Logitech G5 Laser Gaming Mouse Review

Rugged Look, Grip to Match
The paint job of the Logitech G5 is reminiscent of the rusted look of the Half-Life universe. Tarnished shades of red and black engulf a silver base coat to give a worn, battle-hardened look. While the color scheme will most likely not match anything on your desk, case modders will be sure to appreciate it's unique looks. While the G5 uses the same uber-comfortable right handed bean shape as its predecessors, the grip is no longer made of the smooth rubber material . Instead it uses a more earthly material that has a fine texture that feels remarkably similar to the soles of a new pair of Wolverine boots, or the rough side of a fUnc mouse pad.

The different material is said to reduce slippage during long tournaments, especially for gamers with sweaty hands. My hands are too dry to appreciate the benefits of this, so I went to the local grocery store and picked up a bag of potato chips and had a few handfuls of the sour cream and onion goodness. Palms greased up, I tried playing UT2004 deathmatch with the shield gun only, a tactic that requires quick turns and picking up the mouse frequently. Indeed the Logitech G5's grip held true throughout the entire match, earning first place.

Rugged Look, Grip to Match
In the ongoing struggle against friction, Logitech radically changed the feet of the G5 from it's predecessors. Whereas the MX518 already blew me out of the water with it's lack of friction from 5 Teflon feet, the G5 has three extremely large pads made of polytetrafluoroethylene (say it three times fast).

The result? A more dispersed surface to glide on, the only thing dragging it down being the cord. Words cannot describe how slick this mouse glides. The only thing that can come close is the technical jargon on the box, claiming a dynamic coefficient of friction of 0.09 on a wood-veneer desktop, whatever that means. Just take my word that this mouse is slick.

At 80", the Logitech G5's cord is 8" longer than the MX518, putting less strain on the cord for gaming environments where the computer is on the floor. An interesting thing about the cord is that it's not plastic coated, but rather sheathed in braided fabric. While this makes it more resilient to being crunched under your monitor, it makes the kinks harder to get out from when the cable was initially folded. At the same time, it makes it harder to create new kinks and loops in the cable, which is a good thing unless you're using a cable clip for cord management.

Clicky Clicky
The G5 is the first high end MX-styled mouse to change the button layout. Whereas the cruise/DPI buttons were placed on opposite ends of the scroll wheel with earlier layouts, the G5 places them together under the scroll wheel. Comfort-wise, this small change means little difference to me, although I am still getting used to the new layout after nearly 3 years of using the old one.

As far as the pesky application-switch button, well, it's gone. With the exception of the MX1000 laser mouse, the button was always out of reach and seldom used anyway. Sadly this was not the only button removed with the Logitech G5, the forward thumb button is also MIA. According to Logitech, "Hardcore gamers want to avoid accidentally hitting the wrong buttons. So instead of forward and backward buttons under the thumb, we've redesigned the layout to include one, sure-hit button." I've been using Logitech mice since the MX500 first came out, and can't recall ever hitting the wrong thumb button.

If these supposed hardcore gamers were truly hardcore and couldn't distinguish the difference between a large and small button, why didn't they just map both thumb buttons to the same function? Until now the two buttons worked in harmony to quickly pull out the right weapon in a fire fight instead of stretching for the right key or taking the time to scroll for it, and were key to a good melee attack. Now, they are no more.

Thankfully my select weapon switching has a new home in the form of a tilt wheel. While I never have been a huge fan of tilt wheels because they don't work in Firefox, I was suprised at how well the tilt wheel works in games. Tilting in either direction can be mapped to a keystroke assignment for quickly pulling out a weapon. So now in Unreal Tournament where I used to have the thumb buttons mapped to the shield gun and flak cannon, I have the thumb button mapped to the shield gun, and the tilt wheel mapped to the chain gun and flak cannon.

