Hey guys, Jarrod here and today we’re going to compare some classic mice from Logitech,
the MX Revolution, MX Performance, and the MX Master.
How have things changed and have they improved over time?
Let’s find out.
For this video we’ll start with the oldest model first and work our way through to the
newest so that we can get a good idea of how things have changed as time has passed.
First up, the Logitech MX Revolution.
I can’t even remember when I first purchased this mouse, many many years ago now, and it’s
still going strong.
One of the good features included the hyperfast scroll, by simply pressing down the scroll
wheel itself you are able to scroll through long pages extremely fast rather than being
stuck with the ratcheted click-to-click movement.
Unfortunately this means that you give up the scroll wheel middle button click, which
I do actually use.
Behind the scroll wheel was a search shortcut button which would take you to the search
bar if you had a browser window focussed, or open the search menu from the start menu
in Windows for example, I never really used it.
This was my first mouse with back and forward buttons and this was an awesome feature to
finally have, it made browsing so much faster and easier.
There was also a scroll wheel on the left that could be used to switch between open
applications, which again I didn’t use too often.
Unfortunately over time some of the rubber on the sides began to rub off, nothing too
bad though.
The USB receiver was also quite large with this generation of mouse as I assume the technology
just wasn’t as good at that time.
The glossy plastic around the edges of the mouse also made it always look dirty.
Another downside is that you can’t use the mouse while charging, it came with a dock
that you had to plug into a wall outlet and then charge from, however the internal battery
actually charged fairly fast and lasted for a long time.
The problem was that you needed to keep a spare mouse around if you weren’t able to
wait for a few minutes of charging to get back up and running again.
This mouse also gave me my first, and currently only experience with Logitech support.
After it was no longer supported, a member of my family somehow managed to snap the large
USB receiver which I was not able to fix or find a replacement for my exact model.
Despite this, after contacting Logitech they were able to send me one completely free which
was awesome, I’ll never forget how happy I was to be able to use that mouse again.
After the MX revolution came the MX performance, which improved most things, but also went
backwards on some others.
Firstly I really liked that I no longer had to push in the scroll wheel in order to unlock
the hyperfast scroll, this was done by pressing the dedicated button behind the scroll wheel.
While this was an improvement, I also found it reduced how often I was actually bothered
to put it into hyperfast scroll mode.
This is also where the gesture button made its first appearance as an extra thumb button,
allowing you to perform even more functions through the mouse.
Charging was improved with a micro USB port which meant that the mouse could now be used
while charging it, however an external rechargable AA battery was used which would warm up a
bit during charging, and in my opinion did not last as long as I was used to with the
MX revolution.
The added bonus here is that you could optionally swap in a fully charged battery and be back
at a full charge straight away.
The USB receiver also shrunk significantly in size making breaking it much less likely.
Unfortunately in this generation the side scroll wheel disappeared, I never found myself
using the new zoom button that appeared under the back and forward buttons, and over time
I found the rubber would come off of the mouse extremely easily, to the point where I would
have it stuck to my finger nails even after washing my hands and days later without using
it.
Finally after the MX performance came the MX master mouse, which is currently the latest
iteration from Logitech.
I’ve done a full review on the MX Master mouse if you’re interested, see the link
in the video description for full details.
A lot of the good features from the MX performance came over, including the tiny wireless receiver,
and being able to charge while using the mouse.
The battery was also changed to a non removable internal battery which I think is better,
it lasts longer than the MX performance and doesn’t warm up while charging.
This version also introduces Bluetooth connectivity to up to 3 devices, which is useful if you
want to sync the mouse to a laptop and use it on multiple machines, or even if you just
don’t want to waste a whole USB port for the included receiver as these are hard to
come by on some laptops.
The scroll wheel is also a lot better, possibly perfect.
The button behind the scroll wheel is still there allowing you to manually swap between
click-to-click ratcheted movement and hyperfast scroll mode, however if you simply scroll
the wheel fast enough it will automatically engage hyperfast mode and then automatically
swap back when it slows down.
This is awesome as I actually found myself using it all the time as it was so quick and
easy to use, and the scroll wheel also functions as a middle click button - excellent!
I was happy to see an improved thumb scroll back from the revolution, here you can continually
scroll left and right with your thumb whereas the revolution only allowed you to scroll
through open applications which wasn’t as useful.
The materials on the scroll wheels also just feel better, though that may simply be that
I’ve not worn them down as much yet.
At first I thought that the back and forward buttons were in a weird position, however
I was wrong, they are definitely better now that I’ve gotten used to them, they’re
located closer to where your thumb rests at idle so they are easy to get to, though it’s
a little odd that the forward button is smaller than the back button which can make it a little
harder to press at times.
After using the MX Master for some time and swapping back to the MX Performance, it just
felt wrong.
The Master is a lot nicer to hold and use, it just fits in my hand better.
I like the textured surface around the sides of the mouse as it’s a hard plastic which
should mean I won't have rubber deteriorating and falling off everywhere over time.
I was happy to see the absence of the Logitech logo on the back of the mouse, I noticed that
this rubbed off very fast on my Revolution and Performance as it was essentially right
where you rest your palm.
So far after a few months of use I don’t really have any downsides, other than the
clicks seem a little louder than what I’m used to, but that really isn’t a big deal
at all, I guess it goes to show how far things have come if that’s my biggest concern.
In conclusion I really like that there’s a similar design element throughout all of
these generations of mice.
It’s also obvious that Logitech have improved their mice significantly over time, by adding
new features and perfecting existing ones.
While all of these mice are great and I have used them all for quite some time, the MX
Master is easily by far the best and I’d definitely recommend looking into it if you’re
currently looking at a new mouse.
While I’m sure the sensor has improved over time, I don’t use it for any hardcore gaming
or anything that would require me to constantly perform precise and fast movements so I can’t
really say for sure that I’ve noticed this get better.
With that said, the tracking has always been excellent throughout all 3 generations of
mouse, I’ve had no problems at all.
So have you guys used any of these mice before?
Which are your favourites?
Be sure to let me know down in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe for future
videos like this one!