Logitech Performance Mouse MX for gaming?

I've been looking to make the jump to a wireless mouse for some time. I've considered gaming mice such as the Razer Mamba and Cyborg RAT 9, but they're too expensive and don't have the best OS X support. Right now I've pretty much narrowed it down to the Logitech G700 and Performance Mouse MX. While the G700 doesn't have specific Mac drivers, I can configure a base profile in Windows and use 3rd-party software in OS X to go from there. I like how the G700 can be used in both wired and wireless mode. However, it's pretty well known just how horrible its battery life is, and I don't fancy spending extra money on rechargeable AAs.

That brings me to the Performance Mouse MX. Yes, I know it's not a "gaming" mouse in the pure sense of the word. However, my gaming time is much more limited than it used to be. I don't do online mulitplayer, and many of the titles I do have I'll probably just end up playing with my Xbox 360 controller. I've been gaming with a Logitech MX 518 for years, so I've become used to its comparatively low DPI optical sensor. I like how the Performance Mouse MX can be used on any surface and that it comes with a carrying case, USB cable, USB extension cable, and an AC adapter.

I've played with both mice in stores, and they're pretty comparable in terms of comfort and such. I'm leaning toward the MX at the moment but would like to hear of others' experiences.

 

If you're not an extremely demanding gamer, the Performance MX will work just fine--I use one now. It's fairly large, a bit too large for my taste since I used to use an Anywhere MX. Don't get it expecting good battery life, though. It runs off of only one rechargable AAA battery (included), and with my usage every evening, I still need to recharge it at least every 1.5-2 weeks.

 

It's kind of funny because I have really small hands but find mice like the Anywhere MX or Razer Orochi too small. It's probably mostly because I palm my mouse, keeping pointer, middle, and ring fingers on the left, middle/scroll wheel, and right buttons, respectively. The problem is my thumb is usually too short to reach the forward thumb button.

That's better than the every couple days I experienced when I had a G700 many months ago. Another reason I'm a bit wary of the G700 is that it's only the second Logitech mouse I've ever owned that needed replacement. The last one was a ball mouse that I had in college back in 1998. I'm willing to give the 700 another shot, but I'm still leaning toward the MX.

Thanks for your feedback.

 

Ah okay. I have fairly average-large hands, and usually claw-grip the smaller mice, since that's a lot more comfortable for me.

We'll see how reliable the Performance MX turns out to be. I had several problems with the Anywhere MX, once with the receiver (replaced under warranty) and then with the mouse's left-click button (sent in mouse for warranty exchange)... which is why I have the Performance MX, which they erroneously sent instead of the Anywhere MX.

 

The performance MX will be fine for gaming unless you are really into it to get every competitive advantage possible, in which case you wouldn't be looking at wireless mice in the first place.

And how high DPI do you need? For gaming, anything over 1000 dpi drives me nuts.

 

it's gonna be fine for gaming, the only disadvantage would be macro software for buttons (which could always be replaced by something like auto hotkey if needed), on the fly dpi selection.
if darkfield technology isn't really a requirement, you can also take a look at the marathon mouse (m705), I've yet to change the batteries on mine (4 months now) compared to the g700 where I had to charge the batteries every 2 days or less, the performance mx still uses a lot of battery because of the sensor with the added benefit of using it on a glass surface.

 

The Performance MX can toggle between two DPI settings, I have it mapped to the Zoom button.

 

The highest you can set the Performance MX to is 1500 dpi with SetPoint.
I love mine, fixed it in the driver suite so all the thumb buttons register as extra mouse keys in games.

 

I've used a LOT of mice in the past few years.

The Logitech Performance MX and Anywhere MX are gimmicks. The "mouse on any surface" advantage isn't very useful, because you are very rarely in a situation when you actually take advantage of that feature. It's a "nice-to-have" feature, not a "must-have" feature. You sacrifice far too much for the Darkfield mouse sensor. It's expensive ($70) and has poor battery life between recharges (2 weeks)

If you want a wireless mouse, get a Logitech M705 Marathon Mouse. If you're going to buy a wireless mouse, buy it for features that make it a good wireless mouse. Long battery life (2+ years), and is pretty cheap ($30).

If you want a gaming mouse, get one with an optical sensor like a Logitech G400 or a Razer DeathAdder. A high-DPI laser sensor (5000+ dpi) is pretty useless, because you don't actually use that higher DPI. On top of that, high-DPI laser sensors are very intolerant of imperfect mousing surfaces, requiring you to pretty much use a mouse pad all the time for consistent performance. Meanwhile, an optical sensor is far less picky, making it highly reliable and consistent.

Even if you gave me a $130 high-DPI mouse from Razer, MadCatz Cyborg, or Logitech, I'd throw it out and buy myself a Logitech G400 or Razer DeathAdder instead. Optical sensors are simply better than laser sensors. Don't be fooled into thinking that laser is superior, just because it has a higher DPI or bigger price tag.

