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The true ambidextrous Mouse Champ of the last 12 Months

5K views 41 replies 21 participants last post by  Crizzl 
#1 ·
And it is, bam ba da bam bam, the Kana V2.

Some People don't even know this Mouse exists. Steelseries isn't even present in our big german Shops like Saturn or Media Markt at the moment.

I was in Saturn yesterday and only saw a few more or less interesting Razer and Logitech Products.

I tested all relevant mice in the last months of the ambidextrous customers field as a mouselefty.

I got a Zowie FK, a Zowie AM, a CM Storm Recon, a Sensei Raw, regular Sensei, Razer Taipan, Kinzu V2 Pro, Logitech G100S , Roccat Kova plus and even a excellent quality one like the new Avior 7000.

Fact from my intuitve Feeling is, that none of these Mice feel so good as the Kana V2. Either they have Accel or Smoothing problems like a pretty cool Avior 7000.

The Kana V2 has wonderful and best dpi steps you need as a CS Player, has zero smoothing, super ADNS 3090 Implementation and clean Trackingquality and offers a solid technichal Buildquality with decent Switches which are awesome to control in CS.

I played the Kana V2 the last weeks after I switched from the Avior 7000 anyway, but messed up a white one with a try o lacquer it. XD

Today I became my second black Kana V2 after my first white and the feeling is extrodinary good.

None of those Mice comes close to the clean and superb Trackingfeeling of the Kana V2 and if you like a Shape that's only a lil tiny bit smaller than a Sensei you must be crazy not to try this Unit.

It just earns the grade excellent and seems to be even greater than a Rival in Terms of simple clean Trackingquality, but just maybe not offers the greatest maulfunctionspeed of the most actual mice, but even in this point the Kana V2 is better than every ambi I mentioned but the Avior 7000 (Malufunction Speed).

Simple Point, the Kana V2 is the real Ambi-Champ of the last months and even Steelseries best tracking mouse right now if you look at the clean aspects of tracking. All other Alternatives have weaknesses that make them beaten by the Kana V2.

So at the end you just gotta like the shape and I am by the way able to play excellent with the Kana V2.
 
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#3 ·
the Kana v2 is nice but I still prefer my G100s to it (as far as ambi mice go, my G502 is king atm)
Also, plenty of people know this mouse exists, its more of a decision if you're in the States of whether or not to get it because it wasn't released here.

Also smoothing, high LOD (even though its tape fixable) grumble... grumble...
 
#4 ·
Kana v2 isn't good. I was one of the first people to get one from China and the smoothing is enormous compared to the 3500 DPI Avago 3090. The build quality also seems to be a lot worse than Xai, even though it's similar shape.

I'd actually prefer to use the Xai with it's A9500 laser over this Kana v2 mouse.

Laggy cursor is even worse than acceleration.
 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by r0ach View Post

Kana v2 isn't good. I was one of the first people to get one from China and the smoothing is enormous compared to the 3500 DPI Avago 3090. The build quality also seems to be a lot worse than Xai, even though it's similar shape.

I'd actually prefer to use the Xai with it's A9500 laser over this Kana v2 mouse.

Laggy cursor is even worse than acceleration.
I have 0 problem with the smoothing in my savu.

But then again I don't .... that much about them, I learn to use them (the only thing I cannot get used to is a super heavy big mice because It is litteraly impossible to use with smaller hands, everything else is ok)
Like most people do (including every single progamer out there in all types of games)

I can agree on the build quality on kana v2 however, I have 3 of them. All of them got squeeky mousewheel, buttons get worse fast.
I don't like my xai however, the cursor feel is horrible for me.

Xai have the best rubber coating ever made however.

I have most mice, and tried the g502 aswell now. The only mouse I can use is my savu and to some degree kana v2/g100s.
Shape is WAY more important to me then a tad bit of smoothing, I can deal with that just fine. But I cannot aim or play rts/moba comfortable with a big fat ass mouse.
Even the sensei raw is abit to big for me.
 
#9 ·
Something always felt a bit "off" back when I was still using a G400s, that was before I joined this board, at least I know what it is now.

I don't feel any smoothing in the Avior and I'm not a fan of the Kana shape, one side button on each side is just not enough either at least for me.
 
#10 ·
I'd say the best mouse you listed in the OP is the Zowie FK, I love its accuracy and lack of any additional movement other than what it picks up. It's a great mouse, all round, and not super complicated; it's a peripheral that tracks hand movement, and it does its job very well, without gimmicks.
 
