Pros: Smooth, precise tracking; good price; attractive design; extra function keys.
Cons: Some buttons proving not too useful in games.
Verdict: The Logitech MX500 is another winner with its good performance and even better price.
Walk down the aisles of any computer store and you'll be confronted by a plethora of mice. Competition has been quite fierce as of late, and Logitech has tossed the MX-series of mice into the fray, including the budget MX300, wireless MX700 and the high-end MX500; featured here.
Quick Overview The MX500's attractive ergonomic grey/black design is shared with the wireless MX700, as is the 7-button plus wheel layout. Unfortunately, it's a right-hand only design; lefties will have to find something ambidextrous like the MX300 or Microsoft Optical Mice. The function keys remain the same, with forward & back internet browser thumb buttons, a task switch key (like Alt-Tab) and two scroll buttons that act like the scroll wheel. Everything is fairly easy to access, although the task switch key is a little awkward for those with large hands.
Bundled along with the MX500 is just a basic MouseWare/driver CD & some documentation. Installation is typically simple, just a simple plug and go procedure.
Smooth Performer Sporting Logitech's new 'MX' optical sensor, MX500 performs smoothly and precisely; although not a whole lot different than the comparable Dual Optical or Intellimouse Explorer 3. The mouse suffers from none of the skippage or loss of tracking seen in early optical mice; as is to be expected. The extra function keys don't work particularly well in other games, although the scroll buttons do function the same as moving the wheel up and down would, and the 'back' thumb button works as a fourth mouse button.
The Bottom Line With a street price of only $37, the MX500 offers much more over its little brother the MX300, and only costs about $10 more. Although the function keys are sometimes awkward and generally not too useful in games, the MX500 is a great overall mouse and will leave gamers with yet another choice to make.
-- By Dustin Jones, Consumer Technology Editor
Where to buy Logitech MX500 Optical Mouse?
User Review(s)
"need help configuring" yo guys i did what u said with like trying to modify the keys but when i go to modify there is no KEYSTROKE one to choose from. can anybody give me some help so i can configure my mouse buttons to keys. thank you. either im me on aim:purballa217 email:purballa217@aol.com
or just reply here thnx From drew, July 27, 2004
"5-boutons dans les jeux" Voila comment faire fonctionner les 2 boutons sur le coté de la sourie dans les jeux
il faut que vous installer Mouseware qui est inclu avec votre CD logitech et de parametrer les deux boutons et de changer leur fonction pour une touche du clavier (Enter, Backspace, page up etc.)
quand vous ete dans un jeu aller dans les options pour parametrer vos deux bouton et le jeu va les reconnaitre par leur touche que vous aver défini. voila!
ps.il faut toujour que mouseware soit démarer pour que sa marche. From LeFouineur, June 22, 2004
"All 8 buttons do work fine." For anyone who does not know how to get all 8 button working, its really easy.
Grab the mouseware software, then click the buttons tab, then choose the button you want to modify, for example: button 8 which is the quick switch, click modify, then choose KEYSTROKE then a new window opens for you to type in any key you like, and button 8 will act as that key, for example, set to Q key, then in ANY Game button 8 will now function the same as your Q key on your keyboard, thus allowing you to use ANY button on the mx 500 in ANY game.
www.GanjaUK.com From GanjaUK.com, March 02, 2004
"Talented mouse with no brains." I was hoping to use ALL of the buttons on the mouse. But I cant find anyway to get them all recognised in games.
This is a huge disappointment. Im afraid Ill have to select something that functions.
My old MS mouse worked with all 5 buttons and the wheel.
What a shame, such a nice mouse with no brains. From wwwbbot GAMER, February 18, 2004
"best!!" I got it in march this year and has no malfunctions yet.
I got it with a Icemat and its like weeeeeeeeee o/
Im a hardcore q3 player and there is not other mouse for q3 or any other fps game.
i got my sens @ 2 and moving my hand from left to right almost makes a 360° turn.
o yeah, www.icemat.com ownies! From Anonymous, November 19, 2003
"Increadable awsome" This is by far the best mouse there is. I'm not sure how the other brands compare in optical tracking performance, but you can't get any better than the mx500. I use it on a pad, but it works fine on my woodgrain desk, there's one spot where it skips, but only by a few pixels on the screen.
The mouse fits perfectly in my hand, has a good texture, it's not so much a texture, but a subtle tractiony feeling plastic and rubber coating. The scroll button works good, as long as you don't install the drivers on the cd.
It's nice and lightweight, so you can move it without getting a sore wrist, and you can accellerate it quickly.
If you like the performance of this than consider the mx700, a wireless version of the mx500. It's heavier and has an extremely subtle lag, only obvious if your a power user who does lots of rapid clicking, but the wireless might make up for it.
