Logitech Announces The Ambidextrous G900 Chaos Spectrum Gaming Mouse
by Brett Howse on March 24, 2016 3:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Accessories
- Gaming
- Logitech
- Mice
- Logitech G
Today Logitech is announcing the latest in their lineup of gaming mice. The G900 Chaos Spectrum is a wired and wireless mouse, and it is one of the few gaming mice which is ambidextrous. But it’s not just a vanilla mouse which can work in either hand, but instead it’s a mouse that can be customized to fit as either a left-handed or right-handed model.
In addition, the mouse features customizable lighting with up to 16.8 million colors, and you can use the Logitech software to customize the lighting into breathing and other patterns. The software also allows you to calibrate the sensor against the surface you are going to use the mouse on, which should help with responsiveness.
As for the tracking capabilities, the G900 Chaos Spectrum mouse features the same PMW3366 optical sensor that Logitech features in some of their other mice. It offers 200 to 12,000 DPI and features zero smoothing or filtering across the range. Maximum acceleration is greater than 40 Gs and the mouse can handle 300 inches per second of travel speed.
Logitech has designed a mechanical pivot for the buttons, which they state offer a crisp, clean click, and the metal spring tensioning reduces the amount of slack in the system before the buttons hit the actual switches. The buttons are rated for 20 million clicks. As with many of Logitech’s higher end mice, the scroll wheel is the fantastic hyper-fast scroll design. I’ve used a lot of mice, and I keep finding myself migrating back to Logitech for this feature alone.
The mouse is a wireless model, connecting over 2.4 GHz, and it can also be used as a wired mouse by connecting the cable on the front. This lets you charge while still using the mouse (amazingly not all mice do this even today) but either on wired or wireless, the G900 has the same 1000 Hz reporting rate. Logitech has put a lot of effort into power efficiency as well, and the G900 is rated for up to 32 hours of continuous use, or 24 hours with the default lighting enabled. That is impressive because the mouse weighs just 107 grams. If you go back in time to the Logitech G7 wireless gaming mouse, it offered two batteries and you’d be lucky to get through a single day without swapping the battery at least once.
The mouse has dimensions of 130 mm x 67 mm x 40 mm, and while this mouse doesn’t offer the massive button count that some games require, it does offer some unique features that should help set it apart from some of the other Logitech offerings, including the ability to configure the mouse for either left or right-handed grips.
The Logitech G900 Chaos Spectrum gaming mouse will go on sale in April, with a MSRP of $149.99.
Source: Logitech
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DwayneAK - Friday, March 25, 2016 - link
As part of the left-handed community, it's nice to see Logitech is keeping us in mind...just kidding, I've been using mouses right-handed since I first used a computer. I seriously don't get why people insist on ambidextrous mouses and joysticks and whatnot. It's not like being left-handed magically makes your right hand go all claw-like or something. I'm willing to bet the only people who use these products are those people who want to feel like special snowflakes.Murloc - Friday, March 25, 2016 - link
I know somebody who does, his grandpa used the mouse with the left hand and he learned that way.I'm left-handed but I've always used the mouse right-handed for obvious practical reasons. I still do decent at FPSs.
It's weird that this does not translate to other things like brushing teeth.
PubFiction - Tuesday, March 29, 2016 - link
I am right handed but in gaming which this mouse is designed for accuracy is incredibly important why on earth would you want to use a hand that is most likely less accurate? Its like driving you can learn to do it with the other hand but you will never be as good and lefties get in more accidents because of this. In gaming if you are left handed and use a right handed mouse or use your right hand you are probably going to get fragged more than if you had used the correct hand.On a side not the $150 MSRP is getting ridiculous.
Visual - Monday, March 28, 2016 - link
Nice ad. You had me convinced, until you mentioned the battery life. How can it be so bad? Real wireless mice do fine for months on a pair of AA batteries. The charging cable does somewhat compensate, but still this difference is so tremendous... It doesn't make sense at all why would anyone make such a pathetic product, or why anyone would want it.nikon133 - Monday, March 28, 2016 - link
Pity Logitech does not offer any other ambidextrous gaming mouse in current range. They used to have one in lower price range, which was perfect for me... I'm casual gamer, spending too much on mouse feels a bit wasteful.My current CM Storm Recon has a strange "feature" - every now and then, it does not work on computer's boot; has to be unplugged and replugged. It does not happen often - once in a month or two? - and it works fine once detected, but it is still a bit annoying. I've replaced mobo and did clean Win 10 install (instead of upgrading from 8.1) so I'm pretty sure it is mouse... and it has been doing that since day one, available driver/firmware updates didn't improve it. I had Logitech mice before, usually entry level gaming, and they all behaved nice.
Anyone tried Roccat Kova? Ambi, reasonably priced, has additional buttons (beside thumb buttons). Don't have any experience with the brand, tho...
itechjp - Tuesday, April 5, 2016 - link
RGB each channel with 8 bit, 0 to 2^8 = 0 to 255. The total number of RGB color combination is 256^3 = 16,777,216 colors = 16.8 M colorsBut the main concern is not about the number of colors but the gamma curve Logitech are doing is probably linear. Notice if you tweak the RGB values = 128, it's not suppose to return half the luminance. In gamma domain, half luminance should be (1/2)^(1/2.2)*255 = 186.
My Logitech G910 Orion Spark keyboard RGB colors aren't accurate but again, it's just an approximation, not true display for color accuracy, so I would think if you want a gamma tuned RGB mouse/keyboard, expect they cost more and pretty much pointless.
itechjp - Tuesday, April 5, 2016 - link
Correction. 8bit is 0 to 2^7 = 0 to 255.A gamma curve was used back in the old days of cathode ray tubes where the luminance analog signal is non-linear, y = x^2.2. This has become today's standard color display luminance. That's why when you convert from linear domain to luminance, the RGB value has to do the following:
rR^2.2, gG^2.2, bB^2.2
where r, g, b are the luminance gain of R, G, B respectively.
To convert back to the actual RGB value, do an inverse gamma as the following:
r^(1/2.2)R, g^(1/2.2)G, b^(1/2.2)*B.
Hopefully this can clarify what's RGB and 16.8M colors as well as color accurancy.