#12 ·
I've had the same ongoing battle with my Kana v2, FK and Avior last 6 months. I use palm/claw grip and play CS:GO 400/450 dpi, 6/11 windows and 2.6 - 3.1 sens with CM Power mousepad.

Last autumn I was using Kana v2 long time. I swapped Kana v1 shell to Kana v2 internals to improve my grip. After that I felt LOD was too agressive so I used black electrical tape to lower it. I'm pretty high senser for my taste, settled for 2.8 sens in game on Kana. My aim was pretty fast and good on short and medium distances but somehow I couldn't shoot on long distances. Also I just didn't like sensor skipping on fast flicks with my CM Power.

So I decided to try FK'14. NEO's mouse comes pretty close what comes to aiming. Small size gives really fast and snappy aim. I tried 2.4-3.0 sens but somehow I was always missing some shots. I think that for my hand FK is just a little too thin. I was always readjusting my hand so I couldn't get the best grip of it.

After reading some positive reviews of Avior 7000 (thanks to you mousefan and metal571
tongue.gif
) I ordered one. I quickly learned how to grip Avior and giving headshots never felt better. It's just heavier side if you compare with those two earlier mentioned so I had some troubles on quick turns. I have now settled 3.1 sens and I think it's pretty damn close to perfect. Aiming is good on all distances but CS:GO isn't just always giving one tap on someone. For example using AK47 it's important to get fast spray to kill someone and using Avior has eased my gaming.

TLDR: Preference thing but if you get used to shape and weight I would say Avior gives you the best performance in game
smile.gif
 
#13 ·
Kana V2 has smoothing, and unfortunately it does ruin the mouse for me. I wanted to switch from the Kana V1 to it, but it seems the Kana V1 at 800 dpi is still better because of the lower lift off distance and less smoothing.

They also managed to completely screw up the coating on the glossy edition of Kana V2. Glossy coating is for dry hands, that's the logical explanation for it. So what does SteelSeries do, they put slippery rubber coating on the sides, and just a glossy top. So know the Kana V2 white is harder to control than the glossy white Kana V1.

It seems the only thing SteelSeries got right with their mice is the shape, and that's because some pro players had input, anything they had to decide they pretty much missed the point by a long shot, like adding huge side buttons on a claw grip mouse.

The cable on Kana V2 is also actually more stiff than the cable in Kana V1 despite being thinner.

So what mouse to use with such good shape, the Kana V2 with lots of smoothing, very high LOD, stiff cable or the Kana V1 with less smoothing but horrible sensor frame rate, prediction, stiff cable. Ive been using the Kana V1 for months and the sensor still feels horrible in terms of feel.

I think I'm gonna switch to G502 when it comes out and hopefully its shape will suit me.

Moral of the story, too many clueless people who probably don't even play games casually are designing "gaming mice". They take some advice from the pro players they are claiming to be working with, but all in all the decisions they make are mostly focused on one question "Will we sell these mice to the average casual gamer who is impressed by high dpi, sleek design, and lights?". SteelSeries is the worst in this regards because when they started they claimed to be centered towards pure performance for pro players, but what they are is another Razer wannabe with lower quality of components.
 
#14 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oeshon View Post

Kana V2 has smoothing, and unfortunately it does ruin the mouse for me. I wanted to switch from the Kana V1 to it, but it seems the Kana V1 at 800 dpi is still better because of the lower lift off distance and less smoothing.

They also managed to completely screw up the coating on the glossy edition of Kana V2. Glossy coating is for dry hands, that's the logical explanation for it. So what does SteelSeries do, they put slippery rubber coating on the sides, and just a glossy top. So know the Kana V2 white is harder to control than the glossy white Kana V1.

It seems the only thing SteelSeries got right with their mice is the shape, and that's because some pro players had input, anything they had to decide they pretty much missed the point by a long shot, like adding huge side buttons on a claw grip mouse.

The cable on Kana V2 is also actually more stiff than the cable in Kana V1 despite being thinner.

So what mouse to use with such good shape, the Kana V2 with lots of smoothing, very high LOD, stiff cable or the Kana V1 with less smoothing but horrible sensor frame rate, prediction, stiff cable. Ive been using the Kana V1 for months and the sensor still feels horrible in terms of feel.

I think I'm gonna switch to G502 when it comes out and hopefully its shape will suit me.

