I Freakin’ Love the Logitech G603 Wireless Gaming Mouse

Fair warning: This isn’t a review, it’s a love letter. I’m going to use 800 words to shamelessly spill praise on my favorite gaming mouse. Come along and watch, if you’re into that sort of thing.

The Logitech G603 was released in 2017. As a fan of Logitech mice in general and their gaming mice in particular, I snapped it up for myself as an upgrade to the similar G403 Wireless. It hasn’t left my desk since—even when I’m reviewing other mice, I often need to return to my comfort zone for an extended gaming session or distraction-free work. It’s become an essential part of my desk setup, every bit as cherished as my ridiculously-customized mechanical keyboard.

I freakin’ love it.

Looks Can Be Deceiving

The G603 is shaped identically to the older G403, a “shooter” style gaming mouse with a relatively high back, two thumb buttons, and a DPI switch above the scroll wheel. The older design uses a rechargeable battery, RGB LED lights on the scroll wheel and logo, and a small cavity on the bottom of the body where you can add or subtract a little weight.

The G603 does away with all three of those features, with a huge redesign that’s not obvious from the exterior: You can pop open its hood like it’s a little plastic muscle car. Popping it on and off is easy but secure, thanks to a few small, strategically-placed magnets.

Inside you’ll find space for two standard AA batteries instead of a rechargeable battery, and a bay for the USB dongle when you go on the road. Those AA batteries might seem old-fashioned, but in fact, they’re the key to the G603’s genius: It lasts freakin’ forever.

It Keeps Going and Going and Going. . .

How long is the battery life? I honestly couldn’t give you a precise answer. On Amazon-branded rechargeable AAs, I get somewhere between six months and a year of use out of this thing, using the “High” setting on the bottom-mounted switch. It’s presumably the same tech powering Logitech’s “Marathon” branded wireless mice, the M705 and M720. (Which I also love. Platonically.) For a gaming mouse, even one that uses beefy AAs, that’s absolutely insane longevity—even the most long-lasting rechargeable wireless gaming mice get less than a week of battery life, thanks to those crazy high-powered sensors and low-latency connections.

Which is why the battery life on the G603 is astounding. It uses Logitech’s proprietary “Lightspeed” wireless USB connection to make latency more or less undetectable, and it has a 12,000 DPI laser sensor. That’s not the most ridiculous sensor out there, but it’s more than most gamers will ever be able to use effectively. And this thing is basically immortal compared to other wireless gaming mice. Even stripping out the LEDs from more conventional gaming mice, this shouldn’t be possible.

The only downside to this setup is that it’s rather heavy for a gaming mouse at five ounces (141 grams). I don’t mind. What can I say? I like my mice with a little heft—that’s just more of it to love.

Heavy Petting

On top of all that, the G603 is stupendously comfortable. The high back and big, cushy thumb buttons feel perfect to me. It’s simple, maybe a little too simple—I wish it had one more thumb button just for my Overwatch ultimate abilities. But I use Logitech’s PC software to change the DPI switch button for that purpose because I usually stick to one sensor setting for everything and adjust it on a game-by-game level. As a nice bonus, the onboard memory means I can uninstall Logitech’s unwieldy software once I’ve programmed all the settings.

While the G603 doesn’t have the robust multi-device connection options as other mice, its dual Lightspeed and Bluetooth wireless can connect to two machines at once, effectively giving you a “switch computer” button on the bottom. (Note that custom programming can’t be used in Bluetooth mode.) This also makes it at least marginal as a travel mouse, if you’d like to take your gaming on the road.

Worth Every Penny

Logitech’s G703 looks almost identical to the G603, but its wireless charging (when paired with the proprietary PowerPlay mousepad) and RGB lighting mean it costs $30 more. Because the mousepad is $120 and the AA-powered G603 lasts so long I never have to think about it, I can’t recommend it as an upgrade.

After using the G603 nearly every day for a year and a half, the only complaints I have are the aforementioned lack of a third thumb button, and that the “G” logo painted on the hood is a bit worn from thousands of hours of work and play. That’s okay, it just means it’s experienced.

It is, without hyperbole, the best $70 I’ve ever spent on a computer accessory. It’s worth every penny, but you might not even need to spend that much: Like most of Logitech’s mice, it frequently goes on sale, and at the time of writing it’s only $50 on Amazon.