Logitech G Pro Wireless Mouse Review

Rating: 9.0.

The Logitech G Pro Wireless is the company’s new flagship gaming mouse. But rather than be packed with bells and whistles like some of its previous mice, the Pro is all about being a top quality wireless gaming peripheral without all the added extras.

The new Logitech G Pro Wireless is certainly a different kind of mouse to the flashy gaming rodent we are used to seeing. It doesn't have tonnes of buttons, there's no weight adjustment system and the design is also pretty simple, with just a single RGB zone. 

Crucially, though, Logitech has included its latest sensor and wireless technology. Its new HERO (High efficiency rated optical) sensor is highly regarded while its Lightspeed wireless tech is supposed to be the first wireless tech to truly deliver the same responsiveness as a wired mouse.

You also get a true ambidextrous design as you can swap out the side buttons for blanks, depending on which side you use. What’s particularly remarkable is that Logitech has crammed all this technology into a mouse that weighs just 80g, which is astonishingly light for a wireless mouse.

This all sounds impressive but of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so let’s dive in.

Sensor Specification

• Max speed: 10m/s (400IPS)
• Polling Rate: 1000 Hz
• Controls: 5 buttons + Scroll + DPI button on underside
• Sensor: Optical HERO
• USB: USB 2.0, detachable
• Wireless: Logitech Lightspeed
• DPI: 100 – 16,000
• LOD (Lift-Off-Distance): Unknown

Design Specification

• Left switch: Omron D2FC-F-K(50M), 50M clicks
• Right switch: Omron D2FC-F-K(50M), 50M clicks
• Size: 125 x 63.5 x 40mm
• Weight: 80 g (without cable)
• Cable: Rubberised, detachable, 1.8m
• Surface finish: Matt black
• Backlight: RGB, Logitech logo
• Contents: Mouse, instructions, wireless adapter, cable
• Warranty: 2yr RTB

Total cost £129.99 inc vat.

In regard to Logitech's cheaper mice, such as the G502 Hero and G Pro wired, every expense is spared when it comes to packaging. They’re cheap, throwaway boxes. With the G Pro Wireless, though, Logitech has stepped things up a bit, in accordance with this mouse’s high price.

You get a nice thick cardboard box that slides open to reveal the mouse that’s held securely held in place by moulded plastic. Remove this and you’ve two little boxes, one of which contains the cable and documentation and the other houses the wireless adapter and replacement buttons.

These buttons are the first standout feature of this mouse. The ambidextrous design has back and forward buttons on both sides of the mouse, but you can actually remove the buttons from the side you don’t use and replace them with blanks. This eliminates the risk of accidentally pressing them. The buttons are held in place by magnets and it’s easy to pop them off.

This seems like it has the potential to make for wobbly, insecure buttons but we encountered no such problems. Both the buttons and blanks are rock solid while the action of the buttons is as good as any other mouse.

In terms of other buttons, you get very few. Along with the four removable side buttons you get just the standard left, right and scroll wheel click. There is also a DPI switching button but it’s on the underside of the mouse. Logitech’s logic is that pro-gamers don’t actually switch DPI mid-game and would prefer to minimise the chances of accidentally hitting such a button in the heat of battle.

Largely we’d agree, though it does seem a fairly bold move – plenty of people do change DPI between games and on the desktop and having quite such an inconvenient solution may put some buyers off.

Also on the underside of the mouse we find a small compartment for storing the wireless adapter. This allows you to use the G Pro Wireless on the move, though if you do fear running out of battery you’ll still have to bring the cable anyway.

The base of the mouse is also home to the on/off switch and four PTFE mouse feet. Their modest size and simple shape doesn’t exactly scream quality but on a mouse this light they should be ample.

As for the adapter itself, it’s a standard USB-A size so Logitech includes a converter that allows you to plug it into the supplied microUSB cable. Said cable has a proprietary plastic shape around the microUSB plug to help minimise strain on the joint, but there is also enough room around the socket on the mouse that you could use an alternative cable.

As for the overall design of the mouse, Logitech has gone for a less is more approach both in terms of the number of features and the size and weight of this mouse. It measures just 125 x 63.5 x 40mm and doesn’t have the pronounced central bulge of many right-hand only mice.

As such, if you’re someone that likes a mouse to fill the palm of your hand, this won’t be the one for you. For fingertip and claw grip users, though, it should suit the majority of buyers.

Meanwhile, a weight of just 80g is exceptionally low for a wireless mouse. Plenty of wired mice that don’t have to account for the weight of a battery weigh considerably more, while most wireless models are well over 100g.

So far so good but the one area where this mouse really doesn’t land is design. The simple symmetrical look is all well and good but there’s no flare here. In fact, the whole thing looks positively cheap. Just something as simple as adding RGB lighting to the scroll wheel like on the SteelSeries Rival 600 or adding rubber to the sides – which would also aid grip – and outlining the transition with a slightly different colour plastic would make all the difference.

Considering the price of this mouse, a little more attention in this area would’ve been nice. We appreciate Logitech has aimed to make as light a mouse as possible but one could then argue that even the RGB Logitech logo shouldn’t be there if weight reduction was the sole aim of the design.

Software

Logitech doesn’t have the most comprehensive software of any mouse maker but it is simple enough to use, works with all Logitech gaming products and allows you to change the most essential settings.

You can set up to six DPI levels in increments of 50DPI as well as choose from 125Hz, 250Hz, 500Hz and 1000Hz polling rates. Button assignments can also be changed and you can turn on/off the extra side buttons.

You can also save up to five profiles and change the mouse’s lighting scheme. You can choose from a colour cycle or breathing effect or a static colour, with options to alter the brightness, colour and effect rate.

