Review: Logitech G600 MMO gaming mouse

Logitech unleashes the G600 MMO gaming mouse and there’s no mistaking its inspiration: Razer’s flagship Naga MMO gaming mouse. So is the Logitech G600 MMO a worthy contender for the Naga?

A tale of two (killer) features

Coated in cool, lightly textured plastic, the Logitech G600 is very similar in many ways to the Razer Naga, which clearly inspired it. Like Razer’s Naga, the G600 sports a 12 button thumbpad—but it one-ups Razer in two key areas, both of which are ( in all honesty) brilliantly innovative.

The first innovation is the use of sculpted, shaped buttons on the G600’s thumb pad. The buttons are shaped in a way to actually help you glide easily from one button to the next by feel, and they work very well. Sculpted buttons are a feature also found on Logitech’s wireless G700 gaming mouse (another excellent Logitech mouse, by the way).

By way of comparison, the thumb pad on the Razer Naga is flat and uniform, which makes it very easy to get “lost” on the thumb pad, press the wrong button, and/or have to glance at your mouse to re-orient yourself.

Logitech also introduces a “Shift” button on the G600. Shift buttons are used to effectively double the number of macros you can store, i.e. you can program each of the G600’s buttons to store a string of commands, and you can press the shift button that will activate a secondary set of commands—think of it as a ‘twofer’ – you get two sets of commands for 12 buttons.

But what makes the G600’s shift button so special is that it’s a nice, big extra mouse button directly under your ring finger. Most shift buttons tend to be small and (relatively) difficult to reach, find, and use in the heat of the battle. The G600 solves that problem handily. (And even if you don’t want or need to use the Shift button, you can easily program it to do something else.)

Building a better Naga

I’ve always really liked Razer’s Naga (and I’ve used nearly all of them at some point), but I have to say that the G600 is hands-down my pick. The sculpted thumb pad and Shift button are outstanding innovations.

In addition, the G600 addresses one other minor (and completely subjective) preference of mine: size. I’ve always found the Razer Naga line—even the ones with replaceable side panels such as the Naga Epic and the Naga 2012—to be a little small for my hands.

The Logitech G600 is a little longer and wider, and the Shift button makes for a comfortable spot to rest my ring finger. I still wish it was a little lower and flatter (to minimize wrist arch) like the Mad Catz Cyborg MMO7 (another personal favorite of mine), although that would obviously make it difficult to fit a 12-key thumb pad on the mouse.

Performance

I spent a solid month or more using the G600 across a variety of games (including some favorites such as HiRez Studios’Tribes: Ascend and Smite) and day-to-day PC usage. I actually found the 12-button thumb pad to make a very hand sound board for Tribes: Ascend voice emotes, which are easy to program as simple multi-keystroke macros and then assigned to the G9-G20 buttons.

My only minor complaint isn’t with the mouse but with the G600 software, which proved to be a little less intuitive to use than previous iterations of Logitech gaming software. In addition, the macro programming isn’t quite as robust as that typically offered by Razer and SteelSeries products—you can’t specify precise delays between keystrokes, for example—but this is hardly a deal breaker for most of us.

One other issue I ran into early on was caused by the G600’s acceleration feature, which is turned on by default. Turn it off. In Tribes: Ascend, the mouse would occasionally—but all too frequently—“jump”and I’d suddenly find myself looking straight up or down for no apparent reason. This is obviously a bad thing when people are shooting explosives at my favorite face. Turning off the G600’s acceleration feature eliminated the problem.

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But aside from those issues, the G600 is a comfortable, capable, flexible performer. The G600 doesn’t just give you a ton of buttons, it makes all of those buttons a lot easier to actually use.

From a comfort perspective I still lean towards the Cyborg MMO7, but the G600 is definitely making it nervous.

Overall: Highly Recommended

Although Logitech’s gaming products now occupy a relatively small part of the company’s total PC product portfolio, Logitech proves again that they’ve got game—and an “A” game at that. The G600 is an excellent gaming mouse, and on the whole I’d say the G600 has successfully trumped Razer’s flagship Naga MMO gaming mouse—at least for me.

The Logitech G600 will set you back about $80 at retail or through Logitech’s Web site.

Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse Technical Specifications (courtesy of Logitech)

• Resolution: 200 – 8200 dots per inch (dpi)
• Image processing: 11.25 megapixels/second
• Max. acceleration: 30G*
• Max. speed: up to 160 inches (4.06 m)/second*
• Responsiveness
• USB data format: 16 bits/axis
• USB report rate: Up to 1000 reports/second
• Sleep mode: disabled

Durability

• Buttons (Left / Right / Third): 20 million clicks
• Feet: 250 kilometers

Measurements

• Weight: 133 grams (without cable)
• Dimensions: 118mm x 75mm x 41mm
• Cable length: 6.5 feet (2 meters)