Logitech G502 review

Sadistic_Potato · April 16, 2015

Hey LTT, this is my first review so please be nice to me if I do things that you really shouldn't do on an online review. Like forgetting to take pictures.

The mouse just arrived this morning, and considering I've been waiting for it for quite a while now I thought that it could deserve a review.

Packaging:

TL;DR: It's packaged with a magnetic cover and some blue/clear plastic covering around the mouse, with manuals and weight box. Pretty standard and pretty good.

Logitech packaged this quite nicely. The front as a cool looking diagram thing of the mouse, and the back has the actual details of the mouse and some annotations. The front cover opens to show the mouse, although you need to get it out from the top. There's a little watch battery thing on the plastic, but that's actually a magnet that holds down the magnetic cover. The external plastic is blue, and then there's your typical packing plastic that's really easy to cut yourself on, so watch out for that. Overall pretty standard, yet well-designed packaging.

Manuals:

TL;DR: Says to download everything online, with a compulsory safety information guideline.

There's two pieces of paper. One's something that says the guide is online, and the other is safety info. The online manual's OK at first sight, but then you will soon find the guide for the Logitech Gaming Software which really contains how to navigate around the software in order to customise the mouse.

Software:

TL;DR: wish it had more features, especially with macros, but easy enough to navigate.

After downloading and installing, I immediately opened it up. The home menu shows to choose between "On-board memory" and "Automatic Game Detection." I bought this for Adobe/Autodesk work and have no games so not sure how the latter works, but to customise the macros it seems like you have to choose the former. It then brings you to a nice menu with a labelled 3D model of the G502. You can customise every button except the middle-mouse scrolling. I don't care for that, but this may upset some people. The menus are easy to navigate, pretty self-explanatory stuff, but I really wish there were more preset functions to the macros, and the macro recording needs to be able to record mouse clicks without having to manually input it in through the software. Also, crashed once after install, but after some updates seems pretty stable.

The Mouse:

TL;DR: Good for anyone that uses claw grip, good for fingertip grip uses that don't have massive hands, and don't buy it if you palm grip and you have big hands. Basically a claw gripper's mouse. G-Keys are well positioned and easy to use. Sensor is very accurate and there's no acceleration. Scroll wheel is nice and chunky with a little weight that I like. Feet are a dust magnet. Still overall a well-built and fantastic mouse.

Here's the main thing. My mouse arrived free of any damages.

I'm sure you've all seen pictures of the mouse so I won't really comment on that except that I wish the blue thumb rest grip was black and wish that the "G" LED could be RGB for those that want this mouse to fit their PC's colour scheme. I still like it though.

The mouse is not very large. I'll compare it to the G9 I tried in my friend's house. The mouse is slightly longer, slimmer, and taller compared to the G9 and probably the G9X. I love the mouse for my personal claw/fingertip grip thing, and reviews show that this is a mouse for claw grippers and not so much for palm grippers. The rubbered coating on the body is fairly grippy, although the pinky support could be better. I sweat a lot on my hands and unfortunately the rubber coating does not help with that. However, not a big deal for me as I don't game and I can just wipe it off and continue on. The problem isn't so severe that it sweats the hand every few minutes, but after a few hours the sweat is there.

The G-Keys are the main reason I bought this, to be used as shortcuts in various design programs. They're positioned very nicely. There's three on the left side, two next to the left-click, and one in the middle. I use the middle-mouse button as three further macros as I don't need side scroll nor middle-mouse click. Once programmed, it takes a little while for your brain to adjust to using the macros, but once you do there's no going back. It saves so much time in Maya not having to navigate through all the plethora of menus to access that one action that I use all the time, and not having to go mouse -> keyboard -> mouse -> keyboard all the time while just using the computer casually. The DPI shift buttons might get in the way of some people with very large hands, but for most people it should be fine.

The weight of the mouse is on the heavy side for gaming mice, but for me it's perfect. It weights in at a 168g (mouse + very long cable), and comes with six 3.6g adjustable weights that you can fit into a hexagon-shaped compartment under the mouse if you would like. This differs from person to person so you can come up with your own conclusion on that.

The scroll wheel seemed to grab up some complaints. It's made of a cool metal, that has side scrolls to both sides. As with all high-end Logitech mice, it has two modes. One is the standard mode, and the other is a free-scroll, where whatever that provides resistance is gone and it just spins with no resistance at all. Great for reddit and probably long excel files. The problem with people is that they say that the wheel is too slippery and/or too heavy. Again, this is personal preference, make up your own mind. I do think that in normal mode the wheel is heavier than any mouse I've used (it doesn't take a ridiculous amount of effort, just that it's weighty), but I've gotten used to it in a mere few hours, and it really wasn't slippery.

The feet have also seemed to stir up complaints on how it's a dust/sand/grit/grime/whatever magnet. I'll agree with this one. While mine haven't been peeling off, it does seem to attract a fair bit of crap. I regularly have to clean it. The tracking is very smooth, but this is an issue. Thankfully my house doesn't have too much crap in it.

Overall for me, the pros completely overshadows the cons. Great claw-gripper mouse that's very accurate for pro work, with life-easing macros. Very well-built mouse with a great size and comfortable grip.

Regardless of if you only read the TL;DRs or if you read the whole thing, thanks. Please provide suggestions for improvements, and I'll remember to take pictures next time.

CostcoSamples · April 16, 2015

Great review!

I had one for about a week and returned it because I am a fingertip gripper with big hands. It was a bit too small for me. Also, I personally thought the buttons were too sensitive as I would accidentally click occasionally.