Performance

Unlike our normal testing, I wanted to get a little more general use out of the MX Master when testing so I bound it to my laptop, a LAN rig that I have setup in the office currently for 3Dprinting, and then I used the universal dongle on my main PC. This gave me a chance to use both the dongle and Bluetooth and to try out the PC switching button on the bottom. With that, I spent time browsing and doing normal PC activities most of the time. I did a little gaming, but the MX Master isn’t really designed for that so it wasn’t a big focus. I was more focused on the comfort, the sensors performance on weird surfaces, and the functionality of the host of buttons and scroll wheels on the MX Master.

I spoke a lot about the size of the MX Master when going over its shape and features. Because of that, the biggest concern of mine was if the mouse would even fit my hand. Full disclosure my hands are a fairly large, but typically I use an ambidextrous mouse that is much smaller than the MX Master. When I first got the MX Master in hand it took a while to adjust to the size, especially the height. It didn’t perfectly fit my hand but my hand was still big enough to get all the way around it without any issues. When I set my hand on it like normally do with my everyday mouse the angle of the top of the mouse pushed the mouse forward slightly, I ended up having to have a lighter touch on the back of my hand to keep the mouse positioned in my hand correctly. I love the large cutout and wing for your thumb, I don’t think people realize that your thumb and pinky will slide around on your mouse pad a lot, especially when you have a bigger hand. Having the wing under my thumb helped cut out some drag. My pinky and ring finger, however, did still reach around and rub on the shorter side of the MX Master. After an extended period of time with the mouse, I did adjust to the large shape. Overall it was comfortable to me but not perfect.

I had my wife, who has tiny hands, test out the MX Master as well. I was curious just how usable the large mouse would be in a situation where multiple people use the same computer. She was able to use the MX Master though she commented that it was at the limit of how large a mouse could be for her to still be able to use day to day. She could reach all of the buttons but the scroll wheel on the thumb side was a little far away.

Next, I spent a lot of time messing around with all of the different buttons and wheels on the MX Master. I was really happy with the placement of the thumb area buttons. The two buttons and the scroll wheel were all within reach of where I keep my thumb and the hidden button in the wing was also reachable as well. I was having a hard time finding a good use for the thumb scroll wheel, though, the default side to side scroll just isn’t an issue for me with a high-resolution screen. I did dig into the software and really liked using it as a volume control. The zoom option was also a good use for it, especially for someone who needs to zoom in sometimes to see things. The wing button was easy to forget that it was there, I would accidentally bump it from time to time and that would remind me that it was even a button.

Up top, the two triggers had a defined click and good action. The scroll wheel was especially a source of entertainment for me. I always love using a free spinning scroll wheel but the smart shift functionality really blew my mind. The scroll wheel functions normal with the standard click but when you scroll longer and faster than normal like you would when trying to quickly scroll down a webpage it turns off the click and free spins quickly. It’s a little jarring when you are expecting it to scroll slow but then it takes off, but after a while, I really got used to it. This is a function that should be in Logitech’s gaming mice as well.

So how did the Darkfield Laser sensor work out? Well first off, with a DPI cap of 1600 the MX Master came in slightly below what I personally like to run my mouse at. I run 1800 DPI because on my main PC I have a 4k monitor and three other 1440ps, that’s a lot of resolution to move around in. Because of that right from the beginning, I was lacking the DPI I needed to get around my PC. I don’t think this is an issue for most people, but if you are running higher resolutions (and more and more people are) the MX Master could feel a little slow. Beyond that, I found that the sensor tracked really well in the odd situations that Logitech promised it would. I was able to track on glass, the wall, and even the white tables that cause a lot of sensors issues. It’s not a particularly great sensor compared to the 3366 in the G502, but it is good for the everyday/everyperson usage of the MX Master.

The multi-PC usage that I was really excited about was easy to use, flip the mouse over and push the button and you are working on a different PC. Doing this, however, did give me a chance to test out the differences between the included dongle and running over Bluetooth. Initially, I had no trouble with both, but when I got into paint and was doing large/fast circles I could see that when connected via Bluetooth the MX Master wasn’t getting as much of a circle as it was a series of lines at different angles. This honestly didn’t really affect the everyday performance and I think most everyday users will even notice, but there is clearly a difference in performance between the included dongle and the Bluetooth on our Z170 setup. In other words, I wouldn’t try to use the MX Master for any drawing or gaming unless I was using the main dongle, leaving the Bluetooth connections for more basic usage.

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What about battery life? Honestly over all of our testing I never actually ran the battery down on the MX Master. Logitech says the mouse can last up to 40 days without charging and while I can’t confirm that number, I can say the battery life of the MX Master is close to a mouse with replaceable batteries than rechargeables. It’s likely that you might forget where you put the charging cable in between charges.

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #38035 22 Jul 2016 20:15
Today for something a little different I check out the wirless MX Master from Logitech!

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