Logitech G700s Mouse Review

Overview

 

When thinking about Gaming Mice there’s always a few manufacturer names that come to mind and there’s no doubt the name Logitech is always one of them, and for good reason. The name Logitech is synonymous with peripherals and the Gaming Range or (G Series) is even more synonymous with PC Gaming. Therefore I’m always keen to take a look at one of Logitech’s G Series mice, especially when they’re wireless! Enter the Logitech G700s an ergonomic, left-handed wireless mouse with thirteen programmable buttons and a maximum DPI of 8200 courtesy of its Laser sensor.

 

The Logitech G700s arrived at pcG in a typical (for Logitech) small black box, with a large image of the G700s on the front, one half showing off the exterior of the mouse and the other half showing off the internal skeleton. Other than the Logitech and G Series logos, the model name and the fact that the G700s is a ‘Rechargeable Gaming Mouse’, there’s not much to the front of the box.

Looking at the back of the box there’s not much to see either, that’s because the font is so small perhaps! 😉 Using a magnifying glass we can see that the G700s has the following features.

 

 

As you can see from the image above the box actually has opening lid, held in place by way of magnetism. Opening it reveals not only the G700s and its associated receiver protected by a plastic tray, but also the fact that the central section simply lifts out, which is kind of clever. On the back of that opening lid we’re led to believe that SCIENCE WINS!?

Advanced Surface Materials – Feel the difference: a durable, hydrophobic (yes I had to look that up also) palm surface, dry grip side panels, and fingerprint-resistant button coatings.

 

 

Opening that nifty inner box reveals that, other than the mouse itself the Logitech G700s comes with a micro receiver and a couple of cables. One being a Charging cable (1.7m) while the other is a Receiver extender cable (1.5m). In addition to this there’s a small white box, but what’s inside this box, anything exciting?

Unfortunately it’s simple a Safety, Compliance and Warning guide and a Setup Guide.

At the time of writing the Logitech G700s is retailing on Amazon for approximately £73 and comes with a 2 year warranty.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Logitech

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

 

First impressions of the Logitech G700s are wow now that’s what I call an ergonomic mouse! The right-handed design of the G700s is undeniably a talking point and to be honest it’s one of those mice that (once in the right hand) you’re either going to love or loathe as it forces a specific style of grip. Luckily I (with my bastardised claw grip) fell in to the former category, phew… 😉 Then there’s all of those surface materials, the most impressive is the Dry Grip treatment on the G700s’ side panels, it’s very rough/rugged feeling and grippy too, I must confess to rather liking it!

But one thing I did notice before I even tested the G700s was the presence (once again, as I’ve seen this before) of Logitech’s ‘Hyper Fast Scroll Wheel’. I noticed that when I took the mouse out of the box and placed it down it rattled, so I picked it up and shook it and it rattled some more. Yes folks that’s the ‘Hyper Fast Scroll Wheel’, and I’m not a fan…

Looking at the left side of the G700s we can see the four thumb/shoulder buttons (G4, G5, G6 & G7), they are surprisingly well placed with the upper two protruding away from the mouse body more than the lower two. This makes it easy to identify which button is which, whether I can get used to them in-Game is another story though. In front of the buttons there are three very small LED indicators, these display DPI selection (orange) and Charging status (green). When selecting DPI there are 5 levels to choose from yet there are only three indicators!? Logitech (think!) they have been clever by indicating DPI selection in the following way: 1 Lower LED, 2 LEDs, 3 LEDs, 2 Upper LEDs, 1 Upper LED; personally I’m not keen, even less so as the LEDs go out after about five seconds. Trying to work out what LED is lit when playing a Game in a darkened room, when the LED only lights for a few seconds is nigh on impossible…

There’s not much to talk about when we look at the right side of the mouse other than its ergonomic shape and the fact that it also has Logitech’s impressive Dry Grip surface.

 

From the front of the G700S, low down in the centre we can see the charging port, that also has the effect of turning the wireless G700s into a wired mouse, while it’s charging.

Looking at the G700s from the back we can appreciate its left-handed ergonomic design, with the back covered with Logitech’s hydrophobic palm surface and the centrally placed G Series logo.

 

Looking at the Logitech G700s from above reveals what a busy looking mouse it is, thanks mainly to that ‘Hydrophobic Surface’ used for the palm area and the Fingerprint-resistant area around the Left/Right click buttons. But not only is there that, there’s a whole lot more. Starting near the front we have the ‘Hyper Fast Scroll Wheel’ followed by its associated lock button. Cycling this button allows you to switch between a free-wheeling mouse wheel to one with more customary notches. To me though the wheel feels just too loose and spins too easily even with the free-wheeling turned off! The wheel also supports middle click as well as a scroll left/right function effectively providing another three programmable buttons. Behind the scroll wheel there’s another lower button (G11) this by default is the main DPI switch, allowing you to switch between any of the five user definable DPIs supported. To the left of the left Click button there’s three more buttons (G8, G9 & G10), these buttons are again well placed and easily reached, and due to the way the buttons have been arranged they are surprisingly easy to differentiate between. They are also quite hard to press accidentally, as they are quite tall; which of course is a good thing.

