Logitech G3 Laser

LOGITECH G3 Lazer

Lazer Mouse G3

G3 Lazer Bottom view

Loigtech Lazer G3

Lazer Mouse

Logitech G3 Laster

Color : Black And Red

No Tilt Wheel

Logitech G3 Lazer Side Buttons

Side Buttons

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.