Moral of the story, too many clueless people who probably don't even play games casually are designing "gaming mice". They take some advice from the pro players they are claiming to be working with, but all in all the decisions they make are mostly focused on one question "Will we sell these mice to the average casual gamer who is impressed by high dpi, sleek design, and lights?". SteelSeries is the worst in this regards because when they started they claimed to be centered towards pure performance for pro players, but what they are is another Razer wannabe with lower quality of components.
V2 cable harder than V1? Damn, I have not tried V2 but V1 got one of the worst cables ever, didn't think it could get much harder than that... Also Ikari optical and Rival have very stiff and bad cables as well.
 
#15 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by daav1d View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oeshon View Post

Kana V2 has smoothing, and unfortunately it does ruin the mouse for me. I wanted to switch from the Kana V1 to it, but it seems the Kana V1 at 800 dpi is still better because of the lower lift off distance and less smoothing.

They also managed to completely screw up the coating on the glossy edition of Kana V2. Glossy coating is for dry hands, that's the logical explanation for it. So what does SteelSeries do, they put slippery rubber coating on the sides, and just a glossy top. So know the Kana V2 white is harder to control than the glossy white Kana V1.

It seems the only thing SteelSeries got right with their mice is the shape, and that's because some pro players had input, anything they had to decide they pretty much missed the point by a long shot, like adding huge side buttons on a claw grip mouse.

The cable on Kana V2 is also actually more stiff than the cable in Kana V1 despite being thinner.

So what mouse to use with such good shape, the Kana V2 with lots of smoothing, very high LOD, stiff cable or the Kana V1 with less smoothing but horrible sensor frame rate, prediction, stiff cable. Ive been using the Kana V1 for months and the sensor still feels horrible in terms of feel.

I think I'm gonna switch to G502 when it comes out and hopefully its shape will suit me.

Moral of the story, too many clueless people who probably don't even play games casually are designing "gaming mice". They take some advice from the pro players they are claiming to be working with, but all in all the decisions they make are mostly focused on one question "Will we sell these mice to the average casual gamer who is impressed by high dpi, sleek design, and lights?". SteelSeries is the worst in this regards because when they started they claimed to be centered towards pure performance for pro players, but what they are is another Razer wannabe with lower quality of components.
V2 cable harder than V1? Damn, I have not tried V2 but V1 got one of the worst cables ever, didn't think it could get much harder than that... Also Ikari optical and Rival have very stiff and bad cables as well.
The cable is NOT harder then kana v1.
I got Kana v1 and 3 kana v2.
Kana v2 cable is much better then v1.

That said It is still quite stiff, but no where near v1 level. It had one of the hardest cables ever.
 
#17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by lakair View Post

Kana v2 LOD is way too high which makes it feel very sloppy. It's over sized side buttons leave very little room to grip it comfortably or to manipulate it confidently. The FK '14 and kinzu v2 pro are much better for me. (finger tip grip, 33cm-360, CS:GO & QL)
Tapefix takes about 2 seconds, and after that it stops tracking on 1 cd, very hard
biggrin.gif

Sidebuttons is ofc a individual thing. I have no problems at all with the size of them.
I did however swap side shell for kana v1 because kana v2 black "rubberized" is extremly slippery and pure garbage.
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by skuko View Post

i too have sttled on kana v2 after using he avior, rival and a handful of other mice. it's simply the best for me in terms of ergonomics. tapemodded it and it's pretty much perfect.
How does that tapemod look?

On topic:
I'd have to give the title to the FK aswell. Nothing even comes close.
Even compared to other mice known to have flawless tracking like the G400 or the DA3.5G the FKs tracking feels noticeably better to me.
Not sure what it is.
On top of that the FK is much lighter than those other mice and has a much better shape for me.

I do wish though that SS would release a firm ware update to the Kana V2 to fix the smoothing though.
I have a Kana V2 sensor build into a Kinzu, since that's the only sensor switching mod that was easy enough for me to do.
If the Kana sensor was good that would be the perfect mouse for me, as Kinzu is the perfect shape for me.
 