 

I prefer optical mice as well, but there are some things to consider.

If you want a wireless mouse with any features, it is probably going to be laser. Wireless optical mice are all cheaper mice with few features and all optimized for battery life. There are the wireless mice with short battery life which use sensors and wireless chipsets optimized for performance and not power savings, and there are wireless mice with long battery life which use sensors and chipsets optimized for power savings, not performance. If you are looking for a mouse with long battery life, if you can live with a mouse without many features and are happy with about 1200-1500 dpi, an optical wireless mouse would be a fine choice.

In the best case scenario, yes, optical is superior to laser sensors. But once you start using surfaces that are not ideal, laser takes the lead. Lighter, more reflective surfaces degrade the performance of optical sensors a lot more than they do laser sensors. The extreme case is using lasers on glass (the darkfield sensor is nothing special). If you are using an optical gaming mouse on anything that isn't black and matte, you aren't getting the best performance out of the mouse and you might as well be using laser.

 

2 weeks between charges is much better than the 2-3 days worth of charge that the G700 provides.

As I said in my very first post, I've used an MX 518 for years.

 

The DPI means little with gaming mice, such as the G700. The difference is the polling rate, how fast the the mouse sends info and USB receives info. I believe the G700 and 1ms, and the Performance MX is 8ms. But I also use the Performance MX and I don't have issues with gaming, even in games that are nearly all twitch, BO2.

Also I charge my MX about every 2 days, since I use it a lot. Charging the Performance MX is a non-issue to me, since you can charge it while using it.

 

There's also the issue of the USB polling rate. In Windows, it's not a problem, but OS X has a hard time dealing with anything above 125 Hz.

I actually did end up ordering the Performance MX. The better battery life (compared to the G700), extra cables/adapters, and dedicated OS X software ultimately tipped the scales in its favor. I really wish Logitech would port its gaming mouse software to OS X. Razer and Cyborg/Mad Catz have done it, and it's not as if Logitech doesn't already have some kind of Mac driver in its repertoire already.

 

I am using a G300 and loving it, the G700 with the rechargable battery is a big no no.

 

I will recomend the Logitech G500, I have one thats OLD like 3 or 4 years still works great. Just bought a new one for my 9370 Sager around 40 bucks at Bestbuy. Maybe I just got lucky but its been rock solid in performance and its wired so no having to run out for batteries in a hotel in Timbuktu either I had a G5 before which was great but it died from a cat attack that was a great mouse! Dont ask stupid cat

 

Good for you. Now do you have anything to add regarding the specific mice about which I was inquiring?

 

The G500 was released a bit over 3 years ago so I wouldn't consider any G500 to be "OLD." Mine failed 10 months after I bought it. However, I have a Logitech MX500 that I replaced after 5 years of daily usage that still works like new. And my dad also has an MX500 that he used every day since it was released until I finally bought him a new mouse last father's day. If I do the math, that is almost 10 years.

How is the Performance MX working out for you?

 

I love the form factor, and the ability to use it on any surface actually has come in handy the last few days (been taking it to various locations around my office). However, I need to send it back for one reason: the scroll wheel way too sensitive. Check this thread in the Logitech support forums to see what I mean. I'll probably just stick with the MX 518 for the time being.

 

oh wait a minute.. the g700 holds an excellent charge.. and is an awesome gaming mouse..

 

Is this on the smooth-scrolling mode? It shouldn't happen when the scroll wheel is on the "normal" mode. I never use the smooth-scrolling mode, though, so I'm not sure whether that behavior is normal.

 

Since Amazon decided to match Best Buy's price on the G700 ($59.99), I went with it. Only ended up costing me about $16 because I had some gift certificates. I have to say, the battery has lasted much longer between charges than I remember. I've been getting 6-7 days with admittedly not a lot of strenuous use, and I'm more than happy with that. The mouse works fine in OS X with the 3rd-party Steermouse application. You just need to configure a profile within Windows to map all the buttons to "generic" and then you can configure Steermouse accordingly. So far, so good.

 

I know you've already sent it back but it sounds like your MX was simply in smooth scroll mode. The button under the scroll wheel switches between this mode (which allows you to scrolls long documents with a flick) and normal scroll mode (which like most mice allows for precision). When I first purchased my MX I too thought the scroll wheel was too sensitive (actually I thought it was broken) until it figured out what the button was for of course. That being said smooth scroll mode has actually been useful for me in games. I play a lot of TES and mapping the camera zoom to the scroll wheel allows me to very quickly get the lay of the land before coming back to the ground. I'm sure it would be even more useful in RTS and MMORPG games.

 

I am well aware of how to switch between smooth and click scrolling. The issue was present regardless of how the wheel was set.

 

Too bad, haven't run into this issue myself. Maybe it's a Mac thing.

