Although wired gaming mice have definitely come a long way, the same can’t be said for their wireless counterparts. People are still sceptical of connectivity issues, battery life, and just overall performance. For a long time, it’s been widely considered that wireless mice just can’t stack up to great wired gaming mice, especially for competitive gaming. But the Logitech G603 might be a game-changer for wireless gaming mice. Logitech happens to be one of the very few companies that have embraced wireless peripherals as the future. Most of their new wireless mice feature their new Lightspeed technology which gives remarkable reliability and overall unparalleled wireless experience. The G603 Lighstpeed is a new addition to Logitech’s wireless mice. It has a great design, battery life, and features you’d expect from a premium mouse. But can the G603 overcome the issues that have plagued wireless gaming mice since the beginning? On paper, it definitely has the potential to do so. Let’s see what makes it stand out from the crowd.
The Unboxing Experience
Before we get into the full in-depth review, let’s have a quick look at the unboxing experience. The Logitech G603 Lightspeed arrives in a modest and compact box. The box actually matches the black and grey colour scheme of the mouse itself. The overall look is quite minimal and sleek. The front of the box has a picture of the mouse itself, along with the G603 printed in a large blue font. The back of the box shows off the key features of the mice. This includes the new Hero Optical sensor, the Lightspeed wireless technology, and the exceptionally long 500 hours of battery life. It also has the ability to switch between multiple devices seamlessly. Enough about the box, let’s move on to what’s contained inside.
The mouse and all the accessories are encased in the traditional plastic packaging, which is easy to open without frustration. The box includes the mouse itself, the wireless USB dongle, a USB extender cable, and two Duracell Alkaline AA batteries. After pulling out the mouse itself and handling it for the first time, my first impressions were rock solid. Things only get better from here on out, so keep reading.
Design And Build Quality
The Logitech G603 Lightspeed has a straight-forward ergonomic design. The outer shell is basically the same as Logitech’s own G403 gaming mouse. It also looks similar to the G703 in terms of shape. This mouse has very clean lines all around, which are a design element of the mouse. I am quite fond of the black and grey colour scheme they have opted to go for. It really gives the mouse a clean look to it. A lot of the new higher-end gaming mice are rocking some crazy designs, so the G603 is like a breath of fresh air. It’s not flashy or in your face, but it still looks pleasing overall. The mouse has a matte finish to it, but the top grey portion and the sides have a soft rubberized touch to them. The Logitech G logo is right in the centre of the mouse. No backlighting is present here, so if you absolutely need RGB in your setup, that might bother you. I don’t care about that all too much, as I prefer a subdued design any day of the week. Logitech went back to the drawing board and decided to use an ergonomic design for the G603 wireless. Most of their new wireless mice utilize this design, so if you’ve used a Logitech mouse before it should feel right at home. The mouse has a noticeable curve in the middle of it, so palm grippers should feel comfortable here. The grey accent also fades away to the black quite nicely on the sides, which keeps that minimal aesthetic alive. At the bottom of the mouse, you’ll find the Hero Optical sensor (more on that later). To the left of this is the power button, where you can also toggle the high or low-performance (battery saving) modes. To the right of the sensor is an input selection button, where you can switch between a Bluetooth connection or the wireless dongle. The build quality is actually quite robust overall. It uses plastic materials but doesn’t feel cheap in any way. Everything is put together quite well. If the side buttons and DPI buttons were a bit more solid, I’d say the build quality would have been perfect.
Button Quality and Scroll Wheel
The left side of the mouse includes the two thumb buttons. They have a glossy finish to them and are large enough to reach easily. They require a bit of firm pressure to activate and have a good clicky response. When pressed the give a crisp clicking sound from the inside. They could have been a bit more responsive, but I can’t complain too much. Moving on to the top of the mouse, this is where the main buttons are located in their usual positions. The left and right buttons are actually detached from the main body itself, which gives them more travel. These are using Omron switches, which are incredibly satisfying as usual. The clicks are sharp, responsive, and sound very good. There’s also a DPI button under the scroll wheel, with a small LED indicator just beneath it. The DPI button can rattle at times, which is a bit annoying. The scroll wheel is actually the major critique I have with this mouse. It’s not bad by any means, but for the price, I’d expect it to be better than what is present here. It’s fully coated with rubber and has ledges to grip the finger. There’s no free-scroll feature here seen on other Logitech mice. It doesn’t feel all that premium, and the sound isn’t satisfying either. Still, we can’t complain too much due to the price.
