I love the convenience and gestures my laptop touchpad provides, but when I'm really doing work I prefer an external mouse and an external keyboard. Logitech's G900 is a mouse. It's a really expensive mouse ($149 list price), with more features than anyone was really asking for, and I was convinced it was overkill before I realized I hate using anything else.
What is it?
The G900 has the requisite left and right click, two
extra buttons on each side, a scroll wheel, and a pair of buttons behind
the wheel to switch sensitivity on the fly. It's wireless, there's an
optical sensor, and it lights up in pretty colors.
What’s special about it?
Logitech's big selling point for this mouse is its ultra
low latency wireless (and wired) performance. According to Logitech's
own tests, the mouse outperforms many wired mice on latency (that's the
time between you moving the mouse and the motion registering on the
computer) thanks to Logitech's fine-tuning of the wireless
communication.
What actually attracted me to the mouse was that it's a
high-end mouse that's symmetrical. I'm left-handed, and for years I've
gripped right-handed mice at odd angles with my left hand for work and
then switched to right-handed mousing for video games. The G900 was for
me an opportunity to switch to a full left-handed lifestyle. I even
remapped the left and right buttons, which is now saved to a profile in
the mouse's onboard memory and annoys anyone who attempts to use my
computer.
Is it good?
In every way this is a good mouse. It performs
excellently when wired or wireless, and tracks perfectly on nearly any
surface — I've had zero mousing problems, which sounds like the bare
minimum but it's not guaranteed with mice in the sub-$50 range. I'm
merely human, so the advertised 1ms response time and the 12,000 max
tracking DPI are clearly overkill, but it is nice to know when I'm on an
Overwatch losing streak that I can't blame my gear.
But it's all the little things that make me think I can't
live without this mouse. For instance, the scroll wheel has two modes: a
locked mode where you feel each notch as you scroll (good for switching
between discrete values like which gun you're holding), and an unlocked
mode where the wheel spins freely (good for scrolling down webpages).
That means a mouse that I got for gaming turned out to be perfect for
work, which makes my life simpler.
Also, and I don’t know how to explain this in a paragraph, but the clicking is really good. Not too hard, not too soft, and just the right travel distance. How do you make a good clicker? Make it like this.
Like all mouse setup software, I hate using Logitech's.
Thankfully, because you can store settings in the mouse's onboard
memory, I set it up on one computer and never had to install that
garbage again. I can toggle between various DPIs (I use a lower
sensitivity for gaming than I do for non-gaming) with the onboard
buttons and that's all I need.
Am I happier or more fulfilled?
Probably. My switch to full left-handed mouse usage was
enabled and inspired by this mouse, and while it's certainly
inconvenient to remap the keyboard for every game I play, it's been
mostly a positive change. I aim better, I play better, and I get to use
my dominant hand to operate a computer which is nice because I spend
most of my waking life on one.
On an embarrassing note, I lost the wireless dongle
somewhere in my apartment. The mouse has a nice setup where you can use
the mouse plugged in while it charges, and then plug the dongle into
that cable when you're ready to go wireless again. I enjoyed that
capability. But, like 97 percent of RF dongles I've owned in my life, I
lost this one. So now I have an extremely overpriced wired mouse.
Should you get one?
Some of the biggest drawbacks of a wireless mouse are
reliability, battery life, and latency. The G900 is great on all those
fronts. The other big drawback, though, is weight. Because the mouse has
a battery in it, it'll always be a good amount heavier than an
equivalent wired mouse. Mouse weight is a matter of taste, so you might
have to test out a wireless mouse a bit to see if it bothers you. For
reference, the G900 (which has a built-in battery) weighs about as much
as Apple's Magic Mouse with the AA batteries inserted.
And then there's price. I feel like over $100 is more
than I should spend on a mouse. But I spent it! I started out testing a
review unit from Logitech, but ended up buying my own. I guess the fact
that this is ambidextrous and works for all my daily mouse use-cases
makes it "worth it" for me, but if your taste or needs differ at all
from mine you can probably find a cheaper mouse that will serve you just
as well.
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