Asus reckons it’s got the one mouse to rule them all. The ROG Chakram, announced at Gamescom 2019, comes with a customisable thumbstick that can be tweaked for various play styles, and ROG senior product director Kris Huang says it’s been created to cater for FPS gamers, flight sim pilots, and sandbox action-adventure players.
On its own, the ROG Chakram promises to tick the boxes you’d expect from a basic calibre gaming mouse. It boasts a 400 IPS (inches per second) sensor and 1600 DPI (dots per inch) sensitivity, plus there’s a DPI switch so you can dial things up or down accordingly. The Chakram also has a 1000Hz polling rate, so it’s reporting its position to your PC every millisecond. There’s support for wired and wireless (2.4GHz Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) connectivity.
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As well as conventional charging, the ROG Chakram also supports Qi wireless charging – handy if you’ve got a spare wireless iPhone charger to hand. If you prefer to charge things in the more traditional manner, Huang said that fast charging technology means that 15 minutes with the supplied wired charger will give you around 12 hours of playtime.
The real trick up the Chakram’s sleeve however is its programmable thumbstick. Available in two lengths – measurements currently unknown, but Huang described them as ‘short’ and ‘long’ – the thumbstick can support analog and digital modes.
These can be set up pretty much however you want, but Huang says that the digital mode will be of particular interest to PUBG gamers – or any battle royale players, for that matter:
“The digital mode means you have four more buttons on the mouse,” Huang said. “But it’s more intuitive than four separate buttons, because your thumb is parked on it, so when you move in a certain direction, you’ll only trigger one action… so when you’re in PUBG, you can walk diagonally [by pressing] W and A, and at the same time, you move your thumb joystick up or down to tilt your body right or left at the same time.”
The analog mode, which supports 256 vertical steps, and 360 of rotation, is pitched more at flight sim players, but it’d also be useful for any games which momentarily let you take control of an aircraft. Huang added that it’d be good for pulling of certain moves on Street Fighter as well, though in the Q&A, he declined to show off how to do Zangief’s Spinning Pile Driver with the Charkram. Them’s fighting words, Huang.
Price and release dates for the ROG Chakram are still TBC. Stay tuned for more updates, and check out our Gamescom 2019 news hub for the latest stories, announcements, and games.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
