Whatever you think about the latest generation of console wars, there’s an equally aggressive community of PC gamers who rely on their equipment. Standard keyboards and mice just aren’t going to cut it when a winning strategy takes time critical keyboard combinations and macro commands to be executed in nanoseconds. With this in mind, I’ve been putting Logitech’s new gaming peripherals through their paces.
Logitech G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
The Mechanical keys of the G710+ have been tested for extreme durability and are estimated to be good for more than 50 million presses. Basically you won’t be wearing them out any time soon. Personally I do prefer a lower profile key to glide between them while typing, but during gameplay there’s less movement around the keyboard and a much bigger focus on dedicated areas like WASD.
Logitech understand a gamer’s needs and have configurable lighting, much more than simply on and off, they have brightness levels as well as independent lighting controls for those all important WASD keys.
I mentioned before how critical those combination moves were in the heat of the battle and the 6 keys on the extreme left of the keyboard are available for you to customise the hell out of. Using Logitech’s gaming configuration software, you can set it up not only for your preference, but your preference per application. This means you could configure it to change your weapon load out in COD, while changing your workspace in Photoshop.
If you’re like me, you’ll have Spotify playing during a gaming session, which makes the media controls on the top-right a welcome inclusion, especially the volume wheel. Overall this keyboard means business, and if you ever have a break-in, it’s solid construction would double as a weapon to fend off intruders.
If I had a single complaint about the keyboard it’d be the noise of the keys. Despite the feature sheet listing ‘whisper-quiet’ keys, they make considerable more noise than my laptop keyboard, but compared to other gaming keyboards, I guess they’re on-par. The USB pass-through was a feature I loved, so much so that it should be a feature on all keyboards. This brings phone charging or headphone connections right to a convenient point that’s in-reach and easily changed.
G700s Wireless Gaming Mouse
Most mouse scroll wheels are typically set at a single rate but the G700s features dual-mode scrolling. This makes switching between precision weapon switching in-game and fast smooth scrolling seriously easy to do, just click the scroll button on top of the mouse to toggle. In free-spinning mode, long web pages become much more manageable with a quick flick scroll wheel.
The mouse comes with a rechargeable NiMH battery for easy recharging which is done via a micro-USB cable that connects to the front of the mouse. When it comes to the internals of the mouse, it has a really neat trick, internal profile storage. This means when you configure all 13 buttons, you can take your setup with you when moving between machines. It also understands that PCs have more than 1 user and can hold up to 3 individual profiles.
I testing the mouse on a Ergontron desk which holds a surface that does cause issues in tracking with some basic mice. The G700s was awesome on any surface I tried, actually it never missed a beat across wood, metal, paper and basically anything I could find. This tracking was made even better when you play with up to 10 DPI settings. From precise 200 DPI navigating, to lightning-fast maneuvers (up to 8,200 DPI) can be quick switched conveniently with a button located behind the scroll wheel.
Overall the mouse glides effortless over any surface and has more customisation than you could ever want. It feels good in the hand, well weighted, although not weight-adjustable. With 13 buttons, on-board profiles, 4-way scrolling and battery indicator, Logitech have created a mouse that should be in the right-hand of any serious gamer.
This is a sponsored post but opinions are my own.
