Manufacturers regularly try to present innovative products. With the ROG Chakram Core, ASUS offers a mouse that uses a thumbstick like a controller. MeinMMO editor has tested the mouse and is fascinated.
Gaming mice are part of every setting. Some manufacturers try to convince potential buyers with interesting gimmicks. ASUS is also one of the manufacturers. The team designed a mouse with a thumbstick, like those found on gamepads.
This is the ROG Chakram Core, which officially costs 89.99 euros and can now be found in stores for around 50 euros. I bought the mouse and wanted to try it out to see how useful it is. You can read about my experiences in this article.
Features and technical details:
Scope of delivery, design and construction
What does the scope of delivery look like? In addition to the mouse, there is also a replaceable analog stick and small tweezers included. You can use the tweezers to remove the mouse switches, for example. There is also an official manual in the box, but I didn’t have it with me.
How is the mouse constructed? The Kone XP comes in both a white and black design.
ASUS relies on a unique principle for the ROG Chakram Core. Because you can disassemble the mouse into its component parts. You can remove the mouse cover as well as the buttons and then you can access both the internal weight and the button switches, which transmit your click to the PC.
In theory, you can exchange the switches for the keys as soon as there are problems with double-clicks or you are simply not happy with the clicking noise. However, I have not tested whether you have to install certain switches from ASUS or whether you can simply buy some on eBay.
processing
The gaming mouse from ASUS has a high-quality finish. All components of the mouse are held on the body of the model with magnets. The mouse is mainly made of plastic, but the haptics of the mouse still feel valuable. This is also due to the weight of the mouse, which makes the mouse appear stable.
The permanently connected cable of the mouse is very rigid overall and is sometimes a bit annoying. Razer or Roccat solve this much better with their mouse cables, which feel lighter and more dynamic.
Another thing I would have liked would have been a small case or box for all the mouse accessories. Because tweezers, the thumbstick and the weight are small and like to disappear or be kidnapped by the cats.
software
In terms of software, the ROG Chakram relies on the Amoury Crate software. This looks enormously overloaded and eats up performance, especially on weaker systems. A shop for buying games or buying your own ASUS products is integrated into the dashboard. However, the shop takes a long time to load. Other gaming software runs much smoother here. Even Razer’s Synapse runs smoother and snaps faster than the Amoury Crate.
Dashboard and shop seem totally overloaded with many additional features.
However, the actual area for the settings of the gaming mouse is clearly laid out and does not have any frills. Functionality comes before design here, which can’t be said for the rest of the software.
On the next page, I’ll explain how the ROG Chakram Core performs in practice. I’ll go into weight, ergonomics and battery life and explain the technology behind the mouse.