Logitech G604 Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Mouse EXPIRED

Funny, I came from the MX desktop mice with their excellent metal scroll wheel, and hated the scroll wheel on the G602. It was lightweight plastic. Yes it's quieter, but it felt cheap and insubstantial. The G604's scroll wheel does make more noise (more than the MX desktop series). But it's weighting (necessary for spin scrolling) gives it a nice substantial feel. I just leave it in spin mode rather than ratcheted mode. The wheel mass is sufficient to prevent it from accidentally scrolling as you mouse around (you'd need to lift the mouse off the tablet and tilt it for that to happen).

I haven't found it any harder to press down the middle button (instead of tilt) than other mice. In fact I'm trying to tilt it by pressing down on it right now and I can't. I pretty much have to move my finger slightly to the side of the wheel and push it sideways for tilt. If I had a complaint about the middle wheel, it'd be that its click is not as substantial as the other two buttons.


Improvements over the G602 include:

No stupid decorative pointy bits of plastic sticking out the front which unnecessarily limits your range of vertical motion if using the mouse in a tight space like on an airliner tray table. I was seriously tempted to hack those off my G602 with a saw.
The teflon pads on the bottom no longer have sharp corners, which could get caught on blankets/sheets if you're using the mouse on the bed or sofa. I had to super glue these corners down on the G602.
On/off switch now slides forward/back so the on/off direction remains consistent. On the G602 it was left/right, meaning the direction of on/off reversed when you flipped the mouse over to change the battery.
Speaking of which, the battery compartment is accessible without having to flip the mouse over.
Battery compartment cover no longer has a thin retaining piece of plastic which can break off. It's now held on by a thick plastic hook which tilts into place.
Battery compartment cover no longer has pointy bits of plastic which can jab you.
Supports Bluetooth (though not at the higher polling rates intended for gaming). I don't regularly use it, but it's a nice backup to have. And now that they've finally fixed the GHub software to allow on-board profiles, you can have all your customized button macros and settings in Bluetooth mode. This is important with more laptops abandoning USB-A ports for USB-C ports. You don't need the USB-A dongle plugged in to use this mouse.
It's advertised as being able to quickly switch between two devices. But this is just dongle mode and Bluetooth mode. It's not like the new unifying mice which can switch between 3 unifying receivers with a switch on the bottom.
Wheel supports ratcheted and free-spinning modes.
Wheel supports left/right tilt. The G602's ability to switch resolution on the fly made it superb for photo editing, where you might suddenly need extreme precision to do fine detailed work in a small area. But its lack of left/right tilt made it a non-starter for this purpose. The G604 now lets you do it all.
Shape is more consistent with their desktop mice. I actually preferred the flatter thumb button layout on the G602, but the G604 has the equally-spaced arched buttons of the other Logitech desktop mice.
It loses the 4 decorative pieces of plastic which look like thumb buttons but aren't. Your thumb only has to memorize 3 front/back positions, instead of 5.
Battery life seems to be slightly better. I only used one rechargeable AA in my G602, and it would last about 2-4 weeks. Maybe longer if I wasn't using the computer much. On the G604 it seems to last about 1-2 months. Long enough that I'm actually not sure since it's hard to remember when I last switched batteries.


Reasons you might not like it over the G602

Only takes one AA battery. The G602 takes one or two. I always used it with one, but if you prefer a heavier mouse you could put in two.
Uses the G Hub software intead of the Logitech Gaming Software. G Hub is a steaming pile of feces. I'll list some of its problems below.
Having the battery status light on top of the mouse was handy, even if it wasn't always that accurate.


Problems with G Hub:

It doesn't let you assign arbitrary keys to a button - it only gives you a limited predetermined list of buttons you can assign. I had to create a macro to assign ctrl-w (close tab) because it wasn't on the list. Unfortunately because it's a macro, it acts like I'm holding ctrl-w for a brief moment instead of instantly sending the keystroke. If I happen to be spinning the scroll wheel when doing this, it results in the fonts growing or shrinking in size since ctrl-wheel spin is to enlarge or shrink font size.
Occasionally goes to sleep and takes about a half second to wake up. While its asleep, the regular Windows mouse settings apply. So you'll be doing something like reading a long web page post, move the mouse, and suddenly it's moving a lot faster or slower than you expect (Windows settings), only to change speeds a fraction of a second later (G Hub settings).
They finally updated it a couple months ago to allow on-board profiles to work (store your customized settings on the mouse, instead of in the G Hub software). That's take care of most of the drawbacks (like none of the customized settings working in Bluetooth), and helped mitigate the sleep problem. But it still remains inferior to the G602's Logitech Gaming Software.
Either G Hub or the mouse dongle hardware occasionally crashes (about once or twice a month). It will just stop working, not even in Windows mode (move the mouse and the cursor does not move). It still works in Bluetooth mode, but the only ways I've been able to get it working again in dongle mode is by power cycling the mouse or the computer, or removing and reinserting the dongle (sometimes several times).
The battery gauge (yup, it's in G Hub, not on the mouse) isn't any help if you use rechargeable NiMH batteries. It always shows 4 bars. The only time I've seen it with fewer is after I've gotten the low battery warning. Thankfully it lasts a couple days after getting the lower battery warning.



Normal price is $70 (retail is $100). The $45 was a short sale in late October.

I recently switched from the G602 to the G604 and I didn't like it. The G604 mouse wheel has more features, but it also is quite loose and loud, and it can be difficult to get it to actually press down instead of right/left. The button to lock/unlock the mouse wheel is directly behind the mouse wheel and sticks up a decent bit which gets in the way in my opinion.

It does fit my hand a little better than the G602, but if you use the mouse wheel for clicking or moving maps on games I suggest sticking with the G602.

It should work just fine for you in that case. It's still a great mouse, the G602 is just superior in my opinion.

If you know anything about soldering you can get the switches for the G602 for cheap on ebay/Amazon and solder them in yourself.