I tried 4 different gaming mice. Only one was worth keeping

I always thought picking the best gaming mouse for myself sounded simple enough. I’ve spent hours poring over graphics cards or processors, but mice? Not really. I always treated them as a straightforward pick and never spent too much time reading reviews. It helps that in the games that I play, even an average mouse can do just fine.

Or so I thought.

It was only once I got a high-end mouse suited to my needs that I realized what I’d been missing out on. Below, I’ll walk you through the three most recent mice I had to buy, why I no longer use them, and finally, the one mouse that has stuck around for the long haul.

Logitech G703 Lightspeed

Out of the first three mice on this list, two of them broke within a few months. The Logitech G703 was the first one to go, and it failed me in two ways — but before we got to that point, it was probably my favorite out of the three.

The Logitech G703 Lightspeed is a wireless gaming mouse. It has a sleek design, but it’s fairly big, with some minor RGB lighting to add extra bling (and eat up your battery life). I use a palm grip and I found it comfortable, especially once I removed the extra weight that it comes with — I prefer a lighter mouse (which is funny, considering the mouse I ultimately ended up with is really heavy). It comes with a charging cable, and the battery life was perfectly adequate at first, but understandably, it deteriorated over time. I ended up charging it once every couple of days shortly before replacing it.

In terms of other specs, it has a maximum sensitivity of 25,600 dots per inch (DPI), an acceleration of 40 grams, and a polling rate of 1,000Hz. At that point, it was probably the fastest gaming mouse I’ve ever owned, and I loved most things about it. The only thing I missed from previous mice was the ability to configure the scroll wheel; this one only comes with a single configuration, with no free scroll option, which is nice to have.

I bought this mouse without reading up on it too much because it was recommended to me. After all, if a friend of mine managed to use it for two years without failure, then surely it’d serve me well, right?

It didn’t, or at least not for long.

Just a few months after I bought it — between seven to nine — I’d started noticing an issue that, while annoying in any situation, was a deal-breaker in games: Dead clicks. At first, I thought that it was just me, but testing various angles showed that a certain part of the left mouse button simply wasn’t registering inputs. I assume the switch must have been faulty, as I can’t believe that I broke it in such a short time.

Looking through Reddit tells me that it’s a fairly common problem with this particular mouse, although reportedly, Logitech replaces the faulty mice without much hassle.

Once the dead clicks got too bothersome, I decided to cut my losses and moved on to my next mouse. Perhaps I should’ve gone through the process of returning this one, but I bought it on sale and would have to go through Logitech, so I left it for later and never got around to it before the warranty expired.

Razer Orochi V2

The Razer Orochi V2 is a lightweight wireless gaming mouse. It’s suitable for various grip types, and I found it to be a good fit for a small hand. It’s pretty bare-bones, with no special bells and whistles, but that was mostly what I thought I wanted from a gaming mouse.

It comes with a much more modest DPI than the mouse above, topping out at 18,000, and a maximum polling rate of 1,000Hz. Honestly, I found it to be perfectly adequate for my needs. I loved how lightweight it was, and it was super responsive — but there were a couple of things I disliked from the get-go.

For starters, having to use batteries. I’m not a fan of batteries in peripherals for any number of reasons, from unnecessary electronic waste to having to constantly spend money on them and running out at the worst possible time. Give me a charging cable any day of the week.

Another thing is that I disliked how using this mouse felt. The clicks feel sort of stiff, and although the mouse is very responsive, it still felt odd compared to the Logitech I’d used before. Still, I liked it more than I disliked it, and I would’ve stuck to it if it didn’t fail on me.

I bought this one on a whim. The $50 price tag felt like a sweet spot between “expensive” and “likely to break within a week.” I’ve owned Razer products before and found them to be rather durable — my keyboard is still going strong three years later (and trust me, I use it a lot), and an old Razer headset I used to own survived for well over six years, although the sound quality was always pretty average. What could go wrong?

Well, unfortunately, something did go wrong. The mouse started registering left clicks twice instead of once. I was double-clicking all over the place, which quickly became a massive nuisance not just during games, but also during day-to-day work.

In a hurry to get a mouse that actually worked, I bought my next pick.

Logitech G305 Lightspeed

This mouse was also a spur-of-the-moment purchase based on two criteria: next-day delivery and its looks. Yes, I like colorful peripherals, and no, I’m not in the least bit ashamed of it.

I never expected miracles. The G305 Lightspeed is a $30 wireless mouse that’s aimed at portable gaming. Much like the Orochi V2, I thought this one was well-suited to my grip style — in fact, I think the shape would make it comfortable for every grip type, although I’m not sure about how nice it would feel to use with larger hands.

The 12,000 DPI is unimpressive compared to my previous two mice, but it has a good click latency, and the DPI can be configured with a high degree of precision. I also liked that it had six programmable buttons.

On the other hand, the Logitech G305 Lightspeed was notably heavier than the Orochi V2, and having just ditched the Razer mouse, I definitely felt it as I switched back to Logitech. In addition, I still had the same problem of not liking having to use batteries. Those two complaints aside, I was honestly quite happy with the G305.

The best part? Although the most affordable out of all three, this mouse didn’t fail on me. I’ve used it for about a year with no issues, and the only reason I finally decided to swap was that I wanted more out of a gaming mouse.

This brings me to my current daily driver: The Razer Naga V2 Pro.

Not bad, but I found better

I’m don’t consider myself to be a “hardcore gamer” in the conventional sense. Don’t get me wrong — I play a lot, but hardly ever do I play titles that rely heavily on a speedy mouse. But I do use my mouse a lot more than the average person probably does. I don’t just work at the same PC all day long, but then I often also spend time gaming once the workday is done on that same PC. As a result, my main criteria for mice in the past was that they either had to be affordable enough to frequently replace or sturdy enough to last me a long time.

It was only this year that I decided I wanted to get more out of my mouse. I didn’t want to just keep buying the first mouse I came across on a whim; I wanted to make an informed decision the same way I do with every other peripheral or component in my PC.

I also thought a bit more about the types of things I used my mouse for. I’m never going to play first-person shooters; it’s not just that I’m hopeless at them (although I am), but also that I don’t enjoy them. I’m also not too big on games like League of Legends. I primarily play MMOs, RPGs, and roguelikes. Considering that I sink hours into MMOs every single week, shopping for a mouse suited for that type of gameplay made sense.

That’s how I came across the Razer Naga V2 Pro — a mouse with up to 20 programmable buttons. Expensive, heavy, big, and intimidating, this mouse didn’t seem like an obvious choice for me, but I had my eyes on the Razer Naga series ever since it first came out in 2009, so I felt tempted. Dozens of reviews and Reddit threads later, I splurged and bought it.

I can’t say that I didn’t regret my decision at first, mainly because this mouse is a chore to set up and it weighs a ton. But now, almost two months later, I finally see the difference between using a random mouse and buying one that truly suits your needs. This was an expensive lesson to learn, what with the three (or more) gaming mice I tried at first, but I’m glad that I went the extra mile here.

There’s no such thing as an inconsequential purchase when it comes to things you use every day. If you’re in the same boat as me, I recommend doing what I did — reading reviews from trustworthy sources and taking a little time to make your choice. Spur-of-the-moment decisions are often just not worth it.