G-series Gaming Mice

[eldeka]

Could someone please specify how G700 battery life indicator works?

Because battery in my G700 lasts 5 days but indicator shows Low and Critical most of the time. Usualy Full and Good states are gone in first couple hours of usage. So I measured battery voltage each time when battery state was changed in SetPoint (from Fully charged to totaly dead) and plotted these numbers to battery discharge curve I've done earlier.

My measurement: http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/4793/g700baterkastavy.png

According to these measurements battery life indicator are miles away from reality and in my opinion life indicator is calibrated to normal 1,5V alkaline battery and not rechargeable 1,2V Ni-MH battery, just look at discharge curve comparsion of alkaline and Ni-MH battery: http://www.stefanv.com/electronics/using_nimh/nimh_vs_alkaline.gif

Measured battery: EniTime 1,2V 2000mAh supplied with G700, room temperature between 20 to 25'C

Multimeter: Metex M-4650CR

edit: spacing

[Draxanoth]

I'm thinking the same thing.  Mine goes from full to low in like 4 hours of gaming... but it hasn't told me to charge it in 2 days. XD

[Kabigon]

Same here. I love the G700 mouse so far, but I was using "Max Gaming" mode for about 3 hours straight @ 1000 Hz polling. Then it jumps into "Low battery."  But I still have a lot to use. I think it's just a software issue. Maybe int he upcoming SetPoint software, Logitech can make it show even a few more levels to be more accurate... perhaps something like a "Critical low, Very Low, Low, Medium, Medium High, High, Max" or something.

[EllisDee]

agreed the light shows red waaaay to early

[Gamer-174]

Yeah, I got same problem with the battery status. The thing that confuses me is before raids I always think, Shall I charge the battery or not? Is It good to charge it to often? Since I've heard that you make the battery life time shorter. But maybe I'm wrong. So a more clear battery status would be great ! - Software.

Also the second problem I've with G700 is that the G4 button are at someway a bit softer then the other buttons. That makes me press that button to weak after a while (sometimes), when got used to the other ( harder ) buttons.

Overall - It's a great gaming mice.

[EllisDee]

I think the G4 button is supposed to be softer as thats the one akin to your thumb. (The other 3 buttons for more speicialized commands and G4 for a regually used command e.g Stab/Melee on FPS)

I think as far as the battery goes your probably best to run the mouse until it dies and then plug it in, but at the end of the day if your battery life does get shorter from charging it too early, replacing the 2000mAh AA Ni-mh battery will be super cheap so don't worry too much.

An Eveready or Duracell of the same spec may even hold the charge better.

As mouses go though its awesome. I prefer it to the Razer Mamba (which I returned) Although I do miss a glowing mouse wheel LOL (I got used to those)

Function over form has to be the way forward though. This is why I turned to Logitech. Razer seem to have gotten rather gimickey of late.

[Bitgod]

Actually, the battery life on the G700 makes the Mamba look not so bad.  But I'm not sure how much it's either inacurrate reading, bad settings what the levels are, or the profile settings on the mouse.

I charged the mouse overnight on Friday and had it drop to 2 lights within 6 hours and down to one light by the end of the day.  I went through and changed the profiles, so my general non-gaming profile is on the max battery life setting, general gaming on the general gaming battery setting, and a FPS profile for max power.  It might have helped a little bit today, I charged it over night, it still dropped a light after 6 or 7 hours, but at least it still has 2 lights after 10.  Though to be fair I used it for over 12 yesterday, so this doesn't really mean anything.

edit: Hah, just needed to play Civ 5 for another hour.  Now I'm down to 1 battery light after 11 hours of being unplugged and the computer turned on.

[curlysir]

I have been running for 2 days of mixed use with the indicator showing low.  I was changing the battery daily until I read this.  I am going to see how long I can go until it goes critical or quits working.  I bought a set of 4 extra eneloop  batteries and a charger and change out the battery as required instead of hooking up the cable and charging the battery in the mouse.

It would be nice to have an accurate indicator!

[ph0b0s]

One further thought on the battery life issue. If your battery is being used so much that you need to recharge each day, maybe try a non enloop battery.

Enloops are one of the new bread of batteries that keeps it's charge for a long time, so you can leave it in a device for months and it won't go flat on it's own, like normal rechargeables. This normally makes sense for wireless devices because as they use only a little of the charge at a time. Obviously the G700 being a G device is different. The enloops, etc type batteries capacity is lower than other rechargeables, it is only 2000 mah. If the battery is only lasting a day then it's charge keeping attribute is not needed. You could try some of the 2700 - 2800 mah batteries that are on the market. They have great capacity over a couple of days, but self discharge to flat over a month or two...

But it is good the mouse is designed so you can choose the battery. The older Logitech wirless mouse I have takes two AA batteries to work (heavy)....

Also charlesB from logitech did post on another thread that the LED may not be 100% accurate.

"Also, please run it all the way out: we did our best to make the battery life indicators accurate, but twith all the temperature/individual battery/individual mice variables, it's possible that it's reporting low when it might only be half. Give it a full charge and run it to dead, turning it off when not using it for a time, to get the most accurate setting."

[CharlesB]

Yeah, we've seen that the battery indicator is a little more... preemptive to people in the field This doesn't indicate your battery will actually run out quicker, and actually might be a smidge helpful in preventing accidental "stranding" if your battery dies without being charged. I will of course pass everything I observe on to engineering, but (to be perfectly honest) there are some other things that I'll be chasing after a bit more than this one for now. Feel free to chime in if this drives you mad or if it's something more like a "huh, OK" kinda thing.