[review] Logitech G9x
Posted: 06 Mar 2014, 23:51
G9x used to be a Logitech's flagship for a while... actually, until it was discontinued; now there's only the G700(s). Being a flagship model, it was horribly overpriced, but nowadays you can find NIB or slightly used ones at decent prices. In fact, I'm writing this, because I've just sold mine and it's still one of the very few wide claw-grip mice.
Build quality
G9x has the typical Logitech plastic surface that resembles somewhat smooth, but matte metal. It's very resistant to sweat, in my experience. I've had M500, G300 and several trackmen with this kind of finish and it's about the same everywhere.
The mouse shell is well built, but if you put an "extension shell" (or whatever it's called) on it, it's not that great; for example, you can accidentally press side buttons by just holding the mouse tightly. Those shells have different surfaces than the mouse itself. Comfort grip is much smoother and feels sort of greasy IMO; Precision grip resembles a sand paper, which is quite nice—Roccat Savu is somewhat similar.
surface of the Precision grip and sidegrips on Roccat Savu
Quality of buttons is overall questionable. Two primary buttons are ordinary omrons and they're often reported to die/doubleclick after only several months of use. Moreover, both thumb buttons, both extra buttons on top and even the wheel are just extensions of cheap rubber switches in actuality. They feel mushy and can't be replaced. The four-direction wheel is too stiff to press, thus accidental scrolling to sides may happen. OTOH wheel scrolling is nice—there are two modes (smooth hyperscrolling and ordinary stepped) switched by a button on the bottom and both feel quite good. Sound isn't that great though; when scrolling up in the stepped mode, it clicks silently, which is fine, but it's quite loud and unstable, when scrolling down.
Finally, the cable. It's braided and has too much resistance in my experience. Much more than e.g. Roccat Savu.
Grip
Without any extension shell, G9x is a decent narrow, a bit blocky fingertip-grip mouse. However, thumb buttons are essentially unusable then.
With either shell, it's wide enough for three fingers on top, the thumb can comfortably rest on the left size and pinkie sort of fits on the right side, although there's no rest for it. This way, you get a very comfy claw grip or even half-palm-grip mouse. Supposedly, there used to be an aftermarket extension shell for palm grip, but I've never had a chance to try it.
Thanks to the sophisticated angular shape, G9x is easy to pick up... in theory. In practice, it's quite heavy and noticeably heavier in the front. You can make it almost even by putting supplied weights inside the back of the mouse, but then it's even heavier, obviously. BTW sensor's LOD is sort of average, not too high, nor very low.
bare G9x compared to Roccat Savu
G9x w/ Precision grip compared to Roccat Savu
Compared to the other popular wide claw-grip mouse, CM Storm Xornet/Spawn, G9x feels a bit higher and not so flat (although it doesn't look like that), but it doesn't fit that well in my hand, due to pronounced edges..
G9x w/ Precision grip compared to CM Storm Xornet
Sensor
The sensor is an off-center laser one (Avago S9500) with very apparent negative acceleration. It supports up to 5700 cpi or something like that, but I've never been able to use it at any setting close to that, although I prefer rather high sensitivity.
Profiles
G9x has an on-board memory that can store five profiles, each consisting of
The mouse is configured through LGS, which is unfortunately bloatware. It has a completely non-standard, counterintuitive user interface full off slow animations. It can do some software-level remapping as well, with preset macros for specific games, but I suppose I can do the same in AHK, HID Macros or something like that.
I never really used the hardware button remapping either. It can do the obvious change of mouse actions, then some keyboard shortcuts and finally macros. That's great, right? Actually, I miss Roccat's EasyShift (basically a hardware modifier similar to the Fn key layer on some laptops) too much and extra buttons and wheel switch are poor quality, as I've mentioned before.
BTW the mouse works out of the box on GNU/Linux, but LGS doesn't, hence you'd need to setup the profiles on MS Windows.
Conclusion
I hope Logitech will release an update (G900s?) and fix the obvious issues, such as cheap, mushy buttons, stiff wheel and gimmicky laser sensor (okay, this isn't too realistic). I doubt they'd do something like Roccat though, i.e. open-source Linux drivers.
If you don't mind any of that, G9x is getting relatively cheap (I've seen NIB ones appear priced around €30) and it has quite an unique shape, which is the most important thing about a mouse IMHO.
Otherwise, there's always the CM Storm Xornet/Spawn.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Build quality
G9x has the typical Logitech plastic surface that resembles somewhat smooth, but matte metal. It's very resistant to sweat, in my experience. I've had M500, G300 and several trackmen with this kind of finish and it's about the same everywhere.
The mouse shell is well built, but if you put an "extension shell" (or whatever it's called) on it, it's not that great; for example, you can accidentally press side buttons by just holding the mouse tightly. Those shells have different surfaces than the mouse itself. Comfort grip is much smoother and feels sort of greasy IMO; Precision grip resembles a sand paper, which is quite nice—Roccat Savu is somewhat similar.
surface of the Precision grip and sidegrips on Roccat Savu
Spoiler:
Finally, the cable. It's braided and has too much resistance in my experience. Much more than e.g. Roccat Savu.
Grip
Without any extension shell, G9x is a decent narrow, a bit blocky fingertip-grip mouse. However, thumb buttons are essentially unusable then.
With either shell, it's wide enough for three fingers on top, the thumb can comfortably rest on the left size and pinkie sort of fits on the right side, although there's no rest for it. This way, you get a very comfy claw grip or even half-palm-grip mouse. Supposedly, there used to be an aftermarket extension shell for palm grip, but I've never had a chance to try it.
Thanks to the sophisticated angular shape, G9x is easy to pick up... in theory. In practice, it's quite heavy and noticeably heavier in the front. You can make it almost even by putting supplied weights inside the back of the mouse, but then it's even heavier, obviously. BTW sensor's LOD is sort of average, not too high, nor very low.
bare G9x compared to Roccat Savu
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
G9x w/ Precision grip compared to CM Storm Xornet
Spoiler:
The sensor is an off-center laser one (Avago S9500) with very apparent negative acceleration. It supports up to 5700 cpi or something like that, but I've never been able to use it at any setting close to that, although I prefer rather high sensitivity.
Profiles
G9x has an on-board memory that can store five profiles, each consisting of
- color of LEDs on top,
- five cpi settings,
- actions assigned to buttons.
The mouse is configured through LGS, which is unfortunately bloatware. It has a completely non-standard, counterintuitive user interface full off slow animations. It can do some software-level remapping as well, with preset macros for specific games, but I suppose I can do the same in AHK, HID Macros or something like that.
I never really used the hardware button remapping either. It can do the obvious change of mouse actions, then some keyboard shortcuts and finally macros. That's great, right? Actually, I miss Roccat's EasyShift (basically a hardware modifier similar to the Fn key layer on some laptops) too much and extra buttons and wheel switch are poor quality, as I've mentioned before.
BTW the mouse works out of the box on GNU/Linux, but LGS doesn't, hence you'd need to setup the profiles on MS Windows.
Conclusion
I hope Logitech will release an update (G900s?) and fix the obvious issues, such as cheap, mushy buttons, stiff wheel and gimmicky laser sensor (okay, this isn't too realistic). I doubt they'd do something like Roccat though, i.e. open-source Linux drivers.
If you don't mind any of that, G9x is getting relatively cheap (I've seen NIB ones appear priced around €30) and it has quite an unique shape, which is the most important thing about a mouse IMHO.
Otherwise, there's always the CM Storm Xornet/Spawn.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
