titleWhen it comes to gaming mice, Logitech has been in the market for a very long time. Because of that they have had a long time to tweak and fine tune their design and frankly a lot of people are just used to the shape of their mice. Because of this they are still a major player today, we see a lot of people running everything from their G5, G500, and the MX518 floating around at LANs. What that means is when Logitech introduces a new mouse there are a lot of people whose interest in peaks. Including me, my original G5 still gets put to use at times and when I heard they introduced the G500s I was excited to see what all had changed.

Product Name: Logitech G500s

Review Sample Provided by: Logitech

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes


Specifications

Tracking

Resolution: 200 dpi - 8200 dpi

Image processing: 12 megapixels/second

Max. acceleration**2: 30 G

Max. speed**: up to 165 inches (4.19 meters)/second

Responsiveness

USB data format: 16 bits/axis

USB report rate: Up to 1000 reports/second

Sleep mode: disabled

Glide

Dynamic coefficient of friction***: 09 ? (k)

Static coefficient of friction***: 14 ? (s)

Tuning weight: Up to 27 grams

Durability

Buttons (Left/Right): 20 million clicks

Feet: 250 kilometers

Package Contents

Mouse

Adjustable weight-cartridge

Tuning weights and case

User documentation

System Requirements

Windows® 8, Windows® 7, or Windows® Vista

Available USB port

Internet connection for optional software download*

Warranty Information

3-year Limited hardware warranty



Packaging

The front of the Packaging for the G500s is very similar to what we saw with the G510s and the G710+ as well. There is a photo of the mouse but half of the photo is an x-ray image of the mouse. It’s a nice peak inside and it kind of feels like Logitech is saying they have nothing to hide while putting it all out there. With the front opened up we have a little information about advanced surface materials and a side profile image of the G500s x-ray as well. On the other side we have the mouse itself in a formed plastic shell to allow you to get a feel for its shape before buying the mouse if you happen to be looking at it in a store.

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Around back there is another image of the G500s with three lines point out its features. On the Fly DPI Adjustment, Advanced Surface Coating, and weight and balance tuning. Beyond that we have a small specifications listing in the bottom corner. Much like the front they have kept things simple and to the point.

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After struggling with trying to open the packaging for a short period I did get the entire tray with the mouse sitting in it out. I love the blue color they used here and from what I have seen they are using this on a few of the other S series products that they just introduced. Once I got everything out I found that I had a setup guide and a safety/compliance/warranty guide for paperwork. On top of the paperwork and the mouse there is also a tin with the model name on it and all of the extra weights inside. 

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Software

The G500s uses the same Logitech Gaming Software that we saw with the G510s. As I mentioned in that review, the best feature of the software is the fact that it works with all of Logitech’s product line. You can plug in multiple mice and keyboards and then will all pop up and let you configure them. The only thing that is going on here on the home page other than a picture of the G500s is the option to select where you want to save your profiles. You can pick on the mouse or on the computer. When you select on the computer it can also use automatic game detection to run specific mouse profiles depending on the game you are playing.

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Moving on to the only other page available we can see our sensitivity settings as well as options for each of the 10 programmable buttons. The middle side button isn’t showing in this image but if you mouse over the button itself it is still clickable like the others. For DPI options you have up to five available levels that you can configure but as you can see you can turn it down to one level if you would like. I personally prefer this because I hate when you accidently bump your dpi up to the wrong setting. From here you can select your polling rate as well.

When we go back over to the button configurations, when you click on any of the available buttons you get a full list of available mouse, keyboard, or macro options. I found the volume up and down buttons to be especially interesting, I can see myself changing the DPI up and down buttons to these to adjust my music volume while working. I have also snipped a photo of what the multikey macro page looks like as well. You can start recording your macros from whatever it is you are typing. You have the option to include the delays from when you type even. I will say that the macro functionality could use a little more when compared to software from other manufactures. The macro recording on the last Cooler Master keyboard we tested looked similar to a video editing program and it had a little more flexibility. If you make a mistake when typing in your keystrokes here you will have to redo it. 

