Discussing Logitech's New Gaming Mice

Paul writes "Logitech had a busy day announcing three new products designed for gamers. The company introduced the Logitech G15 keyboard, G5 and G7 G-Series gaming mice. TechSpot had a brief talk with Erik Charlton, senior product-marketing manager at Logitech, who shared a few ideas and details on Logitech's newly announced products."

Comments

Images here

[plover]

The story of a keyboard is fine, but pictures are worth more. See the G15 keyboard here.

Re:Images here

[calibanDNS]

Product pages:

• G15 Gaming Keyboard
• G7 Laser Cordless Mouse
• G5 Laser Mouse

Re:Images here

[plover]

The more I think about it, the more this could really enhance realism to gaming by removing onscreen clutter.

It'll be interesting to try it out. I like to play America's Army in a darkened room, and for total immersion I'd love to get rid of all the status bars, bullet counts, magazine counts, health, steadiness, objectives, etc. Just show me a picture out the soldiers eyes. A small glowing compass and current weapon indicator down below my line of sight would be perfect. In a firefight or tense "scan for opfor" situation, all you see is either nothing or targets. Once the action has passed, though, you can steal a quick glance down to see how you're doing for ammo, is there a medic call, etc. And as in the real world, when you divert attention away from the situation to check on the mundane details, you might miss something.

Yeah, this looks really interesting. It might not improve my frag rate, but it sure could improve my enjoyment.

Display?

[TGK]

The article mentions a built in display - configured by the player to show in game information or data from an outside application.

Two questions:

1 - Who really looks at their keyboard that much during a game session?

2 - How are they pulling data from a game engine? Is this assuming that developers will build software for this keyboard system for major releases? That seems presumptive.

Impressive

[mikeophile]

They support screaming fast 20g moves up to 45 inches / second...and even higher, depending upon the surface.

Will they support 20G impacts when I throw the damn thing against the wall after I am fragged by a LAN hacker for the n-th time?

g5 and g7 mice

[arkhan_jg]

Pictures of the g5 mouse

And guess what, it's shaped for right handers only. You'd think that it'd be possible to invert the casing, and produce a mirrored device for the 15-20% or so of the target market who can't use a right-handed gaming mouse. (I can handle it for general use, but I need my primary hand for precision work)

Still, looks like I'll be buying the new razer copperhead when it comes out shortly, similar features but suitable for lefties.

Re:Optimus

[millwall]

Bear in mind that the Optimus keyboard is expected in 2006 and is yet only at prototype stage.

As discussed earlier on Slashdot: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/ 18/1314226&tid=126&tid=137

Re:Optimus

[JahToasted]

Yeah the optimus will be great for playing Duke Nukem Forever on.

This is a huge scientific breakthrough...

[Malor]

From the writeup on the new mice:

"The low weight of the mouse allows fast moves and zero inertia[....]"

In other words, they've quietly developed an inertialess mouse. The biggest physics breakthrough ever, and they're wasting it on a stupid gaming mouse. Quick, somebody call NASA!

Full-Speed USB!

[NewStarRising]

Don't miss the Full-Sped USB!
"The G7 and G5 are Logitechs first computer mice to leverage full-speed USB. "

Now checking on http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm , we find that
"Full Speed" refers to USB 1.1, while High-Speed (Or "Hi-Speed") refers to USB 2.

So Logitech are bragging about their USB 1.1 mice?

keyboard

[CaptnMArk]

I hope the keyboard doesn't have the f**ing f-lock.

Whoever invented disabling the function keys by default on new keyboard should just die.

The only reason I'm not buying a keyboard from www.pckeyboard.com is due to lack of USB support (I find most converters are problematic).

New mice actually worse for FPS gamers

[Jan Brunner]

It seems like they increase the resolution with every generation while sadly neglecting the maximum speed.

The MX510 (800 cpi) is able to track up to about 3.4 m/s, the MX300, too (with raised USB polling rate at 400 cpi). The Razer Diamondback (1600 cpi) has a maximum speed of about 1.4 m/s, very probably as much as the MX518 (same or similar sensor, I couldn't measure it, yet). The article talks of about 45 ips (1.14 m/s) in those 2000 cpi mice...

I can't think of any good shooter player who would actually benefit from a resolution higher than 800 cpi but I know there are many who like to move their mouse faster than 1.4 m/s.

Raising the resolution by sacrificing maximum tracking speed is very easy: They can just scale the chip down and/or change the optics. It seems that they don't like to make a chip more complex (MX300, A2020 was the last big upgrade).

This is bad news for the gamers who got used to their MX510's speed and don't find anything else than "Ultra Gamerz 4000 dpi" with a max speed of 1 m/s when they need a replacement in a few years. Maybe someone clever will invest in a few MX510 and make a lot of money. :)