There’s also the option to have the DPI setting indicated via three tiny lights that are hidden in between the G logo and scroll wheel. Tap the DPI button and these will indicate which of the five settings you’re on. These lights will also show battery alerts.

Performance

The first thing to note about this mouse is just how astonishingly comfortable it is to use, given its fairly generic-looking symmetrical design. The sides provide just the right amount of grip, the centre provides a little bit of support for your palm while all the buttons fall perfectly into place, remaining both easy to access but not too easy to accidentally press.

Perhaps the most crucial aspects in this regard are the sides. There’s just enough of a dip in the middle and outward curve towards the top that you can hook your thumb and little finger under them. It’s a very subtle amount, and by and large the majority of the grip you get is just from friction, but it’s enough to make a key difference when lifting the mouse.

The choice of a simple fine-textured matt finish to the plastic also works wonders. We still would’ve preferred rubber on the sides – especially if this surface starts to polish to a shine after months of use – but for now we can’t fault the secure feeling you get using this mouse.

The balance is also perfect. The centre of mass is right in the middle of the mouse and more importantly it’s right in the middle of where you hold the mouse. Remove the little cover for the wireless adapter stowage compartment and you save another couple of grams and also tip the balance ever so slightly forward, which suited our grip even more.

The left and right buttons continue the theme of subtle but crucial design tweaks. There’s just the tiniest hint of a groove in each button that helps to centre your fingers on the buttons. We’d still prefer a slightly more pronounced curve but given the ambidextrous design this seems like a good compromise.

As for those interchangeable side buttons, it can’t be overstated just how much of a difference it makes that you can remove those excess buttons. It’s possible to use a mouse like this with buttons on both side, but by being able to remove them it frees up your grip position and guarantees you won’t hit anything accidentally.

What’s more, if you do find a use for those buttons, you can always reattach one or both of them. Given the lack of a DPI button, adding one button back in to serve this function is something we’d consider.

Speaking of which, when gaming we didn’t miss having a DPI button. There are a handful of games where it can occasionally be useful – especially if the game involves switching between first-person and third-person for driving vehicles, for instance – but even here it wasn’t a deal breaker.

Instead it’s in desktop use where it’s a bit more of an issue. For day to day stuff it’s generally easier to use a slightly higher DPI but for things like Photoshop it is useful to be able to quickly drop to a lower DPI in order to trace shapes more accurately. We definitely missed it on occasion.

As for Logitech’s HERO sensor, it’s superb. Mouse sensors have been very good for a long time but this new model is one of the best we’ve ever used. As with any optical sensor, you’ll need to make sure you use an appropriate mousemat – i.e. one that isn’t too reflective – but with that in place it performs flawlessly. No matter how fast we moved it didn’t spin out or lose its way.

The lack of lift off distance adjustment is a bit of a shame but this mouse has a reasonably low lift off distance of less than 2mm anyway so it is not a big concern.

Then, finally, we come to wireless performance, which is something of a revelation. The reduction in latency with Lightspeed compared to Logitech’s previous wireless technology is profound and we’ve not clearly been able to notice a difference between wired and wireless performance.

Comparing back to back with the Logitech G403 Wireless and it’s like night and day. The G403 feels impressively responsive and is fine for more casual games but it still doesn’t feel like an immediate connection to your screen in the same way that a wired mouse does. The G Pro Wireless changes that. We would be happy gaming competitively on mice using Logitech’s Lightspeed technology.

The real icing on the cake in regards to wireless performance is that the Logitech HERO sensor consumes far less power than previous ones, allowing the G Pro Wireless to last days between charges.

Logitech quotes battery life times of 48 hours with the lights on and 60 hours with the lights off. In comparison, the G403 was rated to 22 hours and 30 hours respectively. In practice, during our testing we used the mouse for several weeks and found it would last a week or so between charges, but that was with us only gaming for a handful of hours a week and using it most for productivity and general usage.

The Logitech G Pro Wireless is undoubtedly one of the best gaming mouse you can buy. On every single front it delivers perfection or as close to as is meaningful.

For a start, its deceptively simple ambidextrous design is supremely comfortable, and combined with its interchangeable side buttons and astonishing low weight, it makes for a mouse that should suit the vast majority of serious gamers.

You can never guarantee how someone will react to the shape of any given mouse but we feel this is as universal a design as you can reasonably get, assuming you don’t mind mice that are on the smaller side.

Then there’s the excellent tracking performance provided by the HERO sensor. Nearly all top gaming mice now have all but flawless performance so this isn’t a revelation but nonetheless we simply could not pick fault with the tracking of this mouse. The only possible issue is that Logitech’s software doesn’t let you adjust lift off distance.

Capping this off is the wireless performance of the G Pro Wireless. It provides a responsiveness that rivals wired mice, and we'd be happy to use it in a competitive scenario.

All this and the mouse will last for double the length of time between charges than previous Logitech Wireless mice.

The only potential stumbling blocks with this mouse are the lack of a quickly accessible DPI button, the rather dull styling and the price. Neither of the first two feels like a major issue to us, though mouse preferences do of course vary.

Lastly, the price certainly does feel expensive, especially with the very pared-back approach Logitech has taken with the styling, build materials and button selection. The replaceable buttons make up for this somewhat but we still feel a price closer to £100 would be more appropriate.

You can buy the G Pro Wireless from Overclockers UK for £129.95 HERE

Pros:

• Great ambidextrous shape.
• Versatile removable side button system.
• Superb HERO sensor.
• True, wired-rivalling Lightspeed wireless performance.
• Long battery life.
• 80g weight.

Cons:

• Expensive.
• Not the most exciting to look at.
• No DPI button on top won't please everyone.

KitGuru says: It's a truly excellent gaming mouse, but it comes at a price.

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