Sometimes you have to sacrifice fuel efficiency for raw power. In the case of the Logitech G700, you have to sacrifice battery power for enhanced lag reduction – but you won’t read that on the box. The G700 is a great mouse, when it’s wireless and the battery is not low. But when lag builds up due to low battery and you have to plug it in, well, you may as well kiss those perfectly timed head-shots goodbye. The good news is, once you’ve read this review, you’ll know how to maintain a healthy charge during your gaming sessions.
The retail price for the G700 is $99.99. I landed it for $59.99 at Best Buy – the last place to go to for below MSRP pricing. I was thrilled to get my hands on my first real gaming mouse in years. Yes, it’s true, for me the pendulum is swinging back towards PC gaming. But I digress. After giving it a good overnight charge, I spent the next morning configuring the 4 side-programmable buttons to do my bidding. Logitech’s low-profile SetPoint software is actually quite easy to use. Users can create various profiles for the mouse, which are stored on the mouse’s internal memory. Three profiles are preloaded: Productivity, General, and Gaming. The latter, of course, is why I purchased the mouse. I wanted to select my own DPI levels, horizontal and vertical speeds, and button assignments. SetPoint will automatically switch your profile when specific applications are loaded. For example, when Torchlight II is running, my profile changes to “Torchlight” which has a different programmable button configuration. The only negative here is setup with the games. Even though I created the profile and assigned the keys to be defined within the games themselves, I still had difficulty getting the buttons to be programmable at all. In torchlight II, I still can’t get two of my buttons to act as zoom control. I’m stuck with the wheel, which is fine. But this is supposed to be a gamer’s mouse! And we have weird requests.
The mouse looks great. It’s jet black all the way around with 3 LED indicators which are used to inform you of battery level (very important), current profile, or user-selected DPI level. It has a comfortable matte finish along the sides and bottom, making it easy to grip. Four additional buttons are on the top. These are also programmable. In-game, the mouse works well. I’ve tested this on Torchlight II, The Witcher 2, and Modern Warfare. As long as the mouse has a good charge, aiming and moving about is flawless.
The G700 is a good value at $59.99. But at the full retail price of $99.99, I can’t quite recommend it. I had been using the Logitech Marathon mouse which takes a different approach entirely: sacrifice power for MPG. That mouse went a full year on one battery, which bothered me less than not having enhanced precision in my games. Amazon currently lists the G700 at $79.99. I think that is worth trying if you are a serious FPS/RPG gamer. For the MMO crowd looking to move away from the keyboard, I would also recommend this mouse – even at $79.99. The buttons can be programmed to perform macro actions.