Introduction:

The gaming mouse market has certainly expanded quite a bit in the past few years; a little while ago, Razer was probably the only producers of "gaming-grade" mice, but with the entry of Logitech into the arena in the last half of 2005, things have gotten more interesting. The gaming mouse market is still very much a niche affair, as most people won't (or don't) care about what mouse they use, but for the hardcore gamers out there, the choice in mice is perhaps almost as important as the choice in videocard.

With the advent of laser tracking for mice, the gaming mice have only gotten better; however, laser tracking is not enough to define a gaming mouse nowadays - it must have a bevy of other gamer-friendly features, such as on-the-fly DPI adjustment, and extra buttons, among other things. Logitech has included many of these features on their first two gaming mice, the wireless G7 and the wired G5. However, the Razer Copperhead still had them beat out in one area - it was ambidextrous, while the G7 and G5 were strictly only for right-handed users, leaving lefties feeling left out. (How's that for overuse of a word?)

With the recent release of the MX610, it seems that Logitech is moving towards supporting left-handed users more. Following that, they've released the gaming-grade G3 Laser Mouse, which is an ambidextrous unit intended to round out their gaming mice lineup, and to provide direct competition to the Razer Copperhead that we reviewed earlier. Is the G3 a deserving member of Logitech's gaming lineup?

Specifications:

The G3 features many of the same specs as the previous G7/G5 mice, and apparently uses the same 2000 dpi laser engine as the two. It's a wired mouse, like the G5 and Razer Copperhead, so there's no worry about batteries, and the typical sleep mode of mice has been disabled/removed on the G3, so there's no lag time when moving the mouse from a resting position.

• Full list of specifications.

The G3's USB report rate is 500 Hz, less than the 1000 Hz offered by the Razer Copperhead, but the same as on the G7/G5; when testing the G7 at 500 Hz I found no lag problems, but that depends on whether you can tell the difference between 2 ms and 1 ms. Sensitivity switching (changing of the DPI) is also supported in hardware, meaning that you can switch between two sensitivity levels before installing any drivers. Curiously, the G3 doesn't support 2000 dpi unless you install the drivers, and can only switch between 1600 and 800 DPI before drivers. The G7 and G5 both supported 2000/800/400 DPI before driver installation, so I'm wondering if this feature was intentionally crippled on the G3 in order to segregate the market. In any event, SetPoint is a useful driver utility; installing it also allows you to tailor the DPI settings to your liking.

The G3 comes in a smaller-than-usual package, which is good for the environment but may not be good for selling, as customers would probably notice a bigger, flashier box; however this packaging might not be final since this was a review sample. I applaud smaller packaging though, since it's worked well for games - we don't need gigantic boxes for fist-sized products. Inside, the contents were similarly spartan; only the G3 mouse and an installation guide were included - a CD with the SetPoint drivers was not provided!

Considering that SetPoint is needed for the G3 to perform at its advertised 2000 DPI rate, the exclusion of a driver CD to save on costs may not have been a good idea; The download of SetPoint is over 46 MB, and while that's no trouble for someone with a decent Internet connection, it can still be annoying. As mentioned before, this was a review sample so the final package might include a driver CD.

The Logitech G3 Laser Mouse.

Contents.

Color: Black and Red.

   The shape of the G3 is ambidextrous, and resembles a standard three-button wheel mouse's shape, but also looks like a gamer's mouse, with its dark colour scheme of black and red. Part of the mouse body is covered in a glossy striped-onyx pattern, while the rest is black with red accents. However, most of the mouse isn't glossy, as a very smooth surface isn't ideal for a mouse body or its grips, since it tends to collect sweat/gunk, as was observed on the original G7 mouse. The sides of the G3 are made of a tough, textured grip surface Logitech calls DryGrip - it feels nice to hold and actually does work better to keep your hand less sweaty during extend gaming sessions. It's similar to the grip sides on some other Logitech mice, but is less smooth and provides more grip.

   My initial impressions were thus very favourable for the G3 - right away it both looks and feels like a gamer's mouse, and not just another "pretty piece of hardware".

Side view.

No tilt wheel.

Side buttons.

   The G3 includes two extra buttons, one on each side of the mouse, for a total of six buttons, which includes the wheel button and sensitivity adjustment. This setup is similar to the Razer Copperhead's, but with only five buttons instead of the Copperhead's seven. It should be noted that there's no tilt wheel on the G3, unlike the G7/G5; I was definitely expecting a tilt wheel, since it's basically become a standard on high-end mice and can be useful in games or just regular desktop usage. This may be a problem for some who like to use their mouse for many functions or actions.

   Unlike the G7/G5 mice, there aren't separate buttons for increasing and decreasing the sensitivity. Instead, there's a single sensitivity switch button; without any driver installation it serves to toggle between 1600 and 800 DPI for the mouse. If you choose to install SetPoint, you can set up to five different sensitivity level, and the sensitivity button will switch between them in a pyramidal fashion instead of a cyclic fashion. Allow me to explain - let's say you have three sensitivity levels, 2000, 1600 and 800 DPI - starting off at 800, the progression would be like this: 800, 1600, 2000, 1600, 800. Logitech claims this is done to prevent "any abrupt" change in tracking sensitivity. It should also be noted that there's no display on the mouse to indicate the current level of sensitivity, unlike on the G7/G5 mice.

   Right away, one can see the limitation of such a system, if one regularly switches between the different sensitivity levels. If you only have two different levels, then having only one button is alright, and probably even better than having two separate ones, since you only need to toggle between the two. However, with more than two, the process described above could be tricky - if you're at 1600 DPI, you have to press the button three times to get down to 800 DPI. Many people will not regularly switch between the DPI settings, but since it's a highly-touted feature, it deserves some scrutiny. (The DPI switching is useful not only in games (eg. for sniping), but also for desktop work like image editing where sometimes you need to slow the cursor down for fine work - lowering the DPI while not changing any software settings effectively does this.)

Side buttons.

G3 logo on back.

Button arrangement.

   Besides the sensitivity switcher, there's two extra buttons, one on each side of the mouse, arranged in a symmetrical fashion. By default, the buttons are configured as back and forward, with the button that's used by the right-handed thumb being "back", and the other "forward". Obviously, if you're left-handed, you can change these button assignments from within the SetPoint driver software. Back and forward functionality is the strongest argument for these extra buttons, and it's quite useful, both for web browsers and navigating folders in the OS.

While the thumb-side button is fairly easy to use, I found that the other side's button was a bit trickier - I had to press it just using the inside of my ring finger, about half-way up, since that's where the button lies under. It's a bit awkward, and at first, I found myself accidentally pressing this button since I wasn't used to one being there - this is the downside of the mouse being ambidextrous, as it can't be tailored to just a right or left-handed user. It does take some time to get used to, but after a few days of use I got used to it.

View of all the buttons.

Bottom view.

Logitech Comparison.

   The bottom of the mouse has three large feet to keep friction low. This, combined with the low weight made the G3 very easy to move - combined with a good mousepad, this should be one of the slickest mice to use. This, combined with the good "feel" of it makes it comfortable to use. In the last picture, I've included a comparison with some other Logitech mice. The smallest one is the V400 Cordless Notebook Mouse that I reviewed earlier, while the other two are the MX1000 and G7 Laser Cordless. As you can see, the G3 is pretty much in the middle in terms of size, and is comparable to an average mouse.