Overall and Final Verdict
Wireless charging your mouse while using it has been a long time coming. I specifically remember having a conversation about the idea of this tech on the bus on the way back to our hotel room in January of 2010 at CES. We had seen wireless charging of camera batteries being shown off and while interesting I knew it wasn’t really going to be useful until it hit everyday tech. I mentioned mice specifically as a good opportunity to be able to charge a wireless mouse while using the charger as a mouse pad. Of course, the idea isn’t worth much without the tech to do it and that is why it has taken so long for this to come to market. Hell, there have been a few companies showing it off over the last few years at tradeshows, but only Logitech has made it work well enough to sell it. Why is that? Well, first wireless charging had to improve and get thinner to be under a mouse pad. But more importantly wireless tech in general needed to improve to the point where gamers could really use it with a lag-free experience. I’m also sure getting wireless to work on top of the wireless charger is also a feat as well, I can only imagine the interference it puts out.
So with all of that done and the product out on the market how does it actually perform? Well first off I can’t even explain how nice it is to not have to worry about charging you mouse, ever. They even make sure to not overcharge the battery and to let it drop and recharge from time to time. You just set it and forget it and really if it wasn’t for the lack of a wire going to the mouse I really wouldn’t know this was wireless. Lag is not existent and the PowerPlay offers more than enough space with its mousepad for my personal preference. You also get both soft and hard pads so you can play with both and figure out what you prefer. Installation is as simple as dropping the magnetic module into the mouse and plugging in the PowerPlay and you are good to go, even without the software installed it all worked. You may want the software to sync or turn off the lighting and to set your DPI not to mention program the side buttons if you need that.
But being the first version of this tech I did run into a few issues as well. Specifically with the thickness of the hard pad and how sharp the edge was. I also had the mouse pad moving around a little. The location of the USB plug and the control box overall on the PowerPlay was also an issue with my specific setup with the large size of my quad 27-inch monitor stands base. Center mounting this would fix it for me. Normally with a huge mouse pad, I would just let it sit up over the stand because while large it isn’t that thick. But you can’t bend the PowerPlay without risking damage to it.
If you read my rant about the issues I did run into in the performance section you might think I hate this setup. Especially once we talk about pricing. The PowerPlay and mouse pads will run you just under $100 and from there you still have to own or buy one of the new G703 or G903 mice that support the PowerPlay module. That is a hefty investment for a wireless mouse once you put the two together. But I actually still love the setup. So much so that I would still recommend it if you have room in the budget for it eventually, assuming you like wireless mice that is. I plan on keeping it setup on my desk as well, so that means it earns our Editors Choice award and I will revisit it at the end of the year to see how it worked out. I don’t think a product with four clear issues has still earned that award in the past, but that should tell you how much I love the base tech. I do hope Logitech does revisit this and continue to refine the design and hopefully eventually find a way to make it more accessible to people later with a lower price point. My idea for that is a smaller version that would just sit in the corner under any regular mousepad as a charging dock that you just put your mouse on when not in use.
Live Pricing: PowerPlay – G703 – G930
