The most important piece of hardware for an FPS gamer besides his godly PC is the mouse he is using. There are a lot of new mouses on the market today with the label "Gaming Mouse" being slapped on to their packaging by companies. World of Pwnage will be reviewing a series of mouses in the upcoming posts to find out which one is the BEST for fps games like counter-strike. This week my Logitech G9 came in the mail and here is my review on it. (Note: I played Counter-Strike source Deathmatch, a scrim and just regular pubbing for about a total REAL play- time of about 4 hours with this mouse before writing this review.) This mouse is not too tough to get comfortable and used to.

Out Of The Box and First Impressions

The G9 comes in a sturdy and well laid out box with clear view plastic. There was more item in the package than what I have pictured below. The package includes the G9 mouse, 2 grips, gaming weight system in a neat aluminum box, and an instruction manual with some registration papers. It does not come with any CD though. Instead it said to download the latest drivers at logitech's site. Downloading and installing the software and firmware was fast.

Design

Holding the G9 for the first time I have to say that is feels really comfortable and stable. However, a noticeable trait that I do not like in most "gaming" logitech mouse is the front and rear-end design. Logitech mouses generally have mouse designs geared more towards the casual gamers who play games that do not require much twitch/reflex/skill in precise mouse movements. The mouse is designed so that the gamer does not lift the mouse up off the table - NOT even a fraction of a millimeter for quick repositioning and AWP flick shots I'm so used to with razer mouses. This is still the case for this G9 mouse which is not so much of a disappointment because I expected it, but it is a MAJOR negative to any true gaming mouse. (Yes that is the "Top Chef" Cookbook and it's L33T).

 

Another noticeable design of the G9, as in most logitech mouse, is that it is "rear-heavy" - the weight is distributed so that about 60-75% of the weight is located at the end of the G9 where your palm may rest on it. I do not know why they do this but this is also a MAJOR negative in my opinion as a FPS gamer because it again reinforces you to not lift the mouse off the table and to play with more emphasis on your palm-elblow movement instead of movement with your finger-Tips/wrist - if you do not know what I'm talking about then you're a new gamer NOOB who thinks World of Warcraft involves the same intensity and mouse movement precision as a FPS game like Counter-Strike. A simple analogy would be like trying to paint an intricate painting using the degrees of movement in your shoulders and elbows instead of using the precision movements in your wrist and fingers. Duh! Who's the Engineering Project Manager who approved of the design?

 

Having said that, the weight system is just rendered useless because the weights just put more weight near the middle/end of the mouse adding to the use of the less precise movements in your elbow and even your shoulders in order to move the mouse.

 

 

The wire of the G9 is braided - making it very rigid and heavy when compared to other gaming mouses. This is defiantly a negative even though it makes the G9 appear to be more sturdy and not flimsy. In the end, the heavy wire hurts performance especially for gamers who like playing with very high sensitivity settings like myself. Fighting against the mouse wire is frustrating, and feeling movement caused by the inflexibility of the wire will make you want to take a wire stripper to the crap that's on the G9's wire.

 

Also the wire attached to the G9's front is placed at the bottom of the mouse as seen in the picture. So again, if you lift the mouse's back up to reposition, it will rub against your mousepad. Not cool at all. The picture above shows the Noobish design of the wire and wire placement.

 

The front and end of the mouse are not beveled - a feature I like to have in my mouse. Payne is sick enough to actually take a file and bevel his logitech mouse's edges.

 

Comparing the weight of the Razer copperhead with the G9, the G9 is a bit heavier but with studier buttons. Again, the G9 comes with 2 mouse grips with one feeling a little rougher than the other and one with a wider support for the thumb. They both felt comfortable for me. I also played without the grips which is actually not too bad either. Other features of the mouse include a button on the bottom of the mouse to toggle the scroll wheel between clicking and being smooth, a led system to pick any color you want, and a built in profiler.

 

Performance

This mouse does deliver on precision and accuracy with its 3200DPI and high polling rate feature. Lifting the bottom of the mouse up does cause it to skip a little as it is not designed to be operated like that. The left and right mouse buttons are large and responsive and feel every durable. The other buttons are are located at the sides of the mouse which are comfortable to press. All the buttons can be programmed with the Logitech's software.

Where to buy:

You can buy these mouses directly from the Logitech
website at $99.99 retail price or go to Amazon and pick them up for $79 with
free shipping

Scores:
Quality: 5/5
Design: 3/5
Performance: 4/5

Overall =

In summary, this is sturdy gaming mouse with many features that make it look and feel like a valuable mouse. However, some features hurt the performance of the mouse dramatically even though the tracking is top notch for the mouse. The 3 main flaws are the inflexible and heavy mouse wire, the weight distribution of the mouse towards the end, and the design for this mouse to not be lifted up at all when tracking.

Next we will review the Razer Lachesis, Boomslang, etc

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