I got the Logitech G9 just under a week ago, heres my review:
Logitech G9 Gaming Mouse Review
Purchase:
I purchased it from Amazon for $69.99-$20M.I.R. = $49.99 though it usually retails for around $90.
Here's a link.
Specs:
-3200dpi Laser Engine
-9 Buttons
-Sensitivity Adjustment
-Microgear(c) Scrollwheel with Tiltwheel
-16mb Onboard Memory
-LED Mouse Status w/ Color Changing
-2 Changeable grips
-Adjustable weights (up to 28 grams)
-USB 2.0 (Of course)
Pictures:
The Mouse with Wide-load, Satin Grip
The top of the mouse: here you can see the braided cable
Right Side
Left Side
Close-up of LEDs, scroll-wheel and sensitivity adjustment
The precision grip with rough, anti-sweat texture
The weight system
The bottom of the mouse with the profile button, wheel button and laser.
The Box
Unpacking:
The Logitech comes in the usual Logitech-Gaming-Peripheral packaging: Green and orange color scheme. You can see the mouse mouse with wide-grip behind the plastic. This box is special though, it opens up like a book (and is held shut with a magnet). When you open it, the precision grip is shown off behind some plastic. The whole box has a very high quality look and feel to it, which is important because thats the first thing you see when getting this mouse.
Contents:
The G9 comes with the mouse, two grips, a tin with 8 weights (4x 7gram, 4x 4gram), manual and logitech catalog. No, I didn't forget to mention the driver CD, the G9 doesn't come with one. This really suprised me and, though I can just download the drivers, some people won't be able to or won't want to.
The Mouse:
The G9 is the first Logitech gaming mouse to deviate from their regular rounded design. The shape of the mouse is much different from most other mice. I gotta say, the first time I saw it on the internet I thought it was kinda ugly. However, up until I bought it grew on me and now I love its design.
As you know, the mouse comes with two grips: The Precision grip and the Wide-Load grip. The precision grip is much thinner and is coated with an "Anti-Sweat" textured surface. The precision grip is best for fast-paced action such as in Unreal Tournament. The Wide-Load grip has an area for your thumb and pinkie finger. It is coated in the classic smooth-satiny texture that Logitech has used for many of its mice. The Wide grip is meant to be used for sniping, strategy games and normal PC use. It can also be noted that the wide grip has an extra "Polytetraflouroethylene" foot pad. I found myself using the wide grip more often, but I love the feel of both. I have average-sized hands and this mouse is very comfortable. If you have small hands, then this mouse should also fit perfectly. However, if you have large hands then you might have some trouble getting comfortable.
The mouse has 9 buttons: The two main buttons, the middle button, forward and back, two sensitivity adjustments and the tilt-wheel buttons. Every single one of these can be programmed to do whatever you want using the software. The sensitivity adjustment "rocker" is right under the left button. At first it was kind of annoying having to lift up my left finger to change sensitivity, but I got used to it and it doesn't bother me anymore. The forward and back buttons are perfectly placed right above the thumb rest position. The left and right buttons are both perfectly placed and are curved to "hug" your fingers. The main buttons feel perfect. Each button has a perfect feel and sound. Even the middle-button, which I find mouse companies mess up these days, feels and responds perfect.
One of my favorite features on this mouse was the LED mouse status. It has 3 LEDs that (based on amount on) show your sensitivity setting and (based on its color) show you what profile you're using. I'll talk more about the customization of these LEDs in the 'Software' Section.
My next favorite feature is the "Microgear(C)" Scroll Wheel. The wheel itself is non-rounded, and made of metal with a ridged rubber center. Thats not whats so special about it though; the wheel has two different modes (much like the Logitech MX Revolution, VX Revolution and VX Nano). The first is your regular clicky, line-by-line scrolling. Sadly, I found the wheel to be very loud when scrolling, though its only noticeable when you scroll very fast. The second releases the clicker and allows the wheel to spin freely. In this mode you can scroll through colossal documents or web-pages very fast and smooth. Sadly Logitech chose to make its switching method more like the VXs: you have to turn the mouse over and press a button to switch the mode. Surprisingly, having to turn it over is that annoying, though I don't use the "free-spin" mode very often.
The next thing that interested me was the on-board memory. Though several mice on the market now carry this feature, this a very new and cool idea. On the G9 the onboard memory is made to keep all of your profiles, settings and macros no matter what computer you're on. To change profiles without the software you simply press the profile button on the bottom of the mouse. To really test out this feature I plugged the G9 into my friends PS3 and played Unreal Tournament III. Sure enough I could still use all of my profiles and macros.
Last, but not least, is the weight tuning. To access the weight "drawer" you have to remove the grip and click the drawer. It has four slots four weights. The weights come in a very cool tin that says "G9". Included are four 4 gram weights and four 7 gram weights. It seems very useful and simply, but when you think about it, the weight customization possibilities are endless. You could have just two on the left for a left-heavy mouse, two on the top for a top-heavy mouse, or you could even go no weights for a very light mouse. I found that I prefer a heavy mouse, so I put in four 7 gram weights for a total of 28 grams.
Software
As if the mouse it self wasn't amazing enough, Logitech has made a kick-ass piece of software for customizing the mouse. In this software you can do just about anything imaginable. The main screen shows a "summary" of all of your settings:
After this the first tab is "Basics". Here are all of the basic settings for customizing the current profile. You can change the profile name, the profile description, location of the profile (on the onboard memory or not), associated applications (for automatic profile activation), and profile LED color.
The next tab is "Buttons". This tab is exactly what it is called: button customization. You can assign just about any action to any button. I was really impressed with customizability here.
Next up is "Pointer". Aside from the LED customization, this is the first tab where you actually see just how advanced the software is. Here you can change the dpi increments (up to 5), pointer speed, pointer acceleration, and polling rate. The dpi increment setting is really what blew me away. Using this you can change each dpi sensitivity level (both X and Y axis) for adjusting using the sensitivity rocker. The speed and acceleration are pretty standard fare, but Logitech included the option to adjust the polling rate (the rate in which the mouse data is sent to the computer). Though this is a nice addition, I don't really see why anyone would want to mess with this.
Next is "Scrolling". Here you simply adjust the vertical and horizontal scroll speeds. Nuff said.
Next up is the profile manager. Here you can change how you switch profiles, add/remove profiles and move profiles on and off of the onboard memory.
Lastly is the macro manager. If you think of a macro program with every possible macroing (word?) option, then you're probably thinking of this one. It does both keyboard and mouse. You can change everything in your macro; buttons, intervals, macro name, etc. From there you can set any one of these macros to a button.