Logitech G600MMO Gaming Mouse - Black

[EDIT 6/26/2018] My wife got me one of these shortly after my last one (#4) died. That was in March. It's now June, and it went out because the button (the left click button of all things) went south on me at a very bad time. Had my wife not gotten this for me, I'd have been using something else. I only used it because it's a PITA to re-program a new one, but no more. Never again. Even free, (at least for me), it's not going to be replaced. For everyone else, go ahead and read the rest of the review and decide, but if you want the TL;DR version here, avoid this. It's great while it lasts, but it has absolutely no durability, and unless they're under ten bucks each, they're absolutely not worth the investment. I've got other gaming mice earmarked to try when (I knew not "if") it died. The only surprising thing was that the memory wasn't what died. The buttons went kaput. That's a first, and frankly, it's the last time I'm ever going to deal with it. I just wanted to make sure folks know before they buy it that even if it's great at first, it will die faster than you'd expect, from multiple causes and is just not worth the hassle at any price. Read on and you'll see what I mean. [EDIT: 2/28/2018] I've now had 4 of these, in about 3 years. I bought my first in November of 2014. It died in August of 2015 and was replaced. I had a friend buy one for me in the middle of 2016. That one lasted the longest, but was dead by July 2017 and was replaced by the one that just died in February 2018. They DO NOT KEEP THEIR MEMORY. The memory chips in them fail after limited use. The mouse otherwise works fine. It's just that their memories are completely unusable for anything once they go. I can turn off the software and it will revert to their default state, as long as you don't try to load in a profile. But that completely negates the point to having one of these in the first place. If you HAVE TO HAVE one of these things, get something else. Failing that, spring for the extended warranties. I've NEVER had one of these last more than a year, which, considering the cost and the fact that I have 10 year old mice that still work fine (non-programmable, of course), is inexcusable. I base my reviews on what I experience. I do a lot of writing, so the vast majority of my mouse use is for standard mouse work, and I don't NEED a gaming mouse. But for games, I do. And this one can't be trusted to "be there" for very long. The rest of the review pretty much stands, when it works. But, I lowered by review to one star from four because the reliability factor is god-awful, and that plays a major role in my opinions of products. [END EDIT] I've had this for a weekend and haven't really found anything to complain about. In fact, I rather like it. I've had an OLD Logitech G5 for more than seven years and to say I'm used to it would be like saying I'm used to my right hand. It still works alright, but it's getting to the point where I may no longer be able to resurrect it. The pads are worn, the clicker isn't as snappy as it was and occasionally it won't register the click at all - which is kind of annoying. So I went on the Great American Mouse Hunt. I was hopeful, but not optimistic. I am so far from being a casual computer user, you may as well put me in my own dimension. I am pickier about the quality, feel and function of my computer devices as a French chef with an attitude at an exclusive five star restaurant is about the food he prepares. The majority of my waking hours are spent on the computer (personal and professional reasons - relax, I do have a life). I can pulverize a $20.00 mouse in under four months of MY normal use (which is a combination of gaming, surfing, art, video, programming... Um, well, everything you can do with a home computer at some point - all in a ten to eighteen hour day of nearly constant use.) The really awful part was they don't make the G5 anymore - if they did, I would buy about 10 and never have to buy a mouse again - and neither would the grand-kids. So I knew I'd need a gaming mouse. I knew it had to be heavy (I like heavy). It had to be big (I have big hands). It had to be WIRED (I'm FASTER than most wireless devices. I bought a Logitech wireless keyboard and ended up typing faster than it could record. Wireless mice? Well, let's just say they never have the juice to keep up and leave it go at that.) Being a gamer (not obsessive, mind you, but wanting to not look like a noob all the time), I discovered that gaming mice have a far higher durability and the Logitech mice seemed to have an outstanding quality and durability. So that's where I placed my focus. The G600 is a very wide mouse compared to the G5, but the odd thing is that the extra clicker isn't in my way at all. Because the mouse is programmable, that click can be set to any function. So I programmed it for something useful in a game, but not annoying when "out and about" and accidentally hitting it. Other controls seem to be intelligently built - especially the buttons. You never DON'T know where your thumb is. I can reach the first nine rows without too much trouble (I have flexible thumbs) and just left the last row (the one closest to the palm) on their default numerical settings. I work with a game pad when playing games (and since this is a gaming mouse, will focus on its performance in that regard) and reprogrammed EVERYTHING to accommodate a more integrated playing style. The good news is that I didn't get my character killed. The bad news is that I've got a LOT of bad habits to break with regard to realizing that function X isn't on the gamepad anymore, it's on the mouse. Knowing, as I do, that it's only a matter of getting used to things, it's not a major issue. The ability to find the button to press is a plus, but occasionally I do "over grip" and press the wrong one. Big hands, big fingers, exciting games will do that. The plus is that it actually takes more than a casual bump to click the button, so this isn't often an issue. Its movement on the pad (I recommend a good game pad using it) is VERY smooth - even more so than my G5. This facilitates NOT pressing the buttons at the wrong times when moving the mouse to the right. In the adjustment phase, the game pad had to have the profile saved and uploaded to the device. With the mouse, it was change and forget (I use the older Belkin n52te, even though I do have one of the new Logitech pads which offers the same change and forget feature. I prefer the ergonomics of the Belkin). The changes were applied instantly. When you're trying to adjust between massive waves of foes switching from full screen game to editing device settings and back again, that instant feature is pretty nice. The mouse fits in my (admittedly large) hand VERY comfortably, and I'm finding the use of the gaming controls on it to be more intuitive as I tweak things to fit my ingrained style versus the learning curve. Once I get more used to it, I expect it to be as natural of a fit as my G5. My only real concern is the durability of the thing (as it is with most things I review almost "out of the box"). I can never give anything 5 stars until I KNOW it's worthy of that accolade and with mice, especially, I have a major gripe about durability. Hence why those products that have potential durability issues are given a maximum of four stars until they've proven themselves. So far, my only real concern is that the more something can do, the more potential points of failure there are. This thing does a lot. The potential to run the entire game through one hand is high, if you have really nimble fingers and really fast reflexes. It's a bit of an overkill, IMHO, but it could do it. Still, it's a lot that could go wrong and these are newer models of mice from Logitech. I don't really go for "brand loyalty", but when it comes to performance and durability, I've had the best luck with Logitech, so I'm taking a chance that their gaming mice are going to be about as durable (if not better) as the G5 was for me. It's working at least as well as the G5 did for me when it was new. Latency was minimal (I didn't notice any), clicking speeds were excellent and accurate, it has enough drag to know you're moving it without so much that you accidentally press the wrong button (unless you're almost dying and trying to remember which button was your healing skill) My only trouble with it is using it's on-board buttons, which I'll get used to. Failing that, I can always go back to just using it like a G5 mouse, reset my game pad and be back doing things like I did before. It's got all the accuracy, speed, DPI and laser tech that were the reasons I got the G5 in the first place. So in most respects, provided it holds up, it's got the potential to be a 5 star winner from me.