Pros: Precise and responsive; great battery life; ingenious recharge/receiver base; plenty of useful function keys.
Cons: Mouse sits rather loosely in recharge base; tad high price.
Verdict: If you're looking for a wireless optical mouse capable of performing on par with its corded brethren, look no further than the Logitech MX700.
Talk to any gamer--or for that matter--enthusiast about wireless optical mice and you'll often get a bad reaction. The fact of the matter is, while both optical and wireless technology has come a long way, gamers who have tried using wireless in the past have left with a bad taste in their mouth. Logitech's MX700 looks to destroy the performance barrier separating wireless and corded mice.
Quick Overview Nearly identical to its corded brother the MX500, the wireless MX700 features a seven button plus wheel layout with a very nice silver/black scheme. The design is well-contoured and smooth; the seamless left/right mouse buttons add to the nice look as well. The extra function buttons include internet browser forward/back thumb buttons, a task-switch button at the top and two scroll buttons for scrolling up/down in documents. Most of the keys are fairly well placed and not too difficult to access; although users with large hands may find the task switch button a little annoying.
Provided in the package are the MX700 mouse, the receiver/recharge base, two NiMH rechargeable batteries and the typical CD/documentation. Installation is USB-simple (as always). Simply plug in, install the software, put the batteries in the mouse and connect the receiver & mouse via their 'connect' buttons.
This is Wireless? One of the main highlights of the MX700 is the combination recharger/receiver base. This nifty little system allows users to recharge their mice easily and will typically help avoid the 'dead battery syndrome' associated with wireless optical mice using regular batteries. The only real drawback to the charger base is that the mouse doesn't sit very securely and tends to tilt and slide out quite easily, although this is a very minor complaint. Battery life is well over 4 days of solid use and if users remember to throw their mice on the charger when at school or sleeping, they'll never run out of juice.
Logitech claims up to 6 feet of reception on the MX700 and this claim is well substantiated. Reception is strong well beyond 6 feet and performance isn't affected whatsoever.
Speaking of performance, the MX700 leaves nothing to be desired. Not only is it virtually lag-less, precision is excellent and at the level of any corded optical on the market. The only time you can really notice a difference between the MX700 and a comparable corded optical is if you've used either for an extended amount of time and then switched over.
-- By Dustin Jones, Consumer Technology Editor
Where to buy Logitech MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse?
User Review(s)
"There are issues with the MX700" Okay i knew *loads* of people who reccommended this to me, and they dont have a problem to this day.
However i have had *sreious* lag issues with it. Not just small jerks here and there (which shouldnt be happening either) but actual sticking of the pointer not only in games but in windows too
it seems this mouse CANNOT handle fast movements.
I dont know why some people have had no problem with it.
I have the Keyboard/mouse combo. The problems also affect mouse clicking with the mouse not triggering occasionally when there are one or two keys being pressed at once.
I dont know *what* the problem is but i know there definately IS a problem. Perhpas not for everybody but there is obviously something wrong with so many problems of the same nature - we can't all be wrong.
From Elbonio, October 17, 2004
"the real cause of lag IMHO" Actually, I just thought of something, the MX700 lag might not be wireless lag at all, but here's what I think.
The MX500 had a negative accel problem when set to 800DPI, but it was fine when only at 400DPI, but unlike the mx500, the drivers for the mx700 cant set the res on the mouse, so its always in 800dpi mode, but perhaps it compensates for the MX500's "Negative accel" by buffering the extra updates rather than just dropping them like on the MX500. Because when I move it fast enough to lag it, mouserateview still shows 125hz, and if it was a bandwidth issue it would slow down.
Not to mention you aint gonna tell me in today's world you can have 51mb wireless internet but cant have a big enough wireless pipe for a freaking mouse From tech6k, August 20, 2004
"Great mouse.." I have the mouse for almost 2 years now. I still very much like the mouse when I first got it. It's responseveness and accuracy are still unmatched for any other cordless mice.
Gamers who thinks this mouse is too laggy.. probably need some more training to do. I totally owned users who had an MX500, Razor Boomslang in a LAN match.
The lag it may have is easely compesated. as long as the lag doesn't exceed 3 a 4 ms and with this mouse is does not.
some ppl say that this mouse may skip/hump/stutter around the screen/game, I have experienced none yet.
it is just an excellent mouse. and I like it. From Peter, May 21, 2004
"Not for hardcore gamers" This mouse has serious lag issues if you are a hard-core gamer that is used to playing with very fast, accurate reflexes. Games like Quake 3, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Counter Strike all are examples. Move the MX700 too fast and you may end up looking at the floor, or, you see it "lag" behind as the game still turns to catch up with where you have moved to.
