April 13th, 2010 | Posted by ksnitro

I have tested several computer mice for intense gaming. Generally, one goes bad either from it wearing out or getting abused, so then I will purchase another one. I have probably gone through about 5 mice in the past 8 years of hard core first person shooter gaming. This includes playing an old game, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, online/multiplayer on a daily basis for around 8 years. I feel this is a really good game to test a mouse out with. Yes, it’s not a modern game but that really doesn’t matter. What is important is that much of the game skill is based on fast and precise mouse movements.

Of the various mice that I have used one of my favorite models is the logitech mx518. When the first one eventually went out I went out and bought a replacement of the same model.

The first performance metric that stands out to me regarding the mx518 is how it is designed. There are indentions on both sides of the mouse where your fingers go to grip it. I haven’t used another mouse that fit my fingers so well. It is really easy to move this mouse around without having to use your whole hand. Pressure from a few fingers on both sides can give you precision control.

The next feature that worked well for me was the weight. It is a really light mouse and with the finger indentions one can really whip this mouse around with great accuracy. It’s obvious to me that they designed this mouse for gaming and tracking speed, button features, or other technical specs were not all they were concerned with in terms of mouse design.

Like many newer mice, there are buttons on the mouse you can use to adjust sensitivity. The buttons are set on top of the mouse where your fingers won’t accidentally hit them. Another mouse (which I will review in another blog) had the sensitivity buttons on the sides of the mouse close to where your fingers grip things and I would hit the sensitivyt buttons on accident all the time. That became really annoying with that other mouse, so the mx518 put these buttons in a nice location where it’s not really a problem.

As for sensitivity buttons, I really don’t need them. I’ve never used sensitivity buttons other than trying to overcome a computer problem where my sensitivity would randomly go out of whack. The buttons were useful for that. But, in truth I would only use these buttons if I could apply specific sensitivity settings for each button position. In other words, I would need to customize what exact sensitivity each button position would produce. Just having low/medium/high settings isn’t very useful. So, overall I never used them.

Before I discuss tracking let me point out that I use a aluminum gaming mousepad which is the Razer exactMat. So, most of my gaming is done on this surface which keeps things very even. In terms of precision tracking I thought the mx518 was ok. It wasn’t anything special. I was able to compare it to other laser mice (I actually had them both plugged in at one point switching from one to the other during gameplay) and the laser seemed to track better. The mouse still responded to quick and sharp movements, but I could tell the laser had better tracking. Overall, it does the job in this department but nothing more. However, I never felt at much of a disadvantage using this mouse over the laser.

When the first mx518 died on me, it would simply go out. It would go from working properly to completly dead out of nowhere. I eventually started lightly slamming it on the mousepad to revive it and that did work on occasion. But, I knew the mouse was going at that point. I want to add that, at that time I had a tendency to slightly lift the mouse and put it back down without really paying attention to it. It was a natural thing I was doing during gameplay. This was rather abusive (as I was actually slamming the mouse on the table) and it could have caused it to stop responding over time. I really don’t know exactly what caused it to die though.

I would rate the mx518 very high as a gaming mouse. It doesn’t track quite as good as some other more expensive mice, but you will need to decide if this really matters to your gaming experience or not. Also, I currently have a replacement of the mx518 and am not using it as my primary gaming mouse. I know this sounds strange since this has been a positive blog about the mx518. But, when it comes to gaming you need to really adjust your settings for any mouse you use and get used to one. Most likely, when I started getting owned at some point I probably switched from the mx518 to something else to see if I could do better with another mouse. I wound up getting used to a different one and it has stuck ever since. I don’t see this as a negative for the mx518, it’s just a gaming thing. I find I need to get used to whatever mouse I am using and stick with it.

Tags: gaming mouse, logitech mx518