Manufacturer: Logitech

Release Date: 3/20/2013

MSRP: $99.99

I’m a fanatic about gaming mice and keyboards. I love getting the latest and greatest because I always want something that’s evolving and making gaming more comfortable, accessible, and easier, and I also love state-of-the-art tech. I’ve tried mice from both Mad Catz and mostly Razer, but there’s been one underlying issue from both companies that hasn’t been fixed in years: The drivers stink big time. The mice are unresponsive, freeze up, can’t go from wired to wireless seamlessly, act up when coming out of sleep mode, etc. I love my Razer Ouroboros, but I couldn’t stand the shoddy drivers anymore; the freezes, skips, and bugs were driving me insane. I finally decided to switch to a completely different company, Logitech. Someone I’ve known for years, even before I started PC gaming, is a company that is notorious for high-quality products that last a long time and work well. I went for the gusto and picked up their best mouse available: The G700S

It’s not exactly a flashy mouse like Razer or Mad Catz. It won’t turn heads, and it may not even be noticeable to most people until they touch it. There’s no fancy charging dock or lighting effects, no over-glorified box, just a mouse in cardboard with some neat buttons. I was a little skeptical at first because it didn’t have a charging dock; it has a USB cable, an extension, and a micro USB dongle, which kind of scared me. Those dongles are known to not work well and have poor signal strength, but I trekked on.

The setup was actually so simple that I was confused and thought something was wrong. I literally plugged in the mouse and the dongle, and no drivers were installed. I thought it was odd. I then downloaded the software suite and proceeded to scour the manual for something, thinking I had missed something. It turns out, Logitech is a master at drivers, and a completed in-your-face setup isn’t necessary.

After this, I proceeded with changing some settings; thankfully, the mouse keeps all profiles and settings inside the mouse via onboard memory. There are gaming profiles you can use, but every profile was exactly the same for the mouse; most changes were for Logitech keyboards, so I stuck to the onboard memory. The mouse has eight programmable buttons: three accessible to your left finger, one below the mouse wheel, and a cluster of four on your left thumb. These all felt natural and very easy to get to, unlike some mice, despite their ergonomics. The buttons clicked well and weren’t too difficult to press, even for intense games.

Once I easily programmed the buttons, I realized how nice this mouse felt. It fit so well in my hand and didn’t need fancy adjustments or anything that could come off. It was just a nice-feeling mouse that had a good weight to it. The feet were great and slid better than any other mouse I have used, and there’s an interesting feature unique to this mouse that you won’t see on any others. There’s a “clutch” button that releases the scroll wheel to free spin. It feels like spinning around weights and glides buttery smooth—so smooth, in fact, I can’t even feel it spin. The weight allows you to spin the wheel really fast for quick scrolling, or you can press the clutch again to lock the wheel and make it slower and click.

The performance is also the most flawless I have seen on any mouse. Going from corded to wireless is seamless, with zero hiccups, which are needed when your mouse dies in the middle of a game; it responded when my PC came out of sleep; and there have been no freezes, lag, hitches, or DPI drops like I have in Razer mice (three in total, by the way). The mouse can track up to 8200 DPI with a 1000 polling rate, perfect for people who love high sensitivity. I was able to adjust my DPI on the fly to adjust for different games, and I had no problems with the whole software or hardware.

With that said, the Logitech G700S may not be the flashiest mouse, but it functions the best, and in the end, that’s what counts. With zero lag, no connectivity issues, seamless corded-to-wireless transitions, and a great software suite, there’s not much more you can ask for. The ergonomics are great, and the mouse slides better than any other mouse I’ve touched. This is well worth the $100, even over flashier Razer and Mad Catz mice.