Last September, I bought a new mouse for Gal Gun.
Yup.
That’s a thing I really did.
There are a bunch of moments in that game where you have to wrench the mouse around, and the braided cord on my Logitech G Pro was rubbing against the back of my stupid keyboard tray.
So I went wireless. And decided on the G703 for its combination of vaunted Pixart 3366 sensor, RGB Lighting, and shape I had loved in other mice I’ve owned.
I promised to review it…and never did.
And in all those months, only ONE thing has bothered me about that mouse…the battery life.
With the RGB lighting on, Logitech promises around 20 hours of battery life, depending on the lighting color and pattern you use. That’s not the worst thing in the world, I guess, and you can plug in the mouse to charge it back up.
There’s just one problem: I hated plugging it in.
I have an irrational dislike of having to plug in anything wireless to recharge it. Even wireless headphones. It’s a tiny inconvenience…a small price to pay for the convenience of easy on-the-go use, and no cables getting in the way when you’re playing a lewd light gun game.
But I still don’t love it. And I was having to plug in the G703 a couple of times a week, in practice, since it’s also my main work mouse as I only have one computer in my non-opulent apartment.
I thought about buying the new G305, which is like my old beloved G Pro, but wireless. But it only has room for a measly one battery and I like battery life, so I chose the G603 instead… which has room for two!
WHAT EVEN IS IT
The Logitech G603 is a $69 wireless gaming mouse that comes in one color which is a mix of black and a blue-gray slate. The top cover is one seamless piece that attaches with magnets and it’s fun to take it off just for kicks. It also has two thumb buttons.
You can put one or two batteries under the cover. With 2 batteries, you get 500 hours of performance in high power gaming mode, or 18 months of use in low power mode. If you use Lithium batteries, these numbers even creep up a touch higher. And the mouse will be lighter, too.
I had no idea until last week that Lithium batteries were both much lighter than Alkalines and rechargeables, but could also put out more power too. You learn something new every day.
The overall shape is just like the G403 and the G703, but the buttons are now seamlessly connected to the rest of the mouse thanks to that removable plate…so it also feels a little like the old and excellent MX518.
It doesn’t have the RGB lighting or the rubberized sides of the other ’03 mice. The RGB lighting is no big loss since you can’t see half of it when gripping the mouse, but the smoother sides took me a couple of days to get used to. But, they’re much easier to clean than the sides of the old mouse, which contained many pounds of my skin oil almost immediately.
The HERO sensor, which gives this mouse its magical battery life, has the same performance as the 3366, but with some magical trickery that basically constantly turns the mouse sensor on and off as you use it.
It can turn on and off in as little as 1ms, and it has a 1ms response time at its peak, meaning you’ll barely notice this power saving magic happening unless you have the reflexes of a superhero.
This sensor is currently only available in one other mouse, the aforementioned G305, and it should probably be the core component of all Logitech mice going forward.
It feels very nice to use and tracks as well as any wired mouse I’ve ever owned.
The switches under the buttons are not rated for as many clicks as the 703…just 20 million compared to 50 million. But they’re still Omron switches. Omron is the king of switches so that’s good. And I think it’ll probably take me many years to get to anywhere near either of those numbers.
I have nothing to complain about with the G603. It’ll last an obscene amount of time on two batteries and I never have to plug it in, and the cover is fun to take off, and it’s easy to pop in new batteries. And I learned the benefits of Lithium batteries finally.
I recommend it unless you like recharging things or having lights.
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