Battery life measured in months!
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Wireless gaming mice are great. Once you experience PC gaming without dragging a tether around your desk, there’s no going back. There’s just one problem: The high sensitivity, accurate tracking, and rapid report rate of premium gaming mice are all at odds with battery life. If you game for several hours a day, the battery will need charging in less than a week.
Logitech has a solution with its POWERPLAY wireless charging mouse pad, but that’s a $100 accessory that currently only works with two mice (the G903 and G703). Fortunately, Logitech now has a third solution with its new G603 mouse (See it on Amazon). Thanks to an all-new sensor and electronics, it delivers 500 hours of continuous gaming on a pair of AA batteries, or a whopping 1,400 hours of non-gaming use. According to Logitech, at least. This is potentially a wireless gaming mouse with a charge measured in months, not days. We've put it through its paces to find out how it stacks up.
Design and Features
The shape of the G603 is nearly indistinguishable from the G703. It’s got the same generic, mid-profile curve that works fairly well for those that prefer a palm grip and those who prefer a claw grip. It’s made exclusively for right-handed gamers, with the thumb buttons on the left and a gentle slope down toward the right side. It’s comfortable, but a little generic.
The left side features a pair of buttons that I found easy to reach with my thumb, and have a good click action to them. You can execute those additional gaming commands without pressing so hard the mouse moves around, but they’re not so sensitive that you’ll activate them accidentally.
On top is a scroll wheel and a single button (by default set to cycle through DPI settings). The wheel has a nice wide rubbery grip and a clicky scroll action. The left and right buttons have a nice audible click to them, with firm actuation force well-suited to a variety of games. But those who like really short-throw, soft-touch action for extremely rapid clicking (like RTS pros) might find it a little on the stiff side.
The G603 is devoid of any lighting, unlike most of Logitech’s other gaming mice. The whole point of this mouse is its extreme battery life, and lighting drains the batteries quickly. Whether the lack of RGB lighting is a benefit or a drawback depends on your individual taste.
The top shell is held on with magnets: inside you’ll find space for a pair of AA batteries and a little slot to stow the tiny USB radio receiver when you're traveling. The receiver is optional, by the way. The G603 also works with Bluetooth, though you don’t get top-tier gaming performance.
On the bottom you’ll find a switch to toggle the mouse between “Performance” (1000Hz report rate) and “Endurance” (125Hz report rate) and a button to flip between the faster LIGHTSPEED wireless receiver and Bluetooth. What you won’t find is a door to pop in the little round disc used for Logitech’s POWERPLAY mat. That accessory is made for mice with sealed, rechargeable batteries, not removable AAs.
Software
The G603 uses the same Logitech Gaming Software that works with all its other peripherals, and has the same essential features (minus RGB lighting) as the G703.
The main page shows the battery life and which mode the mouse is in (Performance or Endurance). You can choose to use the mouse’s on-board storage for a single set of DPI and button assignments, or use a profile-based system that loads up DPI and button settings based on which game you launch. The software is perfectly functional, but honestly with no lighting to tweak there's little need for it, although the customization options that are present are certainly welcome.
You can store up to 5 different DPI settings, with one of them designated as a “shift” speed.
Though you don’t get a lot of buttons to work with, the customization options are plentiful. You can set either of the thumb buttons, the DPI button, or the click wheel to play back any sort of mouse button press, keystroke, multi-key macro, media function, shortcuts to launch apps, even audio volume functions.
Logitech’s software is intuitive, lean, and works especially well if you have a lot of different Logitech gear.
Gaming
The G603 is the first mouse to use Logitech’s new HERO (High Efficiency Rated Optical) sensor. The company has spent several years designing this sensor and the related electronics to give it performance equal to the wonderful PMW3366 sensor found in its other high-end mice at a fraction of the power draw.
The sensor tracks up to 400 inches per second from 200 to 12,000 DPI, and applies no smoothing or filtering. Combined with the 1ms report rate and low latency, you get super responsive and very direct control that never feels like it’s swimming, wobbling, or losing tracking. I played Overwatch, Diablo III, and PUBG and it felt very much like using the G703. Which is to say, easily as precise and responsive as the best wired mice I’ve ever used.
There’s a downside to a mouse that uses AA batteries instead of an internal battery though, and that’s weight. The G603 weighs 136 grams with the included Duracell AA batteries installed. That’s a bit on the heavy side. But I have good news: The mouse works just fine with a single AA battery installed, which drops the weight to 113 grams (right in line with many other wireless gaming mice that use sealed rechargeable batteries). And alkaline batteries are sort of heavy. With a single Amazon Basics AA rechargeable Ni-MH battery in place, the mouse weighed only 104 grams. And of course, a weight differential of just a few grams will only matter for very serious gamers. For daily driving the difference is negligible.
Of course, the big question is does the battery really last for 500+ hours in Performance mode on a pair of AAs? I haven’t had the mouse long enough to fully test the battery run-down time. However, after over a week of using the mouse all-day every day, the battery meter didn't move at all. For several days I only had one battery installed, too. Maybe you’ll be able to play games for four months, maybe you’ll get six months, or nine. Regardless, clearly this mouse lasts ages longer than any other wireless gaming mouse with similar performance.
Purchasing Guide
The Logitech G603 Wireless Gaming Mouse has an MSRP of $69.99, and as a brand-new product it's holding at that price for the time being:
The Verdict
Choosing a wireless mouse for PC gaming has always been a tough choice. Either you get one that performs as well as a wired mouse, with accurate tracking and ultra-low latency and deal with frequent charging, or you get a “regular” wireless desktop mouse that lasts for months but doesn’t have the performance PC gamers crave. With the G603, you can finally have your cake and eat it too.
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