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Features/Pictures

Here is our first look at the G500s. My initial thoughts were that the mouse doesn’t really look different than its older brother the G500. I’m very curious to dig in a little deeper to see what Logitech changed. In this picture we can see the sleeved USB cord, I was actually a little surprised to see this sleeving considering this is the one issue that I have constantly heard from people about their Logitech mice. In cases where this cord has the chance to rub up against anything it will fray. From a close examination it’s a decent weave but looser than the SteelSeries Sensei. It is still possible that Logitech has improved on the material itself though.

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Once we are able to look past the new striped design, up top we can see the scroll wheel is metal with a grooved ring up the middle. The button directly behind the scroll wheel locks and unlocks the scroll wheel from a freewheel or clicky style scroll. Here you can also see the DPI up and down buttons on the left side of the trigger. These can also be programmed to be used for anything you would like as well. I have heard these are great for things like grenades in an FPS that you need to access quickly. I should also point out that the scroll wheel also clicks when you push it left or right and both of those are programmable as well.

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The left side of the G500s houses our three side buttons and an area for our thumb to sit. I love the layout that Logitech went with for the three side buttons. Generally I’m not a fan of buttons being this close together but by using different heights they managed to define each buttons while still keeping them tight together.

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Right on top of the G500s is where we can see the new striped design. Logitech promotes what they called the hydrophobic palm surface, dry grip side panels, and fingerprint-resistant button coatings. I will test that out in our performance section, but I will be honest. Just from looking at it I couldn’t find a difference between the G500s and the G500 in materials here. That is beyond the new styling of course.

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The right side of the G500s doesn’t really have anything going on. I feel like they could take advantage of this and include at least one button over here, maybe even two if they are well placed. If you look closely the side does have a slight edge for you to grip on when lifting your mouse if you are like me and lift.

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On the flip side the G500s is one of the cleanest looking mice on the bottom. Most mice will have their serial number and a sticker with all of the regulatory information here; it’s interesting that Logitech is one of the only companies that don’t do this. It does leave more room for two large gliders on each end and a small one on the left side of the mouse (right side when looking at it from the bottom). The button on the bottom will let us pop out the weight tray as you can see. The weight tray has 6 holes for weights, you can use this to add to the overall weight of the mouse or if you put the weights on one side or the other you can slightly change the overall balance of the mouse. Personally I go with no weights, I feel that keeping everything as light as possible is the best option for me and my wrist. Something else that is interesting on the bottom of the G500s is the small pry points on each of the gliders. Its nice to see that they have tried to make replacing your gliders easy, to me this makes me think that Logitech hopes to see the G500s last its users a very long time. 

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When you get the G500s next to the original G5 you can really see where things have improved. We have moved on from the single side button to a triple button design as well as the DPI buttons have moved to a more useable location as well. The scroll wheel is noticeably different as well with the G500s having a metal design with just a small rubber ring over it over the glossy all rubber design on the old G5. The overall shape of the mice is similar but the left side of the G500s is a little more defined as well. It’s really interesting to see how much things have stayed the same while still changing.

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Performance

One I had the G500s all setup and configured to my liking I was finally able to put it to use. Because I have been feeling DOTA 2 a little recently I jumped into a few games to get a feel for the G500s. Frankly I was able to get a feel for it almost right away even though I don’t use my old Logitech mouse as much as I would like. After a few games I found myself rebinding a few small things in game to the buttons I had available. The three side buttons along with the two DPI buttons that I could rebind made for just enough for me to be able to rebind my QWER buttons as well as setup a quick buy button. This did leave me without a Vent button, but once I remembered that I had the three extra buttons on the scroll wheel I was good to go (left, right, and down). I did find that pushing the scroll wheel down to activate that button was difficult to do without bumping left or right, this ended up making that button un usable. But I still had 7 programmable buttons on a mouse that clearly isn’t a traditional MMO mouse.