Flipping the mouse over we can see the forward mounted Laser sensor surrounded by four main glides, one at the front, one at the back and two on each of the sides. There’s also an on/off switch that can be used to turn the mouse off when not in use. Thit will help preserve the battery life of the 1.2V 1900mAh battery hidden beneath the flap at the back of the mouse.

 

Hardware Installation

Obviously the wireless Logitech G700s is designed to be used in that way, so basic installation is simply a case of plugging in the 2.4GHz wireless receiver into a spare USB port. If you would like you can position the receiver closer to the mouse (the transmitter) by using the supplied 1.5m extension cable (although in testing I didn’t use this and had no issues). Should the mouse’s internal battery run low then you can plug in via the 1.7 metre USB cable, allowing your Gaming to continue while the battery recharges. I found the the G700s would happily switch between wired and wireless modes with no issues.

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

The Logitech G700s mouse was tested using our Test Rig, a fresh installation of Windows 7 64Bit (service pack 1) was installed along with all appropriate Drivers. As no software is supplied with the G700s (and is required for full operation) version 8.58.183 of the Logitech Gaming Software was downloaded from here and installed. Version 45.7 of the G700s’ firmware was already installed aboard the G700s and was used throughout testing.

 

The following games were used during testing:

• Survarium (BETA)
• Battlefield 4
• Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeros

 

Hardware Performance

 

In the past I have always found Logitech mice to be more sensitive than the DPI would suggest, for me I normally game at around 1600DPI and only tend to sway a hundred or so either way. But with the Logitech G700s (again) I found myself turning the sensitivity down and I did most of my Gaming at 1500DPI. So what’s the point of a 8200DPI Gaming mouse then James? Well that’s a good question (glad you asked!) and a topic that I could rant a rave about for some time, but I wont do that here today. What I will say is the quest for the highest DPI is a pointless one, most of us Game in the range of 1000-3000DPI, anything above to be honest is a little pointless in my honest opinion. But this doesn’t mean that the Logitech G700s is a bad mouse, in fact it’s a damn good Gaming mouse and to be honest (and rather surprisingly) I have grown rather found of it over the last week.

The tracking of the G700s’ Laser sensor while wired or (more surprisingly) wireless is very good, very good indeed. I had no trouble In-Game while playing BF4 or Survarium and was able to Snipe and perform fast action flick shots with ease, in fact the mouse played better than it felt. Now that might be an odd statement, but what I’m getting at is that when I thought about the G700s’ tracking I was always of the opinion that I didn’t seem to have the perfect feel (a natural feel if you will!), but In-Game I found no such problems! There was no sign of lag or any other signs of stuttering, the G700s’ connection remained rock solid. Therefore I would have to say that tracking was as good as I could have hoped for, and for a wireless mouse that’s pretty impressive!

Comfort wise I didn’t think that I would like the G700s’ ergonomic design as it’s very specific (forcing a specific grip), but to my surprise my bastardised claw grip accepted the shape well. I found myself at home with the G700s within a few hours.

Then of course there’s the plethora of buttons, now I have to confess that I’m not someone who would ever bind countless macros to numerous buttons, but the extra buttons aboard the G700s are useful and well placed. The lower back thumb button (G4) was the most useful New button for me that I bound to Prone, this allowed me to have crouch on the button above (G6) and prone below, this worked well in Battlefield 4. I also bound a grenade throw macro to one of the left click buttons (G8) and this also worked well.

The only thing I don’t like about the Logitech G700s is the ‘Hyper Speed Scroll Wheel’, I could rant on about the fact that we don’t need fast (free wheeling) scrolling in Games, we don’t need to turn the ratcheting on/off via a mechanical button and we dont want the wheel to feel wobbly under our finger; but of course I said that I wouldn’t rant on… 😉

Overall from a performance point of view and from a Design/Quality point of view it’s hard to fault the Logitech G700s, other than the aforementioned scroll wheel. Let’s now take a look at Logitech’s Gaming Software…

 

SOFTWARE

 

Of course we have seen Logitech’s Gaming Software before, but maybe you haven’t so let’s go through it together. Version 8.58.183 was used throughout testing and it can be downloaded here. The software is generic meaning that the same software is used for pretty much all of Logitech’s G Series peripherals, which is kind of cool.

