The idea of using a wireless mouse might seem counterintuitive, and I would have agreed, but wireless mice designed for gaming show that you don’t need to rely on a copper connection for snappy shooting in your favorite FPS.
Most Wireless Mice Can Game Just Fine (Sort Of)
I have two mice—one for work and one for gaming. My daily workhorse is the Logitech MX Master 3S, which won our coveted Editor’s Choice award in 2022. As we noted in that review, there’s basically nothing wrong with this Bluetooth mouse, and a lot that’s right. Can you game on it though? The answer is, of course, yes. In fact, when I’m too lazy to dig out my gaming mouse, I simply play using my big comfy ergonomic mouse.
Logitech MX Master 3S
The Logitech MX Master 3S takes a great mouse and makes it even better. Keeping the comfortable form factor that will fit the needs of every user, as long as they’re not left-handed.
A lot depends on what type of game you’re playing. If you’re playing an MMO, a third-person hack-and-slash game, or a casual first-person shooter, then just about any Bluetooth mouse will work just fine. As an average mainstream gamer, I’ve never felt like I was fighting my big fat Cadillac of a Bluetooth mouse.
However, when I try my hand at games like Doom Eternal or any first-person shooter where snapping to a target or variable mouse sensitivity makes a difference, you can feel the drag. In those cases, when I plug in my rather modest G402 Hyperion Fury the difference really is night and day. It’s like the shackles have been taken off. So, obviously, I wasn’t going to be going wireless on the gaming front. Right?
My Mom Kidnapped My Gaming Mouse
I was probably going to use that G402 until its mouse wheel fell off, but as fate would have it, my mom flew down to visit me for a few weeks, and she ended up using my wired gaming mouse with her laptop while she stayed over. After she flew back home, she gave me a call and let me know my gaming mouse was in her laptop bag, and almost a thousand miles away. Since I had no idea if or when I would get my mouse back, it meant it was time to go mouse shopping.
Taking the Wireless Gaming Mouse Plunge
I’m not a particularly hardcore gamer, so I’m not going to drop a lot of money on a gaming mouse. In fact, I was just going to buy another G402. However, then the Logitech G305 caught my eye. A wireless mouse built for gaming specifically at the same price the G402 was going for.
Logitech G305 LIGHTSPEED Wireless Gaming Mouse
$40 $50 Save $10
The G305 is an affordable wireless gaming mouse that doesn’t feel any less responsive than the wired competion.
The big difference between this mouse and other non-gaming mice that don’t have wires is that you won’t find Bluetooth here. Instead, Logitech is using its own “Lightspeed” wireless protocol through a provided dongle. The computer doesn’t even know the mouse is wireless, it just treats it like any USB mouse. You see, the lagginess of Bluetooth mice isn’t because they’re wireless, it has to do with the Bluetooth protocol itself. That’s not to knock Bluetooth, but it has to do a lot of different jobs, work for all sorts of applications, and it’s not optimized for latency, above all else.
There’s a reason consoles use their own wireless protocols for controllers and wireless headsets. They don’t have to worry about anything but that single purpose. Now, you might be wondering why your Xbox or PlayStation controller seems to work just fine with Bluetooth, and that’s because controllers don’t need the sort of low latency a mouse does for precise movement and aim. Aiming with an analog stick is like steering a boat with a rudder, whereas using a mouse is like snapping your head to look at something almost instantly.
Also, whether a controller feels laggy using Bluetooth depends on the Bluetooth implementation. In my own experience, I found my Xbox Series controller feels just fine on my gaming PC, but has noticeable lag on my iPad. Same controller, different Bluetooth host.
I Might Not Go Back to Wires
I’ve been playing with the G305 for a few weeks now, and I really can’t feel any latency difference between it and the wired G402 it replaced. In fact, it feels a little better because there’s no wire dragging on it as it moves. One of the primary reasons I wanted to try a wireless gaming mouse is because my only gaming PC is a gaming laptop. Every wire trailing from my laptop is an annoyance when gaming while not docked and the ideal is to have nothing more than the power cable hooked up when I’m playing away from my desk setup.
While perhaps some eSports players with superhuman reflexes might be able to tell the difference, a regular gamer like me can’t, while I definitely can tell compared to my non-gaming Bluetooth mouse. So consider me another convert to the church of wireless gaming mice, and since the lack of battery-sapping RGB doesn’t bother me one bit, I don’t think I’ll be going back to those wired ways any time soon.
