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After a Logitech G7 crapped out on me last month, I called Logitech tech support to see if they could fix it.  There was nothing that they could do and they said they could do an RMA and send a replacement.  They said, unfortunately, they don’t have any G7s in stock.  I could either wait for them to be back in stock or I could get either the G9 Laser or the MX Revolution.  As a gamer, I opted for the G9 Laser.  I didn’t even need to send anything in, just a fax of the proof of purchase (receipt), and I was done!

A week later, the G9 arrived and I was drooling over it, after having used a Logitech VX Nano (notebook mouse), which cramped my hands after long usage.

Box

The box it comes in presents the G9 in a much nicer fashion than it did for the G7.  Although the G7 was a wireless rechargeable mouse, the G9 is a corded laser mouse with some of the highest DPI levels in the gaming mice industry.  The package design is unique, in which it folds out like a book held by small magnets on each side, highlighting the G9’s features.

Comfortability

The funky look of the G9 may shock you at first, but upon slipping your hand over the mouse, it feels perfectly contoured to your hand, at least with the wide load grip on the G9.  The other grip that the mouse comes with is the precision grip, which is a textured plasticy feel, while the wide load is a nice soft rubber touch.

After using gaming mice for the past 6 years, I will never switch to a regular mouse.  Confortability is one of the biggest neccessities a mouse needs to have.  I found that companies like Logitech design gaming mouses to fit the hands of a gamer who can spend 12 hours or more at once and still not get tired.  Their eyes might as well get sore well ahead of their mouse hand.  I found that after prolonged use, my hand never felt tired nor did my carpel tunnel kick in (as with most other unergonomic mice).

Software

The included software is needed to tweak the mouse’s customizable settings, along with an update that they ask you to download.  You can change the LED of the DPI color to many many colors as well as set 3 default profiles that would be stored on the mouse’s internal flash memory.  Changing the mouse speed, click, button binds, and all that was fairly easy and straight forward.  Only thing is that Logitech does not support this mouse on the Mac side, so the extra buttons don’t work (but left and right click and scroll wheel work fine).

If your the kind of person who brings mouses all over different computers and hate installing drivers, the Logitech Set Point drivers allow you to save 3 profiles onto the mouse, loading everything and all the information it needs on the mouse, so all your customized settings (color, binds, speed) carry over to any computer via USB cable.

Extra features

This mouse shares the same microgearing scroll wheel as debuted in the MX Revolution where the mousewheel can spin on its own with little friction so you could fly through 100 pages of documents in seconds.  I find this quite handy when surfing those long pages on the web.  But in-game, I need the gearing feedback to quickly switch weapons so I click the gears in for that purpose.

There isn’t extra buttons as some of those crazy mouses you might see.  It’s really a simple mouse with a left, right, center, scrollwheel, forward, back, and DPI level buttons.  I personally don’t use any mouse binds for games so it was not a problem for me.

The G9 also comes with user swappable weights (must take off the grip to access the weight drawer).  The weights come in a nice tin can in a set of 4 4 grams and 4 7 grams.  Because I personally don’t like very light mice, I opted for all 4 7 grams, equaling to 28 grams extra weight.

One thing to mention that is new in the G9 is 1000 reports rate a second.  Although I can sense little to no difference from 500 reports rate to 1000 reports rate, 1000 reports rate utilized too much CPU power, so I opted for 500 reports rate a second.

Conclusion

This mouse is a definately must have for hardcore gamers who like portability, comfort, and speed.  Although there have been some issues with these mice, Logitech has been pumping out a newer version of the G9 mouse, dubbed the G9x for the same price.  The G9x just fixes some minor bugs that some G9 mouses have, and includes an even higher lightening fast 5000 dpi setting (up from 3200 dpi).  But be sure to search around online retailers as the G9 can be found for under retail ($99).

Photos below (Click to enlarge)