Logitech’s $80 supercapacitor gaming mouse is essentially the most versatile it’s ever made

I haven’t thought of charging my Logitech wi-fi gaming mouse in two and a half years, as a result of I’ve a magic mousepad that does it routinely. However Logitech mice that work with the Powerplay mousepad are costly, heavy, or each, and none of them double as a Bluetooth mouse so I can wirelessly pair them to my laptop computer, handheld, or cellphone.

Immediately, Logitech is altering that with the Logitech G309, an $80 mouse that nearly does all of it. It’s the primary Powerplay mouse this cheap, the primary with Bluetooth, the primary that permits you to use a AA battery once you’re on the go — and the primary Logitech wi-fi mouse with a supercapacitor inside so that you don’t essentially want a battery in any respect.

Even with out Powerplay, the G309 is a dual-mode wi-fi gaming mouse that guarantees as much as 300 hours of battery life utilizing its Lightspeed wi-fi dongle, or as much as 600 hours over Bluetooth, whilst you’re slinging round its 86-gram body.

However in the event you’ve obtained that $120 Powerplay pad, you may take away the AA battery to achieve a complete mouse weight of simply 68 grams, practically as mild because the 60-gram, $160 Logitech G Professional X Superlight 2 that gave me severe mouse envy final yr. It’s doable as a result of the supercapacitor acts as a tiny battery always being wirelessly charged by the Powerplay mousepad beneath. “It’s by no means going to die in any respect; it’s infinite battery life,” guarantees Logitech senior world product supervisor Nicolas Métral.

It’s not the primary wi-fi gaming mouse to check the waters with a supercapacitor — however when Mad Catz and Razer tried that in 2018, these dear wi-fi energy mice didn’t have some other method to cost. You had to make use of them on their bundled pad or with a wired twine. Till now, Logitech’s used inside rechargeable lithium cells to allow you to make its Powerplay mice considerably transportable; right here, a AA battery picks up the slack.

Regardless of being on the price range finish of Logitech’s gaming mice, the G309 additionally has the identical Hero 25K sensor and hybrid optomechanical switches the corporate’s been delivery in premium mice for some time, each of which could be welcome upgrades over the $60 G305 mouse it’s based mostly upon.

However it’s nonetheless lacking the one Logitech mouse characteristic I’d have a tough time doing with out — the corporate’s dual-mode ratcheting/free spinning scroll wheel that I’m always utilizing to zip by paperwork and webpages once I’m utilizing my gaming mouse for work. Amongst gaming mice, that’s nonetheless unique to its G502 and G903 from what I can inform.

And, it’s a little bit of a disgrace Logitech nonetheless sells its Powerplay mousepad for $120 with solely the rarest and smallest of reductions. If the corporate actually needs to meet the G309’s promise of “Wi-fi Play for All” — that’s Logitech’s tagline — I’d advocate making the entire bundle extra inexpensive.

Logitech says it can hold promoting the G305 alongside the G309. The G309 also can share a single Lightspeed wi-fi dongle with a bunch of Logitech’s wi-fi keyboards, together with the brand new G515 TKL, G715, G915, G915 TKL, Professional X 60, and Professional X TKL.