A Week with Logitech's MX Master

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

This mouse is as subtly handsome as it is precise

Last week, Logitech stopped by the Maximum PC office to show off its new mouse, the MX Master. The device looked pretty compelling, as did the short promo video, but we looked forward to using the mouse to see how it really fared.

The Logtech MX Master and unifying reciever.

First off, this mouse isn’t built for gaming. The lack of glowing LEDs that you could signal an aircraft with—and the fact it’s wireless—separates it from conventional gaming gear. Instead, the mouse sports a smooth black surface that is actually really nice to rest your palm on. The black matte surface is accented by a very subtle brown-ish bronze bit of plastic that runs from left to right around the back and covers the bottom.
While this mouse could be used in games that don’t require ultra-fast response times, it’s primarily made for design and engineering professionals. It feels very precise and smooth, and we imagine that working in AutoCAD would be a pleasure. While tooling around on the web and doing some basic cropping in Photoshop, we never felt that we were fighting with the mouse to get the cursor to be exactly where we wanted it to be.
What we really love about this thing is the wheel. The MX Master’s wheel is a standard line-by-line click wheel and again, feels very precise. But give the wheel a good flick of the middle finger, and it free-spins until it slows down enough that the “clutch” catches the wheel and returns it to “line-by-line” mode.

The top of the MX Master is simple and effective. Clicks feel precise and deliberate.

To give you a good idea of just how free it spins, we loaded up Twitter and gave the wheel a good spin down the page. Twitter was able to lazy-load tweets at the bottom of the browser fully six times before the wheel stopped. It’s actually really fun to use.
Logitech calls this “Smart Shift,” and it does feel pretty intelligent. The threshold at which the wheel free-spins can be set in the Logitech software. You can also switch the mouse between “fixed” mode or “Smart Shift” with a middle button just behind the wheel.
The other thing that we think makes this a great working mouse is the ability to pair it to three different computers. The mouse pairs with Logitech’s standard unifying receiver, but also pairs with Bluetooth-enabled computers.
There’s a little button on the bottom that allows you to switch channels, each corresponding to a different pairing. We used the first channel to connect to our workstation and the second to connect to our Linux laptop via Bluetooth. For sysadmins or creative professionals who have more than one machine at their desk, this is great. It also means that you can use it at work, and take it home without fearing that you’ll lose the unifying receiver.

The bottom of the mouse is what you'd expect, except for the channel selector near the rear.

The MX Master’s thumb button is also quite subtle: it’s part of the molded matte black surface, directly below the thumb. The thumb click is silent, and brings up the Windows’ window switcher (like Alt+Tab) by default. For Macbook users, the thumb button is supposed to simulate a three-finger swipe gesture on the track pad.
There is also a scroll wheel and two side buttons for your thumb to get more of a workout, though the two buttons default to browser forward and back functions.
Of course, all of the buttons can be customized in Logitech’s software, but the default assignments feel pretty well thought out.
The mouse charges via a microUSB port at its nose, where you’d expect a cable to be if the mouse were wired. You can use the mouse while charging, but it’s still wireless; the USB cable isn’t sending any data. Three inconspicuous green LEDs show charge progress.

Three small LEDs let you know the mouse is charging. Nothing flashy here.

We haven’t played any games with the MX Master just yet, but so far we're impressed with build quality and attention to details that people who work on computers all day can really appreciate. The laser is supposed to work on glass too, but we are working with a wood laminate desk, so we'll just have to take Logitech’s word on that for now.
Again, this mouse is geared for professionals, and is priced at $100. If you can get your company to pay for it or write it off on your taxes, this mouse is worth a look.


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