Firstly I'll admit I’m a big fan of spending money I don’t have to make myself happy for a few minutes. I’ve never felt that a mouse is holding back my FPS skills*, but I fancied getting something shiny. I did have another look at Ras’ new mouse post from a while back when he got his Roccat, just to see what people’s suggestions were but I’ve always been quite happy with my Logitech purchases so I bought one of these.
Stole my pics from the Logitech site: this is using the wider smooth casing
Introduction
Now, this isn’t really a new piece of kit, it’s a G9 with an x at the end: okay, it can now do 5700dpi, but you switch that on, go, “oh yeah!” and switch it back down to normal sensitivity; and it does a few new things I mention below. Being a gaming mouse aimed at First Person Shooter players, it’s corded, since the input lag of a wireless mouse is apparently what is holding the pro players back… or their ping or their rig, or their keyboard, or their monitor, but absolutely nothing to do with luck or skill. It also comes with PTFE silky smooth feet for friction free movement and many, many more features, because the serious mouse user just needs more to tweak.
Features
Casings
Packaged with it are two grips, one is a more slender black one with a rubbery feel to it. It’s supposed to be the high precision one so you can finger-tip the mouse. And the other is a smooth wide one, which is more for a palm grabber. I do actually switch between them from when I’m playing CS or MW2 to when I’m not. But I’m not sure if I’ll keep that up.
Buttons
The buttons are good. Really good. Obviously there’s nothing ground breaking about the number of buttons or the positioning. In addition to the left and right one, there are two for your thumb and a mouse wheel. But what is good is the pressing of the buttons. It’s difficult to describe without miss selling them, but the buttons are solid enough that you don’t make misclicks, but light enough that you can press them in a fraction of second. The mouse wheel / middle button is a big improvement from non-gaming Logitechs, where I’ve found the centre click is a bit too loose so you accidentally spin the wheel, or you fail to push hard enough, the G9x suffers from none of this.
Profiles
It has a few utility buttons too. On the underside is the profile switch button, where your sensitivity, button config and LED colour can be changed swiftly. I actually find myself using this more than I expected since in Windows I prefer a more rapid scroll and for the thumb buttons to act as forward and back. These profiles are also stored on the mouse, so you need just plug it in to another computer and your mouse will be setup the way you like it. Because every serious gamer finds themselves playing on somebody else's computer at least four times a week.
Scroll Wheel
Also on the underside is the freescroll / clickscroll switch for the mouse-wheel, which isn’t the smartest place to put it. For me, I’ll clickscroll down a few pages in a document, and then if I want to go to the end I’ll want it in freescroll. With the Nano I would click the wheel and it would switch, with the Revolution it would do it automatically, but with the G9x it’s one or the other. So I leave it in click scroll and never press the button.
This has the smaller grip casing on
Adjustable Sensitivity
And on top, just by the LEDs are the sensitivity +/- buttons. In the profile editor you can set up to five steps, and pressing the button will change your sensitivity accordingly. Another feature that I thought I wouldn’t use, but I’m using all the time. Especially since I have grouped all the sensitivities quite closely together, I can quickly switch to give me a little more speed where I need it.
Weight Tuning
Now there are also the weights. I’m not completely sold on these because as much as I change them, I can’t really notice a difference. I guess some people might like heavy mice and some people might like light mice, but why there need to be 15 different combinations of weights (let alone taking into account where you position them in the holder) just seems a little too much like features for features sake.
Setpoint
And finally I should mention the software. It’s quite a nice setup, letting you change settings for each profile (which is then stored on the mouse itself). Amongst the standard button config and scroll speed for each profile, you can also vary the colour of the LEDs on the top of the mouse of which there’s a quite a bewildering choice, set the sensitivity switches and set up Macros.
Conclusion
Apart from my mocking of some of the features, I do really like this mouse. I’m not sure if it has improved my gaming, but I’m certainly finding it quite convenient being able to change sensitivity on the fly. And it feels amazingly light when sliding on the Icemat. There is one rather annoying niggle, however, and that is that it is corded, and I find the weight of the cable (as light as it is) does pull the mouse about at times. But at least I don’t have to charge it. I can't say whether it is better or worse than other gaming mice, but I can say it's definitely an improvement over non-gaming equivalents.
*Actually I do remember claiming a mouse was hampering my FPS skills, when back in about Quake 3 times when using a trackball(?!) I was significantly better than when using a normal mouse.
Logitech G330
I also got a new headset… I’m not sure how to review a headset, but my old one was cutting into my ears a bit after prolonged use, so I got a new one and it’s much more comfortable. Sound comes out of the speakers and if I speak into the microphone people can hear me and don’t complain about the volume or quality. Oh, and it comes with an optional USB plug if you're into that (bleh).
The End.