Ergonomics and Comfort
It’s difficult to objectively say a mouse is comfortable because this factor is purely subjective when it comes to gaming. What might suit my hand size and grip might not suit yours properly. With that said, it’s important to keep in mind that the shape really does matter when it comes down to it. Thankfully, the G603 is going to feel right at home for most people. The shape on this mouse has the usual ergonomic feel to it and it’s quite approachable for most people. The thumb side buttons are positioned well. They don’t get in the way yet are relatively easy to reach due to their angle and placement. The matte finish feels incredibly premium in the hand, and I never felt like I’d lose my grip using this mouse. With that said, while it’s perfect for palm grip and claw grip users, I wouldn’t recommend it to people who have a finger-tip grip. This is because the curvature in the middle might get in your way. That’s not Logitech’s fault, as this mouse isn’t really designed with that grip in mind. The G603 uses two Duracell AA Alkaline batteries for power. These seem to weigh down the mouse at first. With both of the batteries inserted, it weighs in at 135g. That’s certainly quite heavy but thankfully this mouse functions with one battery as well. The top part of the mouse is attached magnetically to the body, so you can just pull it apart by tucking in a fingernail. Fortunately, the magnets are quite strong and I’m not worried about them wearing out. Inside here you’ll even find a place to tuck the USB dongle, so you don’t lose it while travelling. If you remove one of the batteries, the mouse is actually 112g, and it doesn’t feel as unbalanced as you might think. You can also replace the batteries with others.
Connectivity And Range
Let’s talk about the wireless range first. Coming from someone who has used many wireless mice in the past, I can confidently say that the G603 wireless has an excellent range. A lot of wireless mice can face latency and stability issues due to poor range. Sometimes you’ll have to plug the dongle closer to the mice to battle this annoyance. Thankfully, that’s not an issue here. Still, if your PC is a bit further away from your desk, you can use the provided USB extender for better range. Connectivity is also smooth here. There isn’t any noticeable lag, and the mouse doesn’t suffer from connectivity issues. The Lightspeed Wireless technology delivers 1ms of input lag, which is impressive for a wireless mouse. Switching between different devices is also pretty simple. Say you have a PC connected to the mouse via the dongle, and a laptop connected via Bluetooth. Just press the button at the bottom to switch between modes, simple as that.
Sensor Performance
The sensor on this great wireless mouse is Logitech’s new “Next-Gen” HERO sensor. This optical sensor is rightfully called “Next-Gen” because it makes incredible progress in terms of wireless tracking and power efficiency. When it comes to wireless performance, Logitech is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition here. Sure the Pixart sensors such as the ever-popular PMW3360 and PMW3366 are incredibly accurate, but they’re not power efficient. This new Hero sensor is just as accurate and responsive as those, and it’s exceptionally great when it comes to saving battery life. It really is the first of its kind. It continuously adjusts frame-rate processing based on the mouse speed. This allows for better optimization and minimizes power consumption. It’s also mind-numbingly fast. It can track at speed over 400 IPS (inches per second) across the DPI range, which is 200-12,000 DPI. It’s impressively responsive, and it has zero acceleration and filtering. Even if I quickly move the mouse from one end of my mousepad to the other, it doesn’t spin out at all. All of this is thanks to the Lightspeed Wireless technology seen on this mouse. It’s Logitech’s answer to issues with latency, stability, and connectivity. At no point does this mouse feel like its a wireless one. In fact, due to the responsive sensor, it can feel even faster than some wired gaming mice out there. Need I say more? This is the best sensor and tracking you’ll find on a wireless mouse, no questions asked. It is amazing for both gaming and productivity.
Performance – Gaming & Productivity
Throughout my testing, the G603 exceeded expectations through and through. Even after putting the mouse through its paces, my initial first impressions weren’t tainted in any way. Performance is obviously quite vital for a gaming mouse, and this wireless weapon is a delight for both productivity and gaming.
