Our Verdict
With its mass of extra buttons, and its incredibly useful scroll wheel that can switch between notched modes and easy-spin freewheeling modes, the Logitech G502 X Plus is an incredibly versatile and capable general purpose mouse. As a pure gaming mouse, though, it leaves a lot to be desired, at least for competitive gamers. It’s simply too heavy to be a candidate for high-speed shooters and it’s quite expensive too.
- Comfortable shape
- Loads of easy-to-reach buttons
- Switchable scroll wheel is great for work
- Convenient stowage spot for wireless dongle
- Far too heavy for competitive shooters
- Scroll wheel wobble is distracting
- Expensive
- Lacks Bluetooth support
The Logitech G502 is the best-selling gaming mouse range of all time, with over 21 million units of the ten-year-old design having been sold so far. The latest version is the Logitech G502 X Plus, which continues the line’s core appeal of combining a comfortable design with lots of extra buttons and features, while also including the company’s latest 25K Hero sensor, RGB lighting, and the option of PowerPlay charging.
The key features of the Logitech G502 X Plus, which continue to earn it a spot on our best gaming mouse guide, are its expert integration of loads of extra buttons, its useful dual-mode scroll wheel, its super sensor performance, and its wonderful wireless tech. It makes for a fantastic general-purpose mouse, but its weight and a few other factors dent its appeal as a serious competitive gaming tool.
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Specs
| Logitech G502 X Plus specs | |
| Sensor | Logitech Hero 25K |
| Buttons | 11 |
| DPI | 100-25,000 |
| Weight | 104g |
| Connections | USB-C, 2.4GHz wireless (Logitech Lightspeed) |
Features
There are three main variants of the G502 X design. There’s the wired G502 X, the wireless G502 X Lightspeed, and then the G502 X Plus that we’re looking at here, which adds RGB lighting to the Lightspeed.
The most prominent features of the G502 X Plus are the same ones that have largely defined the G502 range since its inception. Specifically, we’re talking about the extra buttons and the dual-mode scroll wheel.
It’s the scroll wheel that’s perhaps most revered. With the press of a rather long-throw, clunky button on the top of the mouse, you can switch between the scroll wheel having a conventional, stepped feel or having it spin freely. The latter mode makes it really easy to quickly glide through long documents or perform big zoom maneuvers in Photoshop, for instance.
While this has been an undoubtedly useful feature for years, the first few iterations of the G502 hamstrung the scroll wheel by making it from solid metal with a shiny finish, resulting in it being difficult to grip. Thankfully, though, the latest versions have a rubber grip to fix this issue.
One of the reasons why the old metal wheels were such a problem is that another key feature of these mice is the scroll wheel’s ability to tip from side to side to provide two extra buttons. On those shiny wheels, your finger just slipped off (at least in drier, colder conditions) when trying to do this, but the new version feels much better.
What doesn’t feel better is the slight wobbly feel that these side buttons introduce to the scroll wheel. This makes it feel less precise than normal scroll wheels, and it’s very easy to accidentally knock the side buttons just when you’re scrolling, so we’ve always found it best to disable the side buttons or not have them mapped to an in-game (or game-disrupting) feature.
As for the other extra buttons, on the top there’s a profile switching button just behind the scroll wheel mode button, plus you get two extra buttons to the left of the normal left-click button. These are really conveniently positioned for quick, accurate activation, but remain out of the way enough to not easily hit accidentally.
Finally, there’s an extra button that sits just in front of your thumb. This button can be remapped, but, by default, it functions as a “sniper” button that shifts the mouse’s DPI when held down. Whether you find these types of buttons useful or not – we’ve never really been convinced – the one here is very cleverly designed, as it can be customized to your needs. You can remove the button completely if you don’t like it, flip it around so it’s a little further forward and out of the way, or move it closer to your thumb for easy activation. The button just attaches via a magnet.
