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

By wazup on July 9, 2024 Comments Closed / 45 views

AA and magnetic charging, Lightspeed and Bluetooth, lightweight and ultralight.

By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

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I haven’t thought about charging my Logitech wireless gaming mouse in two and a half years, because I have a magic mousepad that does it automatically. But Logitech mice that work with the Powerplay mousepad are expensive, heavy, or both, and none of them double as a Bluetooth mouse so I can wirelessly pair them to my laptop, handheld, or phone.

Today, Logitech is changing that with the Logitech G309, an $80 mouse that almost does it all. It’s the first Powerplay mouse this inexpensive, the first with Bluetooth, the first that lets you use a AA battery when you’re on the go — and the first Logitech wireless mouse with a supercapacitor inside so you don’t necessarily need a battery at all.

Even without Powerplay, the G309 is a dual-mode wireless gaming mouse that promises up to 300 hours of battery life using its Lightspeed wireless dongle, or up to 600 hours over Bluetooth, while you’re slinging around its 86-gram frame.

But if you’ve got that $120 Powerplay pad, you can remove the AA battery to reach a total mouse weight of just 68 grams, nearly as light as the 60-gram, $160 Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 that gave me serious mouse envy last year. It’s possible because the supercapacitor acts as a tiny battery constantly being wirelessly charged by the Powerplay mousepad underneath. “It’s never going to die at all; it’s endless battery life,” promises Logitech senior global product manager Nicolas Métral.

It’s not the first wireless gaming mouse to test the waters with a supercapacitor — but when Mad Catz and Razer tried that in 2018, those pricey wireless power mice didn’t have any other way to charge. You had to use them on their bundled pad or with a wired cord. Until now, Logitech’s used internal rechargeable lithium cells to let you make its Powerplay mice somewhat portable; here, a AA battery picks up the slack.

Despite being on the budget end of Logitech’s gaming mice, the G309 also has the same Hero 25K sensor and hybrid optomechanical switches the company’s been shipping in premium mice for a while, both of which might be welcome upgrades over the $60 G305 mouse it’s based upon.

But it’s still missing the one Logitech mouse feature I’d have a hard time doing without — the company’s dual-mode ratcheting/free spinning scroll wheel that I’m constantly using to zip through documents and webpages when I’m using my gaming mouse for work. Among gaming mice, that’s still exclusive to its G502 and G903 from what I can tell.

And, it’s a bit of a shame Logitech still sells its Powerplay mousepad for $120 with only the rarest and smallest of discounts. If the company really wants to fulfill the G309’s promise of “Wireless Play for All” — that’s Logitech’s tagline — I’d recommend making the complete package more affordable.

Logitech says it will keep selling the G305 alongside the G309. The G309 can also share a single Lightspeed wireless dongle with a bunch of Logitech’s wireless keyboards, including the new G515 TKL, G715, G915, G915 TKL, Pro X 60, and Pro X TKL.