If you are aware of lag issues in crap mice, then you will understand what I'm saying about the lag/tracking issue here. From Blue Brat, April 22, 2004
"This is THE mouse" Simple as that, i play a lot online FPS games and have not detected any lag, the mouse reacts as fast as i move my hand, and now with mousware 9.78 you can assign any key you want to your mouse buttons, IMHO, is the best cordless mouse that money can buy, now everytime somebody ask me for a good mouse, there is no other answer: Logitech MX700 Cordless Mouse! worths every penny. From DJPAX, October 14, 2003
"Really nice mouse, but subtle lag if you move fast" I had the mx500 mouse and decided to upgrade to an mx700 for the wireless. Everything I'd heard said they're identical in performance except for the mx700 is heavier, which it is, abou two times as heavy. That's not a problem, you can get used to it. While the mouse can update 125 times a second, there's a delay where it decodes the wireless signasl. It's like in games, you have broadband, but your ping time is too high so you keep missing shots, or you go to react but your already dead.
I tend to use my mouse really fast, with acceleration enabled I could click two, three times a second and hit the button right on everytime, that's with my mx500. The mx700 is just as accurate, but since there's a slight delay before your movements are interpreted onto the screen, I always end up either not reaching the button, or going too far. Once you see the pointer is where it needs to be, you stop moving your hand, but because of the delay, the computer will still get a few more signals from the mouse after you've stopped moving, so it overshoots.
I guess this isn't a problem for most people, because most people aren't clicking three times a second. But if your like me I'd steer away from this mouse, get an mx500 instead, which is dead on accurate. You can get an mx500 where you want just by flicking it with a finger.
From Keith, October 02, 2003
"'lol - fud is a twat' is an idiot who can not read." The moron who called himself 'lol - fud is a twat' obviously has no reading comprehension at all, or he would have seen that 'FUD' was saying he liked the 'mouseman' better, and they should have just made a cradle for it. not some Tesla wet dream power transmitting cradle for the mx700.
I disagree with FUD in every way, but at least I read his post using more than a couple of dead brain cells like 'lol - fud is a twat' did.
I love my mx700 except for the fact that the scroll whell is worthless, not just because it is smooth (the MS rigged one is much better on that count), but becausw the 3 settings for the amount of lins to scroll give you only 3 choices: none, screen and 6 lines. all 3 are bad choices. Heck my first wheel mouse gave years ago was able to let me choose exactly how many lines to scroll, why can't this? hopefully a driver update will come along that addresses that. Otherwise this is the best mouse I have owned. From just some guy, June 22, 2003
"Awesome gaming mouse" This is the best cordless optical mouse for gaming ever. It's fast and responsive. With the new software version downloadable from this sight and the advanced settings file I can play any game I want and bind whichever keys to the extra buttons. Now that the mouse itself has droped in price and is bundled with the cordless keyboard (which works superbly I might add) I can say this is probably the greatest thing to come along for you FPS gamers in a long while. Can't loose! From Tom, June 15, 2003
"Driver Problem for gaming fixed" The MX700 is quite sensitive to what mouse pad or surface you work it on. I just use it on my desktop without a pad and it works great. Had a lot of problems with the drivers and confirguring the buttons to work in the quake2 LOX game. This was resolved by the latest Logitech driver 9.76 and their Mwadvanced utility which fixed the button issue. The advanced utility is a addition file which works in conjunction with the main 9.76 drivers. From Tyrannic1, April 23, 2003
"FUD;s Post makes no sense" FUD your a twat (5 or so posts below me)
how can u make the recharging bay optical???
WTF does that mean??
the recharging bay is a POWER DEVICE are you trying to say that somehow logitech should come up with a new breakthrough in technology which allows them to transmit useful amounts of energy optically in order to power devices?????
your a stupid idiot - go home please and cut your own throat - the world needs less people like u. From lol - fud is a twat, April 20, 2003
"maybe not easy to set up" it seems to me that half the ppl who try this mouse hate it and cant get it to work properly, whilr the other half have no problem - this indicates that it probably requires newer drivers or a slight tweak in some way to get working perfectly - which would account for the fact that many ppl cant use it properly - most people just use the windows drivers for everything anyway so this makesd sense. please only post a comment about this mouse if you actually know how to use a computer! From mega, April 19, 2003
"Counter Strike + MX 700/500 = Wrong" Earlier today i bought the mx 700... It luved it until i finished installing it. I ran up cs and wanted t configure the buttons.
All i could get was two buttons. i mucked around with all the settings but it woulnt work
i could only get 3 buttons.
the third was using "middle button"
i tried using like F11 or something and configure cs to fit it in but when i run the game i does nothing.
Overall the software is the worst and if u r into gaming and want lots of mouse buttons dont get this one.
I Plan returning it!!! From DeMoN, March 26, 2003
"it kicks ass" i just got mine and it completely sucked, not even the scroll weel worked well, untill i went to logitech and downloaded the latest mouseware vaersion, now its surpurb, well works flawlessly, close to no lag, my only complaint is that you cant set buttons to directly run an app, the closest i have found is setting my appz keyboard shortcuts to F2-12 and setting buttons to trigger those keystrokes, otherwise THUMBS UP! From BinaryMan, March 21, 2003
"This mouse is fantastic" This is a great product, I would reccoment trying it. If you have a normal sized hand you should not have any problems using it. It is heavier than the mx500 (i own both of them) but on the everglide optica mousepad with mouse skates, it functions like a dream. I have both mice hooked up to 2 machines on my desk with the mx700 used on my 2ndary computer. A great buy From Marvin, March 20, 2003
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse Specs
Interface(s)
Original USB
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
