Review: Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse

Gaming mice, like bubble tea, tend to follow market trends. And in bubble tea terms, the G600 is the like the Gong Cha to Razer’s Naga’s Koi. Both mice are similar; they have multiple bindable buttons and are built just for the niche MMORPG audience in mind.

We’ve already taken the Naga Hex for a spin, and given our verdict on it. But how does the G600 stand up on its own?

At first look, the G600 looks neat. It’s large enough for my entire (ladylike) palm to rest comfortably, and it supports both a claw and a palm style of grip. It’s heavy enough that it feels solid, unlike the more ‘plasticky’ Naga Hex. Its buttons all have a very clean, tactile feel to them too. Since it’s made for MMORPG players, the G600 can reportedly withstand a mean clickfest: up to 20 million clicks. In contrast, the Naga Hex can take 10 million clicks. But all hese are merely specs on paper.

On the aesthetic front, the G600 is coated in a matte black plastic finish. The thumb buttons are covered in a rubber-like surface, which gives them a little less clout than I prefer when I press them. But it also helps keep your grip on the mouse, and makes your tapping more precise.

That said, the number of buttons on the G600 can come across as a bit of an overkill. The twelve buttons on the thumb pad can allow users to store up to 24 individual keybinds – way too many for even the Star Wars: The Old Repubic and World of Warcraft games of today. But gamers who are looking for a mouse solution to bind all their keys into won’t have much to complain – you can bind literally any commands into it. There’s also an extra button where your ring finger rest on – it’s the first mouse I’ve encountered with such an extra button, but that button is not without purpose. It controls the G-Shift function of the G600. When pressed, it turns your twelve thumb buttons into an arsenal of 24.

Physically, the G600 is a great mouse. Unfortunately, it falls a little flat in terms of its software.

While it does live up to what it promised: of being completely customisable, the driver has just too much going on. Not only did it bug after installation on my 64-bit Win 7 system, it doesn’t allow you to save keybinds directly onto the mouse’s memory as well.

That’s the biggest problem with this mouse. It doesn’t let you save your keybinds onto individual buttons. Instead, you’ve got to create a profile (switchable on the mouse’s body) before you can save any keybinds. That puzzled me for a bit, because most mice (ok, Razer’s) let you map your keys directly onto the buttons. I spent a good several resets trying to figure out if the mouse was faulty.

Apart from that hiccup, the rest of the customisation was comfortable enough. The G600 can be adjusted from sensitivities of 50 to 8200 dpi, which is also overkill, but useful for games where your twitch-reflex reigns king. It’s a nice option to have. Even sweeter was the customisable colour of the thumb buttons. That was my absolute most favourite element of the mouse, because you can make it light up in virtually any way possible, with any colour you can dream of. Sixteen million colour combinations, Logitech promised, and the mouse delivered.

On a whole, the Logitech G600 is a very nice mouse to have. But unless I’m playing MMOs often, I find it a little harder to switch from my current mouse – which I shall let it remain anonymous for the time being. The hassle of creating profiles to bind keys, as well as the incredible number of keys, requires a user who is dedicated to mapping his or her life out on the Internet. Ordinary folks don’t need that much control.