From Keith, October 02, 2003
"BEST MOUSE FOR PLANETSIDE GAME" Ok I just bough my windows xp around jan 2003. Bought the mouse june 7. I will recommend this mouse for the mmofps game planetside. Download Logitech driver 9.76 so that you can bind the buttons to the game features. ALL 8 buttons are working. I can assign different tasks for them in game. The logitech driver lets me use buttons 2,3, and 6 in the game automatically. I have to assign page up, page down, delete on mouse properties to be able to use buttons 4,7,8 in the game.
My only problem is that I can't really use button 4. It is hard to reach. I assign a non-reaction type task to it. From Robin, June 06, 2003
"BEST MOUSE FOR PLANETSIDE GAME" Ok I just bough my windows xp around jan 2003. Bought the mouse june 7. I will recommend this mouse for the mmofps game planetside. Download Logitech driver 9.76 so that you can bind the buttons to the game features. ALL 8 buttons are working. I can assign different tasks for them in game. The logitech driver lets me use buttons 2,3, and 6 in the game automatically. I have to assign page up, page down, delete on mouse properties to be able to use buttons 4,7,8 in the game.
My only problem is that I can't really use button 4. It is hard to reach. I assign a non-reaction type task to it. From Robin, June 06, 2003
"THIS MOUSE IS THE ULTIMATE" Look to all those ppl with probs with this mouse ,apart from size of hand issues,
this is the ultimate mouse for gaming and anything, its super smooth and the buttons are great, just give yourself time to get used to it and you will see.
Also just download the latest drivers and its fine ,i had no problems in quake 3 with the scroll at all using the logi drives i dont know what u guys are on about i would recomend this mouse to anyone;) From kannibal, April 25, 2003
"The latest driver fixes all problems." I was in shock when i bought me this product, and found out that the extra button mapping simply was useless.
But today i installed the freshly released logitech drivers and ALL problems for binding those babies are fixed.. no need for registry editing..no sir, all problems are goners.
this mouse is now simply godlike for gaming!! From oOZe, March 30, 2003
"nice aim, nice feel, but buttons unuseable" I've had a razor boomslang for quite a while now and i was just curioous to this mouse, so i bought it. I discovered that i can actually aim better with this mouse than with the boomslang, but the problem with the mx500 is that the buttons only "react" after releasing. This means that you cant attach any movement to the buttons! so forget showscores or duck or stuff like that. It simply cant work !!! this is such a drawback ! too bad, the mouse had nice potential. I guess its back to my razor. From Robbert, March 08, 2003
"Good" Sure at first glance this mouse may seem bad. Out of the box with the CD drivers only 3 of the buttons worked in Counter-Strike. I got rid of the CD drivers after many attempts to fix this problem. Instead i downloaded the drivers from the logitech site. They appear to be identical to the CD in interface but they play much differently. You can easily turn off all acceleration but it took me some effort to make the buttons work. I had to adjust the 2 and 3 buttons from Forward and Backward over to Pg Up and Pg Dn (Any other keyboard key will work) and then set them in CS to Pg Up and Pg Dn instead of Mouse 2 and 3. It has worked perfectly ever since and i would recommend it to any gamer no matter what size ur hand is. From Jack, March 04, 2003
"this mouse is tight...." This was the greatest mouse ever invented. all my microsoft mouses skipped cause i play in low-mid low sensitivity....but i love microsoft. however, the mx500 feels good, plays well, and i play a shit load of games and i have yet to have problems with it. must be yall......anywho......only other mice i would suggest is the explorer 3.0 and mx300.....nice mice too... From Marcus Bui, February 23, 2003
"R0x... Don't know why ??" I'm very happy with this mouse. This is the best mouse I founnd by tests (it even is better than MX700!!). You are just fooling yourselves by telling people that it suxx... If you can not setup drivers correctly that's your problem. You FOOLS don't lie to people. I just RECOMMEND THIS MOUSE TO ALL OF YOU From =_NeO_=, February 17, 2003
"3 hours after receiving mx500....." I've had this mouse for 3 hours and the whole time it's been one big hassle. I install the drivers from the cd and it works ok except in quake3 my wheel doesnt work, ect. So I download the 9.75 english version driver and install it and at the end of installation my pointer doesnt respond. I reboot and get a blue screen of death unless I remove the mouse from the usb slot. I have to then uninstall the 9.75 and reinstall the cd driver. And I get alot of errors in the process. SHOOOOOOOOEYYY, this product seems to be decent just needs better software. From kevin dobson, February 14, 2003
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. MX500 Optical Mouse Specs
Released date
September 2002
Platforms
Windows 95 OSR 2.1, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, MacOS 8.6, MacOS 9.1, MacOS X
