Logitech G PowerPlay evaluation: perfecting the wi-fi gaming mouse

Looking like a kind of completely irrelevant RGB mousemats, the $100 (£110) PowerPlay Wireless Charging System is launching mid-August, and basically ensures you by no means have to plug your wi-fi gaming rodent into your PC ever once more. 

Well, as long as you’re utilizing one of many two suitable PowerPlay mice obtainable proper now. As luck would have it, nevertheless, they’re two of the best wi-fi mice cash should buy. Which is a little bit of a bonus, eh?

Click on leap hyperlinks beneath to leap to the related part

Logitech G PowerPlay specs

The PowerPlay system is made up of a USB-connected mousemat, which includes the Logitech Lightspeed wi-fi know-how in addition to the magical wi-fi power charging system, and the little PowerCore puck that matches into the underside of the 2 suitable mice.

Alongside the essential rubber powermat you get a pair of various covers to take a seat on prime of it to supply a correct gaming floor. One is a fabric mouse pad and the opposite is Logitech’s G440 low friction, laborious polymer floor.

The PowerPlay trickle charging system makes use of a method known as electromagnetic resonance to create an power subject that sits above the floor. The little PowerCore module contained in the wi-fi mouse then makes use of power from this subject to trickle cost the related mouse’s battery. This subject covers many of the mat, although not all of it, not that you simply’ll discover. The actual magic of the system Logitech have created is that it could nonetheless cost your mouse even when you’re gaming. As lengthy as your chosen rodent stays lower than 4mm above the PowerPlay base, it’ll proceed to gobble juice down its energy gullet.

And it’s positively not utilizing Qi charging. I used to be being briefed on PowerPlay by a Logitech rep of their again room at E3 when one other journalist requested the ‘does it use Qi?’ query, to which the response was an exasperated ‘no, it doesn’t fucking use Qi fucking charging’.

The expletives have been, in fact, expressed silently, however I might nonetheless see them burning behind his hate-filled eyes as he needed to reply the identical query for the thousandth time that hour.

That’s as a result of every week earlier Corsair had been exhibiting off their prototype Concept Zeus mouse on the Computex present in Taipei, which positively does use the Qi’s inductive wi-fi charging. It’s the identical tech utilized in some cellphones however depends on the machine being inventory nonetheless to cost.

The Concept Zeus setup does cost faster than the Logitech PowerPlay system, delivering a better cost per second, however it’s a must to depart the mouse stationary and on a particular spot on the higher right-hand nook of the Concept Zeus mousemat. To me that kinda loses the advantage of being tether-free then, eh?

In phrases of the mice PowerPlay is suitable with, it’s at present restricted to the brand new G703 and G903 wi-fi mice. The former is a comparatively primary wi-fi rodent, and is basically precisely the identical because the G403, whereas the extra feature-rich G903 is nearly equivalent to the superior G900 Chaos Spectrum.

They’re each nonetheless rocking the wonderful PixArt PMW3366 sensor, which makes them about as exact a pointer as you’ll find. All that basically appears to have modified is the additional weight you possibly can drop into these mice can now get replaced by the PowerCore puck as an alternative.

Logitech G PowerPlay efficiency

Hell, we’re on the stage the place even the esports pros are starting to use wireless mice. 

Logitech G PowerPlay verdict