My only gripe with the Logitech G5's tilt wheel is that it requires too much force to middle-click. Many times I would find myself side-scrolling while middle clicking, although this occurs less as the days go by and I become used to it. Traditional vertical scrolling has a very rigid feel to it, perfect for selecting one of the various weapons in your arsenal reducing the risk of over-scrolling.

Performance Tuning
It's quite evident that a lot of the inspiration for gaming products comes from the automotive industry. What started as shrinking down EL wire and cold cathodes for the bling factor has turned into 12v cigarette lighters, cup holders, and now weight balancing. The Logitech G5 has an advanced weight tuning system to fine tune the inertia of the mouse, or even throw it off balance.

The system is comprised of two parts, a transparent orange cartridge, and a tin case for 16 circular weights - half of them are 4.5g, the other half 1.7g. Up to eight weights snap into the cartridge's staggered array to give the G5 up to an additional 36 grams of weight. Gamers can now imitate the weight of AA batteries in a corded mouse, go as light as possible without even using the cartridge, or go somewhere in between. The loaded cartridge is inserted into the underside of the mouse, which is then illuminated by two red LEDs for extra 1337ness points.

As mentioned previously, the G5 has ditched the older LED optical engine in favor of the higher precision delivered by its new laser engine, capable of a 2000 dpi resolution with image processing at 6.4 megapixels per second, as opposed to 1600 dpi and 5.8MP processing for the MX518. To deal with the increase in bandwidth, the G5 operates at Full-Speed USB (12Mbps) as opposed to the Low-Speed USB (1.5Mbps) used by most other mice.

Although I'm not sure if this is a direct result of the increased bandwidth or even power consumption issues, the G5 is not backwards compatible with PS/2 adapters. So what does the new engine mean for real-world performance?

Well, for the Logitech G5 is the first mouse I've used that will not skip on my imitation-oak finished desk. Intrigued, I actually ran around the apartment testing the mouse on different surfaces, and could not get the mouse to skip once, not on the high-gloss magazines, the couch, a plastic table, or even the reflective white countertop that no optical mouse could ever track on! For games on my fUnc pad, head shots are easier, although the 2000-dpi resolution proved to be too much for me to get used to, which leads back to even more tuning.

Like the MX518, the G5 has can switch sensitivity on-the-fly for sniping and all-purpose carnage. Without drivers, the resolution has three set stages of 400, 800, and 2000 DPI. Install the SetPoint drivers, and up to five resolutions can be defined. Other options like programming buttons and determining whether or not recognized games use the SetPoint or Windows acceleration settings and advanced keystrokes can also be set.

w00t for Listening to Feedback!
I'm happy to say that with the G5, Logitech really listened to the gamers' feedback to make improvements, and I must commend them for it. First, rather than click the sensitivity switch buttons repeatedly and then then scale back to the DPI of choice if you're unsure which resolution you're mousing at, the Logitech G5 has an array of 3 LEDs to display which of the five resolutions you're using. Second, a decent percentage of gamers actually play video games at different sensitivity settings for turning and looking up and down. Within the Advanced Game Settings portion of SetPoint, the X and Y resolutions can be set independently of each other at each sensitivity level.

Finally and most importantly in my opinion is the introduction of Profiles to SetPoint. Like I mentioned in my review of the MX518, a few games like Call of Duty don't recognize more than three mouse buttons, and requiring mapping of the extra buttons to keys such as delete, which then have to be changed back manually after exiting the game to return Back functionality in Windows and Firefox. Now with the G5, profiles can be created for different applications that are automatically called when that application is in the foreground. You don't even have to be a gamer to appreciate this. Because Firefox doesn't support side scrolling, I have the tilt wheel set to cruising up and down, and side-scrolling in Photoshop.

Recap
All things said and done, Logitech G5 is an instrument of victory. Between the slick pads, laser precision, excellent grip, tilt wheel, profile switching, and DPI indicator, there is no doubt in my mind that the G5 will deliver performance to those who need it. There were a few things that Logitech changed I did not appreciate, like the missing thumb button and overly-stiff middle click, but I think that overall the G5 is a step in the right direction.