Once I finished gamming I busted out my hard and soft mouse pads to see if the G500s had any acceleration and to see how it tracked on different surfaces. I didn’t experience much acceleration on the hard mouse pad but the soft pad did how a little more. Tracking on both pads was great though. This lines up perfectly with the sensor that is installed in the G500s. We have the Avago S9800 Laser sensor this time around. This is a change from the G500 where we had the Avago S9500 Laser. Performance wise they are similar but the S9800 does mean a bump in max DPI and it would explain the 8200 DPI max on the G500s now. Most people will never take advantage of the difference in DPI, this is more of an improvement just to keep up with the times. The fact that Logitech didn’t really promote the higher DPI impressed me, I’m happy to see that they aren’t trying to use it to sell their mice when no one can really put that high of a DPI to use (seriously try it, good luck clicking on anything).

I mentioned earlier that the mouse itself didn’t really look different at all, now that we have spotted a new sensor inside I am a little curious as to what else Logitech changed. After digging around a little bit I found out that they actually swapped out the trigger switches as well. The previous switches were 10 million click switches and they have now gone to 20 million click switches. This is important because the G500 has been known to give people trouble with those switches later in its life; this should help prevent that as a problem with the G500s in the future.  

Speaking of things breaking, when using the G500s day to day I find myself taking advantage of the ability to free spin the scroll wheel and then put it back to clickyness. You may be wondering what this has to do with breaking things. I’m actually worried that I will eventually break my G500s simply from playing with it too much. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even notice that I am doing it. I spin it up as fast as possible and then push the button to stop. Surly this can’t be good for the mouse, but it has held up so far. You can’t blame Logitech for that at all, other than maybe making the mouse to much fun to use. 

One of the things I was curious about when I was going over the G500s’s features was the “hydrophobic palm surface, dry grip side panels, and fingerprint-resistant button coatings”. To the eye nothing was different from the G500 and most likely nothing is different. But how well did the finish of the mouse work for me? Well the dry grip side panels are actually a very rough finish and it did give a good grip. It took a little getting used to but once adjusted I had no issues at all. The hydrophobic finish on the top means that water will be repelled, so the idea is to prevent grease and sweat buildup, in my testing I didn’t have an issue with this at all. That means I didn’t get the oils that I do sometimes have a problem with on the glossy finish of the SteelSeries Sensei. All in all I don’t think the finishes on the G500s are any different than the G500, but they are finally marketing features that they already had. I will be honest; my original hope when reading about it was that the lines on the top of the mouse would have a grippy finish. I was a little disappointed there but overall extremely happy with the performance of the G500s.

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Overall and Final Verdict

The G500s is an interesting mouse to cover. Officially its actually very similar to the mouse that it replaces. I let a G500 user try out the G500s and they weren’t able to point out even one single feature that was different beyond the obvious artwork on the top. Having said that, when we dug into the mouse there were a few big changes internally that do justify the new model number. They swapped out the sensor to a similar performing sensor with a higher DPI and more importantly they changed out the trigger switches to 20 million click models to prevent any issues in the future like some people have seen with the G500. What makes this a tricky review though is more of a fundamental issue. They may not have changed much that anyone will notice, but the G500 itself was an amazing mouse. If you manage to keep the same feel while fixing known issues, I would consider that a big plus. You still have the great mouse shape, top notch software, and enough mouse buttons to almost consider this an MMO mouse. What it comes down to is if you already own a G500 I wouldn’t recommend picking a G500s up. But if you are on the market for a mouse, this could be the perfect mouse for you especially if you have already bought into the Logitech world with one of their keyboards.

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #30586 03 May 2013 21:48
Today we take a look at the G500s from Logitech to see how it compares to the ever popular G500 that it replaced.

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