The G9 is Logitech’s latest top-of-the-line game mouse and it’s a real whopper in terms of features. It comes with the excellent MicroGear Precision scroll wheel introduced in the high-end VX and MX Revolution mice while adding a few game-specific tricks of its own, such as a 3,200dpi maximum resolution setting and tray to add weights.
In case you aren’t familiar with Logitech’s MicroGear Precision scroll wheel, it’s actually a scroll wheel on speed – in one mode, the wheel has detents for easy switching of weapons during gameplay, but at a touch of a button, goes into “free-wheeling” mode for easy and quick scrolling when you’re viewing webpages and documents.
Unlike the MX Revolution, however, the MicroGear is not engaged or disengaged by pressing down on the middle mouse button and instead has a little switch at the bottom to disengage the gear. Apparently this was done to prevent any software conflicts with certain games.
Other than the wheel, the Logitech G9 has a couple of unique features of its own. For one, the mouse is built to have interchangeable grips, which means that it is theoretically made to fit a hand of any size.
In fact, the Logitech G9 comes with a so-called Wide Load grip and a Precision grip. The Wide Load grip is meant for general use and comes in a nice silky smooth finish while the Precision grip is slightly smaller in width and has a rough non-slip finish.
Another interesting feature is the mouse’s LED display can be switched to a variety of colours – the G9’s SetPoint software allows you to choose anything from green, blue and red to shades of purple and pink!
It’s not all for show either – the colour schemes allow you to quickly see what profile you’re in. For example, you can set it to bright red so you know when you’re in gaming mode, green when in general purpose mode and perhaps blue when you’re using an office productivity application.
You can even set it so that the mouse automatically detects the application you’re running and automatically switch between these modes. Neat.
Even cooler is that the Logitech G9 can actually store these profiles right in the mouse itself, so you don’t need to have the SetPoint software running to get it to switch profiles.
The only thing is that you do need the Logitech software to initially flash your custom profiles into the mouse.
The Logitech G9 fits all right in the hand but it certainly is not the most comfortable I’ve ever tried – it’s primarily a right-handed mouse and the Wide Load grip is a little bit wider than the Precision grip but both are a tad too wide to be truly comfortable for my hands.
For small hands, I found the Precision grip seems to be the best compromise – it’s not as wide as the Wide Load grip and has a nice rough, “grippy” feel to it, similar to the finish on the G5.
Overall, as far as comfort level goes, I’d rate the Logitech G9 at about a seven out of 10 with either handgrip. It will probably rate higher if you’re a person with medium-sized hands.
However, the interesting thing about the Logitech G9 is that you’re potentially not limited to the two grips provided – it’s possible that Logitech might introduce add-on grips later which will fit a greater variety of hand sizes.
Logitech’s SetPoint software for the Logitech G9 looks completely different from the software provided for other mice in the company’s range – it’s got a very clean and easy-to understand interface.
As mentioned before, SetPoint is the place to go when you need to change the profiles and settings of the mouse. The software even allows you to choose from an extensive pallette of colours that you can assign to the mouse’s LEDs to identify your profiles.
The Logitech G9 has three built-profiles by default – Gaming, Productivity and General, but with SetPoint you can store up to a total of five profiles with different settings of your own choosing.
Performance of the Logitech G9 was top-notch, and well it should be, considering the price. There’s so much customisation possible on the Logitech G9 that it should fulfil any user’s needs.
Once the profiles are programmed into the mouse, you actually have access to four on-the-fly resolution settings, and these settings are fully customisable in the SetPoint software – you can assign any sensitivity up to 3,200dpi for any of these five settings.
The Logitech G9 also comes with a little tray which accepts different weights up to a maximum of 28g to give the Logitech G9 the exact level of heft for your needs – I personally like my mice real heavy so I put in the maximum 7g weights into each of its four slots – not as heavy as the G5 can go, but pretty okay nevertheless.
The profiles on the Logitech G9 are very powerful and not limited to just dpi switching – you can assign keyboard macros, button assignments, LED colours and polling rates in any combination and assign that to each of the five profiles, and once stored on the mouse, it can be used without the SetPoint software to work.
Profiles can be changed by pressing the profile button on the bottom of the mouse followed by the “+” and “-” buttons normally used for switching dpi settings.
The Logitech G9 is by far the most customisable mouse in terms of software and hardware compared to any on review here.
As far as features go, the Logitech G9 is top on my list – the customisable grips and extensive profile support is truly mind-boggling.
The only feature that is a bit of a letdown is that the mouse could have been provided with a choice of grips that catered to a wider variety of hand sizes – perhaps in addition to the Precision Grip, Logitech could have provided a longer, more curvaceous grip for people with larger hands or people who like to rest their whole hand on the mouse.
Here’s hoping that Logitech does indeed produce such a grip, at which point this mouse would rate very highly indeed.
Pros: Interchangeable grips; weights provided; software gives you great flexibility for customisation.
Cons: Supplied interchangeable grips still a bit on the square side to be truly comfortable.
Maximum resolution: 3,200dpi laser
Image processing: 6.4 megapixels/second
Maximum acceleration: 20G
Maximum speed: 45-65 inches/second (depending on surface)
Number of buttons: Seven
Other features: Interchangeable grips, customisable LED colours
Popularity: 10% [?]
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