On the front of the mouse is the USB-C charging and wired connection port, while the underside is home to the power switch and a circular removable section, under which you can stow the USB dongle. The standard cover for this section can also be replaced with a Logitech PowerPlay adapter, which lets the mouse charge wirelessly via one of Logitech’s PowerPlay mousemats.
Meanwhile, the sensor is Logitech’s tried and tested 25K DPI Hero model, which is a great sensor, though technically it has been around a while and there are other sensors with even higher DPI and acceleration ratings these days.
As for the wireless features of this mouse, you get a USB dongle with a standard 1kHz polling rate (its 1kHz in wired mode too), with no option to upgrade to a 4kHz or 8kHz dongle. Such speed is only of value to elite-level gamers seeking the very fastest possible response, which isn’t necessarily the target market for this mouse, but it would be nice to have the option.
Perhaps more of a significant downside for this mouse is that it doesn’t have Bluetooth. Many wireless mice, such as the Razer Viper V3 Hyperspeed and Corsair M75 Air, include Bluetooth and it’s a very useful feature for a more multi-purpose mouse like the G502 X Plus, so this is a major omission.
Design
The core shape of the G502 hasn’t changed a great deal in ten years, even though the G502X has quite a different look to earlier non-X versions. It has a very ergonomic shape, in as much as it’s all very curvy and designed resolutely for right-hand use, rather than being a symmetrical-style mice that left-handed gamers can use.
It’s a long but narrow mouse that lends itself to a palm grip, where you rest most of your hand on the mouse, rather just gripping it with your fingertips, though it’s perfectly suited to fingertip grip use too. The latter is aided massively by large rubberized side sections, which provide reliable grip in warm and humid, or cold and dry, conditions.
Broadly speaking, it’s a comfortable mouse that will suit a lot of grip styles and hand sizes. However, compared to modern-day lightweight mice, it feels like a real heavyweight. It weighs 104g according to our scales (2g heavier than stated), which is a decent drop from the 121g of the older G502 design, but it’s still nearly twice the weight of several wireless alternatives, such as the Cherry Xtrfy MZ1 Wireless, and is 120% heavier than some wired mice like the Endgame Gear OP1 8K.
Meanwhile, the RGB lighting of the G502X Plus is incorporated into the Y-shaped gap between the main panels of the mouse. It’s neatly integrated, making this arguably one of Logitech’s better-looking mice – it’s a big uplift over the utilitarian look of the G Pro Superlight. The lighting also serves a purpose, indicating DPI and profile changes, battery status, and more. That said, we do miss the three little LEDs that indicated DPI settings on the old G502.
The mouse is available in all-black, or the white and silver color scheme shown here. Logitech has yet to come out with a bright pink or red-and-white version, as it’s done with its G Pro Superlight, but there is a Millenium Falcon edition, of all things, as shown below.
Software
Management of the G502 X Plus is done via Logitech’s G Hub software, which is on the surface a fairly clean, slick-looking bit of software but has some major irritations. First, though, let’s take a quick look at the settings options.
The first thing you’re greeted with is a picture of the mouse with its battery and connection status. You can either click on the mouse or select to optional buttons to its lower right. The first of these is to turn on the Windows Dynamic Lighting setting that allows Windows to takeover some control of your system’s RGB lighting. Generally we find this interferes with so many other bits of software we leave Dynamic Lighting turned complete off in Windows.
The other button is to set the mouse to on-board memory mode, and this is the first really major misstep by Logitech with this software. You see, you can’t actually change settings in the software then assign them to the mouse to be stored for use on any system – like you can on the vase majority of other modern mice. Instead, selecting this on-board option just sets the mouse to run as though the software wasn’t installed, only ever using its default settings.
If you choose to stick with using G Hub, you can click on the mouse and change its settings. The first screen you encounter is the sensitivity/DPI section that lets you assign up to five DPI options, assign a DPI value for the DPI-Shift/sniper button and change the polling rate.
Click on Assignments and this lets you change all the mouse’s button assignments, with all the usual options for assigning a macro or key combination. The final screen is for setting up the mouse’s lighting with again a handful of the usual lighting effects.