Gaming
Logitech relies on the Hero Optical sensor here, and there aren’t any gimmicks present here. The fast and responsive sensor paired with Lightspeed Wireless technology delivers exceptional tracking for a wireless gaming mouse. You can switch between two modes: High-performance and Low-performance. You can change these modes with the switch on the back of the mouse. At high-performance mode, the mouse operates at a latency of 1ms, and a polling rate of 1000Hz while the latency goes up to 8ms and polling rate goes down to 125Hz in low-performance mode. Obviously, the low-performance mode will conserve battery life, but you’d want less latency in competitive matches. In my use case, it was hard to distinguish between a wired mouse and the G603 wireless. Like I mentioned before, there are no connection issues, so the mouse feels really smooth and accurate. Taking headshots in CSGO with a wireless mouse has never been easier. There is no jittering here either. Overall it’s certainly one of the best performances I’ve seen from a wireless mouse.
Productivity
The G603 isn’t just mean for gaming. In fact, because of the comfort and overall ease of us, I found that this mouse was amazing for productivity. The lack of a cable really helps a lot in day to day use. I feel more comfortable using a mouse without worrying about the cable. The acceleration here is quite minimal and doesn’t interfere in any way. So dragging and dropping files, scrubbing through a video, and other miscellaneous stuff all feels very fluid. Plus, with the software, you can set different profiles for both productivity and gaming. This way you won’t get frustrated if you’re the type of person who keeps changing the DPI speed when switching between programs.
Battery Life
This is the key area where the mouse really shines. The major reason why competitive gamers don’t use wireless mice is battery life. It feels like you already have enough products that need to be charged up daily, so adding a mouse to that list is just annoying. But what if you had a mouse that you didn’t need to charge and it could last for months? Yes, I said months. Logitech advertises 500 hours of battery life on this wireless gaming mouse. Those are absolutely tremendous numbers, which is already a good sign. With 8 hours of use every day, that roughly translates to 2 months of usage. That’s in the high-performance mode as well. If you switch to the low-performance mode and just use that daily, then Logitech says you can get up to 18 months of use. While it’s hard to give you an actual number, you can forget about replacing the batteries for a couple of months. We’ve had a G603 for personal usage for a while now. We mainly used it for productivity and gaming, switching between both of the aforementioned modes when needed. These are certainly impressive numbers that we haven’t seen before on a wireless gaming mouse before. It’s good to see that progress is being made in this department.
Software
This wouldn’t be a review of a great gaming mouse if we didn’t mention the software. Logitech G Hub is definitely a powerful tool where you can tweak even the most minor details. It’s been updated with a sleek and modern look while retaining all of the customization features. Let’s have a quick look. The home tab will show the devices you’re currently using, along with the profile tab at the top. You can switch between different profiles from here or even make your own. You can also use G Hub to find profiles created by users for different games.
The G603 doesn’t have any RGB or backlighting, so there is obviously no customization there. There is however a sensitivity menu. In this menu, you configure the polling or report rate and tune the DPI as usual. There are DPI speeds on the left which you can quickly change to. However, if you want to fine-tune everything, you can use the slider to find the right speed for you.
Apart from that, you can use G hub to record macros, and set keybindings for any of the buttons. There’s a tonne more you can do here. You can pair alphabets to a specific button for easy access, pair a few programs such as OBS to start streaming with the click of a button and even bind simple Windows functions to a key.
Conclusion
Hopefully, after reading through this in-depth review you’ve made up your mind. The Logitech G603 is an excellent wireless gaming mouse. The Hero Optical sensor is fast and accurate. There aren’t any issues with stability, connectivity, or even range. But the biggest plus in my book is the battery life. The G603 is definitely one of a kind. The extremely long battery life will save you a lot of headaches. For the retail price of $70, this is an absolutely stellar wireless gaming mouse. These days, you can find it for a bit cheaper if you look around, so it’s an absolute steal. Sure there might be a few better options out there in terms of the “perfect” scroll wheel. Considering the sensor performance, the long-lasting battery life, and just overall value, we can easily recommend this mouse to anyone. Logitech G603 Lightspeed WirelessThe Wireless All-rounderProsMinimalistic designComfortable gripExceptional wireless performanceIncredible battery lifeConsSub-Standard Scroll Wheel 2,064 ReviewsSensor: Hero Optical Sensor | No. of Buttons: Six | Switches: Omron | Resolution: 200 - 12000 DPI | Polling Rate: 125 / 250 / 500 / 1000 Hz | Connection: Wireless | Weight: 135g (112g with a single battery) | Dimensions: 124 mm x 68 mm x 43 mm VERDICT:The G603 Lightspeed wireless makes the perfect fusion of battery life and performance. Even in heated competitive matches, it never feels like a wireless mouse. For the price, it’s a must-buy for anyone looking to enter the realm of wireless peripherals. Check Price
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