Sometimes you get a piece of hardware that just feels… goodFor me, that was the Logitech G502 Lightspeed Wireless, and now that mouse is reaching the end of its life, and while I'm not going to throw an actual Viking funeral for it, I'm honestly a little upset.
The G502 Lightspeed Wireless is a fairly high-end gaming mouse with a comfortable ergonomic design and discreet RGB lighting, it’s been my trusty desk companion for over five years and it’s just starting to show its age – specifically, the left-click switch is failing, it still registers most clicks but makes click and drag operations nearly impossible.
It’s fair to say that I’ve definitely put this mouse through its paces over the past half-decade. Not only have I used it to put in literally thousands of hours of all kinds of games, but it’s also been my go-to device for work since the pandemic forced me to work from home. It’s survived countless hours of frantic clicking, scrolling, and lunch breaks at the desk (no, I’m not a “declutter your desk, declutter your mind” kind of person).
It is no exaggeration to say that I love This mouse is incredibly comfortable in the hand thanks to its curved shape and thumb rest, and the bottom features two magnetic panels that can be removed to add small metal weights to the inside – in other words, with a little adjustment you can create the perfect weight distribution for any user.
It's also a good mouse for general gaming: a 25,600 DPI sensor, long battery life, 1ms latency thanks to the proprietary Lightspeed USB adapter, and 11 remappable buttons make it a stellar choice for any genre of PC gaming.
Consistency above all
As sad as I may be that my trusty playmate is starting to lose his glory, there is definitely a silver lining to this.
You see, Logitech does something I wish more PC hardware companies would do: an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to product design, which means I can still buy the exact same G502 Lightspeed wireless mouse I originally bought over five years ago. Plenty of companies would have rendered the original product redundant in that time frame, replacing it two or three times with new models (I’m looking at you, Razer).
Heck, Logitech has been using the same design for its mainstream 1080p webcam, the Logitech C920, for over a decade, with only a few minor generational improvements over the years. There’s a reason that camera still sits at the top of our ranking of the best webcams, is what I’m saying.
The G502 Lightspeed has been replaced on our list of the best gaming mice by the newer, shinier Logitech G502 X Plus, but it's still the same excellent mouse at its core, and gamers on a budget can always pick up the G502 Hero, which packs much of the great design and features found in my favorite mouse into a more budget-friendly package.
But you can never have too much of a good thing, so while I do have a temporary replacement from NZXT right now, I can’t wait to take my paycheck to the Logitech G Store to pick up an identical replacement for my beloved G502 Lightspeed Wireless. There’s just one problem, and that’s the price: $99.99 or £139.99 (about $150 AU, but Logitech no longer sells it in Australia). Why is it so expensive in the UK, Logitech?
I guess I'll be waiting for a Black Friday deal… unless the kind folks at Logitech read this and take pity on a poor tech journalist. Fingers crossed for me, readers!
