Logitech G100s Optical Gaming Mouse Review

For PC gamers, the greatest weapon you can have in your arsenal is your mouse.  Regardless of its price, a mouse needs to be well-designed and reliable, regardless of the application it’s designed for.  Logitech has returned to the field of battle with the latest G-series mice in a wide range of options for gamers with any size budget.  The Logitech G100s Optical Gaming Mouse may be the lowest hanging fruit on their vine of competitive accessories from a price perspective, but it handles the job quite nicely.

The matted black G100s Optical Gaming Mouse is ambidextrous in design, with the standard right and left click buttons with a scroll-wheel in the middle.  At the top of the mouse is another button to toggle your mouse’s DPI and make it more or less sensitive depending on what you configure in the accompanying Logitech software.  Up to five settings can be programmed from a range of 250 to 2500 DPI in increments of 250.  The top of the mouse is coated in three zones (left mouse, right mouse and palm rest) with a “hydrophobic” coating that’s resistant to sweat and oil from your hands that typically builds residue on mice.   Remarkably low action on all three mouse buttons (including the one underneath the scroll wheel) ensures quick response times and aptly handles the rapid-fire mouse clicking required of any dungeon crawler such as Diablo III.  Any of these buttons can be reassigned via the Logitech Gaming Software, if so desired.

The mouse is also exceptionally light.  Weighing in at a bit less than four ounces, the G100s is light enough to keep your wrists from getting too tired, but heavy enough to give just the right amount of resistance.  The PTFE fluoropolymer glides underneath the mouse, allowing you to push the input device across a wide variety of surfaces with minimal effort.  The device handled best on my cloth SteelSeries QCK and Rocketfish Aluminum mats without any problems, and I was even able to be use a PS3 game case as a mouse pad without losing the mouse’s position.

I dialed the G100s in for three primary settings: day-to-day use at 1750, gaming at 2250, and fine-tuning for Photoshop and other apps at 500.  In all cases, the G100s performed admirably to provide a smooth and responsive experience without any issues.  My only problem was with the space between settings being limited to 250 DPI.  I’m more of a fine-tuning gamer that likes to adjust his sensitivity by the tens – and even ones – to get that absolutely perfect rating for my play style.  While that granular level of adjustment should be reserved for higher scale gaming mice, Logitech could have reduced the spread to increments of 50 or 100 and it would have given gamers a lot more freedom to get their perfect experience.

Of course, for a budget device, there are some shortcomings.  Whilst toggling your DPI button, there is no light or indicator to inform you of which setting you’re in.  This means that, if the button was accidentally depressed for any reason during an intense gaming match, you’ll have no indication that it has changed except that your mouse’s reactions are different—something that can mean life or death if you have to stop for a minute to figure things out.  The scroll wheel, too, squeaks a bit, which unfortunately cheapens the high-quality feel of the mouse.

The hydrophobic coating does an extraordinary job of keeping residue build on the palm rest and mouse buttons to a minimum – something sure to make users with oily skin very happy. However, Logitech did not coat the sides of the device where your thumb, ring, and pinky fingers rest, so you’ll still be wiping it down regularly.

Finally, it’s a three-button mouse (which, in reality is a two-button mouse because no one uses the middle button).  With games becoming increasingly more complex, a five-button mouse is almost the standard for gamers today, with a seven (or more) quickly following it.  For a gamer with pinched pockets, the G100s is a good, sensible option; however, if you have $10 more to drop on a mouse, you could consider the SteelSeries Kana as a viable five-button or even the Logitech G400s for $20 more.

The Logitech G100s receives a 3.75/5.0.