More importantly, these buttons use the excellent Omron D2FC-FK switches. They have an estimated lifespan of 50 million clicks and, quite frankly, we have never seen one fail! They are also very reactive and never missed a beat: even when clicking like a madman, each button press was recognized independently.

Next to these two main buttons, the Roccat Kain 120 AIMO is equipped with “only” two additional thumb buttons, a click on the wheel and a DPI button behind it. These are conventional TTC switches, which is to be expected. Nevertheless, they are likewise responsive and comfortable. We would have loved to find at least a “sniper” button, but then again the price would have gone up and the mouse would have been branded as FPS centric.

Finally, we were pleasantly surprised by the scroll wheel. It is very firm, which is amazing, and it doesn’t lose any reactivity. This makes it one of the more precise wheels we have ever tried. On the other hand, there is no horizontal tilt and it doesn’t offer a secondary free scroll mode, but as we said before, you can’t have everything.

Roccat Kain 120 AIMO – Software

Roccat’s in-house software is called Swarm. Although not the most streamlined or bug-free (we did experience a couple of crashes while playing around with the interface), it is undoubtedly one of the most complete and straightforward.

First of all, it is very practical, a “pin” tab allows you to group together the functions you want in order to have them all on a single page. The interface is then subdivided into four main categories.

The “Settings” tab is dedicated to the scrolling and double-click speed, as well as to the DPI levels that can be activated via the dedicated button.

The “Button Assignment” tab allows you to modify the function of each button. Better still, thanks to the Easy-Shift[+] technology, it is even possible to assign a secondary action to each button.

The third tab is dedicated to AIMO lighting and can synchronize the mouse’s illumination with other AIMO peripherals. You can also choose between a number of classic lighting patterns (wave, breathing, etc), and the entire RGB spectrum.

Finally, in the last tab called “Advanced Settings”, you can change different parameters such as the lift-off distance, create macros, and save everything into different profiles.

Roccat Kain 120 AIMO – Verdict

The change in the design of the Kain 120 AIMO (Check on Amazon.com) is a step in the right direction. Roccat took the risk of disappointing the hardcore fans of the brand but managed to create a somewhat different but highly performing gaming mouse.

The overall responsiveness whether a result of the excellent Owl-Eye sensor or Titan Switches, or both, makes this one of the best mice currently on the market and easily the best one at this price range. We also believe that its particularly low weight (89 g) is another one of its advantages. The minimalist look and understated design also make this a very versatile mouse that you can use both for work and games.

It is not a cheap mouse by any means, but we are almost sure that it is one you will not regret buying!