Review of the Corsair Katar Pro gaming mouse

We have already tested quite interesting Corsair gaming mice-remember at least the M55 RGB Pro or the Harpoon RGB Wireless. Today on the test – an affordable model on the Pixart 3327 sensor worth a little more than two thousand rubles. It is called Katar Pro.

Exterior

The packaging design is designed in the corporate style – the combination of yellow and black colors immediately give out the brand. With the mouse comes only waste paper and no accessories.

The Corsair Katar Pro is only available in black. The mouse has a completely symmetrical design, but not quite the usual shape – the mouse is wide, but not very high, the "hump" is purely nominal. Mouse dimensions – 116x64x38 mm. But the weight is only 69 grams (although we recorded 77 grams), that is, the mouse is light, for many players, lightness is only a plus.

From the point of view of the controls, everything is more than standard: separate main buttons, a clickable scroll with a backlight, a button just below the scroll (by default, it switches the sensor resolution), and two side buttons on the left.

Let's look at the mouse from below. There are only three legs: two of them are very large, and one is around the optical sensor. There is nothing more interesting here – no additional buttons/switches, no compartment for weights. But given the price category, we did not expect to see any of this. Cable – without braid, very soft, but feels quite strong, length of 1.8 meters. The USB plug is slightly larger than you'd expect. As for the backlight, only the scroll is equipped with it. Of course, it is multicolored and you can configure its operating modes in the program, but one of the most popular operating scenarios is the display of the current set sensor resolution. Of course, it is a pity that the brand logo area is not highlighted, although this is purely our whims.

iCUE software

Now a little more about the branded app. CORSAIR uses a single control center for all devices-it is called iCUE. The set of settings for each device, of course, is different. In the case of Katar Pro, we have access to the entire set of options that the game mouse relies on.

In particular, you can set other actions for most of the buttons (except for the main left one) – you can hang macros on them, various auxiliary actions, up to launching applications or switching iCUE program profiles. You can also adjust the backlight and set from one to three sensor sensitivity values in the range from 200 to 12400 DPI, plus a sniper mode (which can be hung on the selected button). And each of them can be assigned a different scroll wheel highlight color. And of course, a special thank you to the developers for a very simple, easy and fast firmware update in just one click.

User experience

Now about personal impressions. Let's start with ergonomics. As we said above, the mouse is light, wide, but not very high and not at all "humpback". You can use both the claw and palm grip-here someone is more comfortable. Light weight is definitely a plus, in a compartment with Teflon legs, the mouse will perfectly slide on any surface.

Now let's talk about the sensor. At the very beginning, we already mentioned that the Corsair Katar Pro has a popular inexpensive Pixart 3327 gaming sensor. In this case, the maximum available resolution is 12400 DPI, although in fact values above 6200 DPI are an interpolation, but this figure is more than enough even for a game in 4K resolution. The maximum acceleration is 30G, the polling frequency of the USB port is 1000 Hz. In general, the figures are quite standard.

As for the practical part of the question, the Pixart 3327 sensor is already well known to us from other gaming mice, the same Corsair M55 RGB Pro had the same sensor, although it cost significantly more than the Katar Pro at the time of the launch of the sale. The sensor may belong to the available line, but it has proven itself well and actually provides excellent cursor smoothness even at the maximum (not interpolated) resolution. In principle, no one forbids setting the maximum available values (10-12 thousand DPI), but it is quite difficult for us, as non-professional players, to imagine work scenarios (or games) in which such high numbers would really be required. Another thing is the sniper mode. This is a very useful feature for games where you need to shoot more accurately in the aiming mode, here the difference in resolution for the normal game and for the sniper mode will play into your hands.

Conclusions

Given the sensor, light weight and cost of the Corsair Katar Pro, it is clear whose competitor is the new product. Of course, the battle for the buyer will be difficult, but still Katar Pro trumps the Corsair brand and support for a powerful proprietary application. Plus, Corsair has a huge list of accessories and components (up to power supplies, enclosures and cooling systems), which allows you to assemble a monobrand setup. A direct competitor can't offer this.

Lutovinov Maxim (aka. Kok)
09/03.2021