 

It's not a mac thing. I think four of logitech's mice share that same scroll wheel, and there are reports that sometimes they are too sensitive. Also my dad uses a G500 exclusively on his mac workstation, and doesn't have the issue. These "hyper-scroll" wheels can be finicky.

I personally hate it. My favorite scroll wheel is a normal one with the catch-spring removed that makes it click. The logitech hyperscroll wheel is, even when functioning perfectly, is really loose. It just has too many functions. It has three mouse buttons built into it, scroll left, center, and scroll right. It also switches between a normal ratcheted scroll and an unratcheted "hyper-scroll." You can feel how loose the wheel is, but if you open it up, you can clearly see that it was made with very loose tolerances. This helps it to always glide well by itself when on hyper-scroll mode, and it helps keep it from breaking or malfunctioning easily despite all the different functions. But it this makes it feel like a piece of crap.

 

fyi - for gaming where a major component of the game is aiming with the mouse, and which include a sensitivity setting in game, you DO want a high DPI mouse, and a high polling rate.

Both contribute to an increase in tracking accuracy. (Turn the in-game sensitivity down to compensate)

 

This is just a myth. Whether you have 800 dpi and 1:1 sensitivity, 3600 dpi and 4.5:1 sensitivity, or even 8200 dpi and 10.25:1 sensitivity, the outcome in the game is exactly the same. You only ever need as much dpi as how many pixels you want the cursor (or crosshairs) to move on the screen for each inch you move the mouse.

For polling rate, I feel like 500Hz is the best. I can't feel the difference between 250Hz and 500Hz, but it doesn't hurt anything. However 100Hz for sure doesn't improve anything and it also takes up twice the CPU load that 500Hz does. Nobody on earth could tell the difference between 500Hz and 1000Hz. But even then, as long as I'm playing single player, gaming on a Logitech wireless optical mouse with 125Hz polling doesn't bother me in the slightest as far as pointer accuracy is concerned.

 

I've had many logitech mice. They all, and I mean all - have an issue with random disconnecting and reconnecting. I kid you not; the last 8 logitech mice I've used showed this issue after a few months of use. The only one that never gave me that trouble was the original MX518. In fact, I just received a G400 back from RMA for the issue aforementioned.

 

I've never had issue with random disconnecting and reconnecting. I've owned 2 MX518s and now my Performance MX. Never had issue with reconnecting or disconnecting.

 

Like I said, the MX518 did not give me trouble either and the performance MX is wireless. I'm talking about the G9, tactX, g400, g9x and all those recently new mice. Google it, it's a common problem.

https://www.google.com/search?q=log...e.0.57j0l3j62l2.7757&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

I've never had a disconnecting issue either.

 

I find myself in similar situations ever couple of years in that I get the itch to try out a new mouse. Ive tried the Cyborg MMO and RAT9 numerouse wireless mice from Microsoft as well as Logitech since 2001. I usually buy them online and then give them away to friends after I determine It's not for me.

Although I know that this is always preference of user I would say this. I have never found a wireless mouse that I would use to game they are usually too heavy/malformed and I cannot stand the need to keep them charged or replace the batteries. So I stick to my tried and true simple mice.

Logitech MX18 which you mentioned before
Amazon.com: Logitech MX 518 High Performance Optical Gaming Mouse (Metal): Electronics

Microsoft Intellimouse 4 (Maybe the most underrated gaming mouse in history)
Amazon.com: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical Mouse: Electronics

 

What the? MX 518 optical is $119? I have a few of those, I think a couple still in boxes and bought them for like $40 a couple years ago. I've been using any anywhere MX for a few years now and it's perfectly fine if you don't want/need all the extra buttons. Those only confuse me hi2 and get in the way. For my desktop I do have a performance MX on one desktop and MX 518 on my other.

 

The MX 518 was discontinued two years ago, replaced by the 95% identical G400. And for people who still can't get over that fact, there is even a version of the G400 that is painted exactly like the MX 518 (making it 97% identical).

 

I was using a MX 518 for about 3-4 years unless it crapped out with intermittent freezes. I recently picked up a g700 (2 months or so) after reviewing LOADS of mice from wired to wireless. Imo the g700 is the best of both worlds can be used as wired or wireless and the wireless charge holds up EXTREMELY well. I have it set at 1000 reports per second on wireless and have had it hold the charge for 7-8 days and i use it EVERY DAY and never shut it off. it recharges in a few hours without any downtime. more than enough buttons to macro and multiple profiles. My fav feature is the on the fly 5 setting dpi button. I can browse at 1250 dpi and up it to 2500 when gaming. DPI goes up tot 5200 (in case you're part alien because i doubt any human uses that speed lol) also comes with a super tiny/low profile usb receive that i just leave on 24/7 on the laptop or plug in to the wired receiver for the desktop.

 

Consider this a PSN [Public Service Necro]

Some Targets have the Logitech Anywhere MX in their clearance bins, it uses 2-AA batteries, included.

I picked it up for $15 +tx.