 

 

The main Home screen allows you to select which Logitech peripheral you wish to modify (bottom left) and also shows battery level (for the G700s) in the top left. Here you can also choose to either manipulate the software on your PC (Automatic Game Detection) or the Profiles stored on the mouse (On-Board Memory). Choosing one or the other changes the selection icons in the bottom right of the screen slightly.

The Customize buttons screen allows you to do just that, here you can bind keys, bind macros to buttons and disable buttons should you wish. In the image above centre you can see my setup for Battlefield 4 testing. With G buttons 4, 6 and 8 bound to new options, these options were courtesy of using Logitech’s Profile for Battlefield 4 (a total of 291 Games are currently supported).

The final screen above is the Customize pointer settings screen, here you can setup the number of DPIs that you wish to switch between and their associated values, play with the Report Rate (I suggest you leave it at 1000Hz) and more importantly turn On/Off mouse acceleration among a few other options.

 

 

If you wish to record some Macros of course the Logitech Gaming Software facilitates this and it’s pretty easy too with pretty much all options catered for, just remember that you’ll need to add in any Mouse commands to the Macro after it has been recorded, via a right click.

There’s also a Settings screen, here there’s a wealth of options such as (Start with Windows, show Battery on the taskbar or screen, Firmware update, Profile manipulation and ARX Control), to name but a few. ARX control is pretty special allowing you to see and modify DPI and see PC Stats from a wireless device (tablet, smartphone etc) attached to the network, pretty clever eh!

 

 

Overall the Logitech Gaming Software is relatively easy to use, it’s comprehensive and is generic so it integrates with all Logitech peripherals. The ARX software for tablets and smartphones is just the icing on the cake.

 

Final Thoughts

 

I always like it when a product surprises you; for some reason I was unsure of the Logitech G700s going into this review, due to its ergonomic shape and its wireless nature, but now the week long test period has come to a close the G700s has won me over! But I still don’t like that scroll wheel much…

The G700s arrived at pcG in the usual Logitech black box and packaging was good as was the presentation. Un-boxing the mouse was easy enough although there wasn’t much in the box other than the nano receiver and couple of cables. But hey that’s all we need to get going with this 2.4GHz wireless mouse…

I must admit I was all prepared not to like the G700s, and when I look back now I’m even unsure why, but for some reason the ergonomic look of the mouse put me off. I normally find that the more ergonomic a mouse is the more specific the grip has to be! But to be honest even the first time I put the mouse in my hand (using my bastardised claw grip) I was taken aback as my right hand almost immediately felt at home! At this point I have to admit I was impressed, but there was an issue right around the corner to let me back down…

Yes (if you’ve been reading) that’s right it’s that damn ‘Hyper Fast Scroll Wheel’; the main review provides more information on why I don’t like it, but the bottom line is that it just feels too loose, it even rattles if you shake the mouse! This is the second time that I have come across this wheel (the first was in the G502 review) and (as you may have guessed) I still don’t like it, but I have to confess it does work…

Looking at the rest of the exterior of the G700s there’s really nothing to complain about. All of the surfaces used work extremely well, especially the ‘dry grip side panels’, and I also like the hydrophobic palm surface too, although it’s difficult to ascertain how well it works. What’s also impressive is how easy it is to reach and use those additional buttons, both the thumb buttons and the left click buttons are easy to use and, more importantly differentiate between. Of course all are also fully programmable via the Logitech Gaming Software.

Another area where the Logitech G700s impresses is in its tracking and that’s impressive considering we are talking about a wireless mouse. In-Game I could detect no discernible lag and the G700s tracked beautifully at all times, whether fast or slow, whether in Windows or in game. Also pairing was a simple case of Plug ‘n Play and at no time during my testing did I encounter any disconnects. Even while switching from wired to wireless and back the G700s continued to behave itself impeccably.

Battery life seems also to be rather impressive as I haven’t charged the mouse since its initial charge over a week ago, and there’s still around 20% charge left.

Logitech’s Gaming Software also impressed, it’s easy to use (once you’ve worked out where to find what you’re looking for) and it caters for all your Gaming needs, from DPI settings to Macros and from Profiles to charging. The icing on the cake though is Logitech’s ARX software that allows you to communicate (via a tablet/smartphone) not only with the G700s but you’re PC as well, very cool…

Overall I have to say that I have really fallen for the G700s and I’m surprised I’m saying that too! It features an impressive right-handed ergonomic design, has a wealth of customisation and it even tracks beautifully over its 2.4GHz wireless connection. At approximately £73 (at the time of review) I think it’s good value for money too!

 

Verdict

Please Share, Like & Comment below, we really value your thoughts and opinions…

 

Many thanks to Logitech for providing this sample for review