Along with annoyance of the inability to save settings to the mouse, G Hub has an extra irritation which is that every time you change your DPI setting, the software pops up a little Windows notification. Not only that but is will stack the notifications so if you quickly change to one setting and back again or use the DPI-Shift button, it will slowly, steadily show each notification that you’ve changed from 1200DPI to 400DPI and back again. Please fix this, Logitech!
Performance
As ever with modern gaming mice, there’s almost nothing of consequence to be said about the sensor performance of the G502 X Plus. While its sensor might be a few years old now, and lacks the high polling rates of some mice, it ultimately provides essentially flawless performance when used with a quality mouse pad. No matter how much and how fast we moved, there was no meaningful slip-up from the sensor, or indeed the wireless response of the mouse.
That said, compared to 4kHz and 8kHz mice, you can detect the lower polling rate in some games. If you’re a professional player running CS2 or Valorant at over 300fps, you’ll be able to pick up on the slightly less smooth movement from the lower polling rate, but it’s a very subtle difference in most practical terms. Plus, again, this mouse isn’t best suited for those styles of games for several other reasons, so this should be the least of your concerns.
The key one of those reasons is the weight of this mouse. In competitive gaming scenarios, when you’re using a lower DPI and having to regularly lift and reset the mouse during very fast movements, the G502X felt really cumbersome and uncomfortable. We flat out wouldn’t recommend this mouse at all for those sorts of games – there’s a very good reason why mice optimized for those games are half the weight of this one.
If you really want the extra features of the G502 X Plus, but also want a better mouse for the above sorts of games, we’d recommend getting a second lighter, wired mouse, such as the Endgame Gear OP1 8K, if budget is a concern. Alternatively, any of the Corsair M75 Air, Logitech G Pro Superlight 2, Cherry Xtrfy MZ1 Wireless, and several other options on our best gaming mouse guide are much lighter wireless options, just with fewer features than the G502 X Plus.
Price
The Logitech G502 X Plus has an MSRP of $159.99, making it a very pricey mouse. However, it’s regularly available for closer to $120, which puts it among the slightly better-value wireless gaming options available, especially given all the extra functions this mouse provides.
Alternatives
Logitech G903
If you’re after much of the feature set found on the G502 X Plus, but need a left-handed design, the Logitech G903 is the mouse to go for. It shares the same scroll wheel design and has several other extra buttons, but its symmetrical shape can fit both left and right-handed users.
Read our Logitech G903 review.
Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro
For a mouse that has a similar ergonomic shape to the G502 X Plus, but a much lighter build, the Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro is the way to go. We actually find it slightly more comfortable to hold, plus it includes Bluetooth.
Read our Razer Viper V3 Hyperspeed review.
Verdict
The Logitech G502X Plus is something of a love/hate gaming mouse. In many ways, it’s less of a “gaming mouse,” and more of a multi-purpose general desktop mouse. Its extra buttons, dual-mode scroll wheel, and relaxed palm-grip-style design all lend themselves more to desktop work than the demands of intense gaming sessions. It’s the Logitech MX Master of gaming mice.
However, this largely depends on how you define a gaming mouse. If you just want an accurate and quick response, but with lots extra buttons for macros, or a fast-spinning scroll wheel for zooming into your Civ 6 map, the G502 X Plus absolutely delivers. If, though, you want a mouse that’s more nimble and lends itself to being flung around at speed in the likes of Doom, CS2, Apex Legends, or Fortnite, the G502 X Plus doesn’t really hit the mark.
With a few tweaks, Logitech could have a mouse that perhaps finds a better balance overall as a mouse for casual and competitive gamers. Remove the tilting scroll wheel buttons, so the wheel feels a bit more precise and taut, and reduce the mouse’s weight by a good 30g, and it might be getting somewhere. If you’re not massively into competitive FPS play, though, the Logitech G502 X Plus remains a fantastic choice for casual gamers seeking a mouse that simply does a heck of a lot in one package.
