An outstanding mouse!!! (Logitech MX 518 Optical Gaming Mouse)

Member Name: valve90210

Product:	Logitech MX 518 Optical Gaming Mouse
Date:	01/10/08 (162 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything, responsive, comfortable, well built, well featured, everything!!!

Disadvantages: Nothing at all.

When I got my first PC back in the mists of time, it was in the days just before scroll wheel mice were becoming common. The mouse I had was a bog standard Microsoft 2 button ball mouse (no optical mice back then), and it did me fine, that was until I tried a mouse with a scroll wheel at university. it was a revelation, no more having to click on scroll bars and drag things about in what always seemed like a very unresponsive and annoying way. I had to have one.

Being fairly skint at the the time I was a bit limited and eventually plumped for what was essentially the same bog standard microsoft mouse I had but with a scroll wheel. For such a minor addition, it really made a huge difference.

Fast forward a few years and I get a new computer at work, with a new mouse too. This time it was a Logitech optical one. I was truely asstounded by the difference from the Microsoft mouse I had been using before. The new optical format worked so much more smoothly than the ball. Along with this, the mouse was smaller and much better shaped to fit comfortably in the hand. It was a real pleasure to use. From that day on I have stuck with Logitech for my mice and I have never been let down.

My next huge leap was to a wireless mouse with extra buttons, most of which I never used but down by my thumb, in the newly sculpture alcove for my thumb to comfortably sit, there were two buttons with arrows. At first I was unsure of them, then I discovered how amazing they were were it came to browsing the internet, and for working in windows explorer. No more did I have to move the pointer to the back button and click, now I could just move my thumb a little and press. I know it sounds like such a minor thing but the difference it made was huge. The mouse itself was even more comfortable to hold than my previous one, being sculpted to fit nicely in the hand with an alcove for my thumb and perfectly placed buttons. Logitech had once again proved themselves to me.

For the last month or so my mouse at home (my old optical Logitech from work) had been playing up, the left mouse button was sticking, meaning you'd often find you were unable to click anything. Working a lot in Photoshop and Quark, and browsing the internet an awful lot, it was driving me completely mad. I needed an upgrade!

Being very happy with Logitech mice, I took a look at their range, and found a few options. I didn't want a wireless mouse as I didn't want yet another item that needed batteries or a charger and I've always been perfectly happy with wired mice anyway. After reading reviews and users opinions, I decided upon the MX 518 Optical Gaming Mouse. I found it at a good price and with free delivery so I was very happy. A couple of days later it arrived.

The packaing was simple and and easy to get into. In the package came the mouse, and a drivers disk. Although this is a USB mouse, I have used a USB to PS2 adapter to plug it in as I am rather lacking in spare USB slots at the moment. I plugged it in and it worked perfectly straight away. The pointer responds quickly and accurately, the main buttons have a nice clicking action on them, not so easy to click that you'll end up constantly accidentally clicking, yet you don't need to press too firmly, it really couldn't be better. The wire is one of those anti tangle leads, which is a good length and seems to stay nicely untangled at all times meaning no annoyances of moving the mouse to find there is no slack in the lead.

The mouse itself is much the same shape as the one I have been using at work for the last four years or so, nicely sculpted to fit the hand. on the left is an alcove for your thumb to sit in very naturally, above this are the now beloved back and forward buttons. On the right there is another alcove, this time for the fingers, allowing a nice natural hand shape while facilitating an easy gripe of the mouse.The sides of the mouse are lightly rubberised to provide extra grip and comfort while the top section of the mouse is (as you can see in the picture) a cool metallic effect plastic, this feels nice against your hand and keeps it quite cool and seems to minimise sweaty palms. The scroll wheel is also rubberised and scrolls easily. It scrolls in steps as many other mice do, which is often seen as being very important by gamers as it's nice and easy to know exactly how far you're scrolling without looking, perfect for selecting the right weapon in a first person shooter etc! All in all a very comfortable experience.

Along with the standard left and right buttons, and the back and forward buttons I have mentioned. There are three other buttons. One in front of, and two behind the scroll wheel. The buttons directly infront and behind the scroll wheel alter the resolution of the mouse which affects the sensitivity. the built in settings are basically, High, Medium and Low. The main use of these different modes will be for gamers, though to an extent they will be useful for image editors etc too.

Imagine you are playing a shooting game and you need to be able to move your aim about quickly, the high sensitivity mode is great for this as the pointer moves about nice and quickly getting you looking where you need to as quickly as possible. However, if you pick up a sniper rifle and you need to zoom right in to see your target, any slight movement of a very sensitive mouse will have the sniper scope swaying all over the place, costing you vital seconds as you try to find your target again. With this mouse, a quick couple of presses of a handily placed button will put you into Low sensitivity mode and it will take a lot more mouse movement to move your scope about, making sniping very much more effective. Drop the scope, two button presses, you're back to high sensitivity and fast moving again, it really
couldn't be more simple or more effective!

The last button is an application swap button which, once you have installed the Logitech driver software, you can click to easily change between open applications. Personally I don't use this button as if I have several applications open it will generally be when I am working and as such using Photoshop and Quark all the time, one hand will be on the keyboard and can easily alt-tab between applications anyway.

I have not installed the driver software as the mouse did everything I wanted it to from the moment I plugged it in, inlcuding the different sensitivity settings which are hard programmed into the mouse, so I can't tell you anything about the programming options for it etc but they are apparently quite comprehensive and effective. Maybe I'll give them a whirl at some point and update my review, who knows.

My conclusion, this is a superb mouse, which is very comfortable to use, very accurate, precise and responsive, feels very well built and has all the functions you could want, Logitech, you have once again proved to me that you really do know how to make a wonderful mouse and one that doesn't even cost a fortune like some of the other gaming mice out there. I managed to pick mine up for just under £20 pounds as it was on offer but I think generally it the mouse is about £30 or so. Very much recommended!!!

Summary: If you need a new mouse, then don't hesitate, this is a great one!!!

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