Reviewed: Logitech 2013 G-Series Gaming mice roundup

G700s

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The top of the range G700s is an interesting product for sure – there is also a big discrepancy in the recommended retail price and the street price of around $50 in favour of the street price being under $100. It has most of the bells and whistles of the G500s save the tuning weights and braided cable – because it’s wireless.

The price of the G700s over the G500s is about $30 so it makes it a bigger decision to up the budget. It is more comfortable, wireless and has some more buttons if you think you might use them. The weight of the G700s was pretty good, it’s heavier than an empty G500s but the smooth glide action of the feet makes this largely irrelevant.

There are a couple of compromises that a gamer usually makes when going wireless – latency/response time and battery life/recharge time. Latency will frustrate a gamer constantly whilst battery life causes issues as often as the battery runs out of power and only while the battery is recharged or swapped out. It’s good to see that Logitech managed to remove latency from the table and went a long way in addressing battery life.

Battery life was about 3 days on average for me and the changeover process wasn’t quite as straight forward as “plug in the cable and keep on going.” If I simply plugged in the USB cable, I had some strange behaviour depending on what I was doing at the time the battery died. This behaviour ranged from the G700s dropping out for 20 seconds to just under 2 minutes, a blue screen and total loss of mouse control – but there were times when it worked perfectly. I tried updating the software and got the same results. The charging cable was plugged into a USB hub at first, then into the motherboard directly. But this story has a happy ending: The trick was to turn the mouse off using the switch underneath BEFORE plugging the cable in, wait a few seconds and then switch it on. I didn’t have any issues every time I did this.

Whilst I think that the battery compromise is a great implementation of the best of both worlds in terms of wireless freedom and continuity by backup cable for gamers, when the USB cable is plugged in, the mouse feels different. It feels a little sluggish because the cable is thicker and less flexible than the G500s – though it’s fair to say that I have the unusual luxury of testing these side by side to notice and that most people would only have one or the other. I expect that there were engineering limitations for the cable as it needs to send enough juice through to recharge the batteries. Whilst having the USB cable plugged into the G700s doesn’t kill the experience, you really appreciate the feel of the mouse when it’s wireless again.

I really liked the G700s – more for the shape than the wireless but it is without doubt, the best wireless mouse I’ve used for gaming yet.

Dual Mode Scroll Wheel See my comments on this in the G500s overview – in short free spinning mode is a godsend in office productivity applications but not so much for gaming. The Gaming mode with notching is great and switching between modes is a single button press – awesome.
Advanced Surface Materials Logitech has engaged infra red technology to identify the areas of the mouse that have the most tactile attention. Based on this, they have added a hydrophobic coating on the palm area and a coating on the main buttons to resist finger prints. There is a different coating on the G500s and G700s to the G400s – it’s a ‘dry-grip’ and it feels rougher to touch. The dry grip took slightly longer to adapt to because it feels a little gritty but I really liked it once I got used to it.
Consistent Report Rate, Wired or Wireless Logitech claim that the G700s will maintain a 1ms report rate in either wired or wireless mode. I tried to notice a difference and tested this for ages. One of my biggest problems with wireless mice in the past is the response speed – either real or perceived, I’ve never been 100% comfortable with the response time until using the G700s. This was spot on during testing and the only time I did notice lag was when I looked at the mouse to see the battery indicator flashing red because it was flat.
Ultra-durable Build like the G400s, Logitech has tested the mouse to endure 20 million clicks with new mechanical micro switches and also included new polytetraflouoroethylene (yes it’s a real compound) feet that are rated at 250km. It feels heavier and even more durable with the dry grip, braided cable and dual mode scroll wheel – build quality is definitely there.
In-game sensitivity switching There are up and down sensitivity buttons to switch DPI modes for sniping, general game play or maybe controlling vehicles. With a range of 200-8200DPI, this is a good thing..
13 Programmable Buttons You can configure 13 different buttons via the Logitech Gaming Software. All are easy to reach.
Onboard Memory Profile You can actually store your button mappings for games on the mouse itself so that you can switch it between PCs. Whilst I’m not sure how many gamers will really use this feature, I guess it could be handy if you game on a main rig and then on a secondary workstation like a LAN PC or laptop. It’s probably more useful to people like us who rotate between a few gaming PCs / test benches.
Detachable USB Cable One of the biggest complaints about wireless mice is the need to stop gaming when the battery dies. Logitech have included a cable that allows you to keep playing while the battery charges – just plug in and keep going… almost. See the notes below on this, it does work but it was a little ‘moody’ in our testing.
Plug and Forget Nano Receiver The low profile USB receiver plugs in to a standard USB port and can be stored in the battery compartment so you don’t lose it because it really is tiny. The receiver is so small that you can plug it into a front USB port and not really notice it or stick it in one of the many back ones that motherboards seem to have these days.
Intuitive Shape and Design I found the shape of the G700s is more comfortable than either the G500s or the G400s. It was easily the most comfortable mouse in the range we received.
Gaming Grade Laser Unlike the optical G400s, the G500s and G700s use a laser instead. The idea is that its even more precise than the optical mouse and works on a number of surfaces. I tested this on my desktop which is covered in a layer of 3mm clear acrylic / perspex. The optical mouse was no good but the laser worked.
1 millisecond report rate Logitech say that this is up to 8 times faster than a standard  USB mouse, we have no real way of measuring it and between the polling rate, DPI settings and everything else – we’ll take their word for it.
Slick feet The mouse glide on the whole range of refreshed g-series mice was pretty smooth – even compared to our older G5 with its 6 years of wear.
Easy to use setup software The software is easy to set up and the game detection makes it easier if you use multiple games for button mapping but due to muscle memory we like to keep the sensitivity settings the same for our games.

The price of the G700s over the G500s is about $30 so it makes it a bigger decision to up the budget. It is more comfortable, wireless and has some more buttons if you think you might use them. The weight of the G700s was pretty good, it’s heavier than an empty G500s but the smooth glide action of the feet makes this largely irrelevant.

There are a couple of compromises that a gamer usually makes when going wireless – latency/response time and battery life/recharge time. Latency will frustrate a gamer constantly whilst battery life causes issues as often as the battery runs out of power and only while the battery is recharged or swapped out. It’s good to see that Logitech managed to remove latency from the table and went a long way in addressing battery life.

Battery life was about 3 days on average for me and the changeover process wasn’t quite as straight forward as “plug in the cable and keep on going.” If I simply plugged in the USB cable, I had some strange behavior depending on what I was doing at the time the battery died. This behaviour ranged from the G700s dropping out for 20 seconds to just under 2 minutes, a blue screen and total loss of mouse control – but there were times when it worked perfectly. I tried updating the software and got the same results. The charging cable was plugged into a USB hub at first, then into the motherboard directly. But this story has a happy ending: The trick was to turn the mouse off using the switch underneath BEFORE plugging the cable in, wait a few secons and then switch it on. I didn’t have any issues every time I did this.

Whilst I think that the battery compromise is a great implementation of the best of both worlds in terms of wireless freedom and continuity by backup cable for gamers, when the USB cable is plugged in, the mouse feels different. It feels a little sluggish because the cable is thicker and less flexible than the G500s – though it’s fair to say that I have the unusual luxury of testing these side by side to notice and that most people would only have one or the other. I expect that there were engineering limitations for the cable as it needs to send enough juice through to recharge the batteries. Whilst having the USB cable plugged into the G700s doesn’t kill the experience, you really appreciate the feel of the mouse when it’s wireless again.

I really liked the G700s – more for the shape than the wireless but it is without doubt, the best wireless mouse I’ve used for gaming yet.

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