#20 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by metal571 View Post

The FK is an awesome peripheral however it doesn't agree with my 70cm/360 sens in games faster than CS.
How's that?
And why use 70/360 btw? Isn't that a bit overkill?
I don't think there's any top QL player with more than 50cm without accelleration.
Strenx uses 50/360 and it's already something that can turn into a disadvantage for him that other players take advantage of.
Since you seem to go trough so much trouble because of your low sensitivity, why not choose a higher one?
Can't really imagina that anyone needs 70/360.
Or why not use some acceleration? It's really not that hard to get used to, especially when your sensitivity is so high that you can keep your base sensitivity the same so that there's only a difference on fast swipes, where accuracy isn't that big of a deal.
 
#21 ·
70 cm for 360 wow
smile.gif
. You better be some sick aimer like Strenx to rock that low sens. Stermy aims like a beast with 23 cm for 360. It begs the question do people really need that low sens or is it just something they forced themselves to get used to. You have world class aimers like Strenx and Evil using Kinzu V1 at 2 ms and they don't hit malfunction speed while using it at 30 - 40 cm for 360.

However in this forum people who don't have 10% aiming capability of the pros hit the malfunction speed. Makes u think if there are lots of low sens noobs here who have bad aim and just slide their mouse as fast they can at low sensitivity without having much accuracy. Its something that has been crossing my mind from reading comments of people who say they cant play with a mouse that has lower than 5 ms.
 
#23 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oeshon View Post

70 cm for 360 wow
smile.gif
. You better be some sick aimer like Strenx to rock that low sens. Stermy aims like a beast with 23 cm for 360. It begs the question do people really need that low sens or is it just something they forced themselves to get used to. You have world class aimers like Strenx and Evil using Kinzu V1 at 2 ms and they don't hit malfunction speed while using it at 30 - 40 cm for 360.

However in this forum people who don't have 10% aiming capability of the pros hit the malfunction speed. Makes u think if there are lots of low sens noobs here who have bad aim and just slide their mouse as fast they can at low sensitivity without having much accuracy. Its something that has been crossing my mind from reading comments of people who say they cant play with a mouse that has lower than 5 ms.
If I was playing quake I'd use a higher sens too, when I was playing comp TF2 as a soldier my sens was around 30 cm/360 I think, maybe even less. I only switched to lower sens when I had to play scout (hitscan only, very close quarters, every shot matters) and found myself outgunned by other scouts. Lowering my sens helped a lot with that. Still it does not make me aim like the very top guys, but I know I perform more consistently that way.

If I could be as accurate and consistent as I am at low sens with a higher sens I would use that.
 
#24 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by RentoN View Post

How's that?
And why use 70/360 btw? Isn't that a bit overkill?
I don't think there's any top QL player with more than 50cm without accelleration.
Strenx uses 50/360 and it's already something that can turn into a disadvantage for him that other players take advantage of.
Since you seem to go trough so much trouble because of your low sensitivity, why not choose a higher one?
Can't really imagina that anyone needs 70/360.
Or why not use some acceleration? It's really not that hard to get used to, especially when your sensitivity is so high that you can keep your base sensitivity the same so that there's only a difference on fast swipes, where accuracy isn't that big of a deal.
No. Just no. My aim sucks in general, so I needed a crutch somewhere. I've only been playing FPS for about 7 years, not as long as you CS beta guys. My 20-30% assault rifle accuracy speaks for itself in my BF4 stats. The point is not to have hardware limit you, but rather take maximum advantage of what the hardware can do. That's why I have the Talent, a super low sensitivity, and a 3310 mouse. I've trained myself to 70cm for a couple months now and changing would be like starting back from zero again, it's important to keep one sensitivity and stick with it, but you already know this as a competitive player.
 
#25 ·
Ah I see. Usually the sweet spot seems to be for most of the really good players from what I have seen is from 23-35 cm. In Quake especially they tend to use some accel when passing the 30 cm mark, otherwise you will have a hard time doing a 180 or a 360 which is more than needed in many situations. In Counter Strike also the best aimers tend to always lean between 30 - 35 max.

However in CS since you cover less angles that long distance tracking is more important, less so in Quake.

But yeah I understand completely if you want to give yourself that much room for error with 70cm, as long as you feel comfortable
smile.gif
 
#26 ·
Haha, I actually injured myself pretty severely about 3 years ago flickshotting back in black ops on a similar sensitivity back when I finally got a mouse that could handle super low sens (DA 3.5G), took me a very long time to recover and now I actually require a good easygoing warmup before getting serious every time I play. It's tough on your wrist to play but well worth it once you get used to it. I can't even count how many times I've been called a straight up cheat, it's almost every server now. Typical pubs...lol.
 
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