Logitech G502 X Plus

Written by John Yan on 9/16/2022 for PC  

I’ve been using a variant of the Logitech G502 for a long time. Whether it was the 2015-released G502 or the updated G502 Lightspeed paired up with a Power Play mat, the G502 series has been my main mouse for a better part of the last 8 years.

Logitech has set out to update the G502 with some new features and some refinement with the G502 X. Today we’ll be taking a look at the Logitech G502 X Plus.

The Logitech G502 X Plus is Logitech's top of the line G502 X wireless mouse and will retail for $159.99. The shape is very similar to the G502 Lightspeed with some slight changes. Let’s start with the main buttons. On the Lightspeed, there’s a space between the left and right mouse buttons making a rather pointy front of the mouse. It’s a little sharp, but luckily it’s away from anywhere you grip so you won’t poke yourself with the sharp corners. On the G502 X Plus, the area in front of the mouse wheel is now extended out to meet the two mouse buttons so you have one continuous edge. It’s a slight visual change that has no effect on performance other than maybe adding a little bit of weight with the added plastic.

Logitech also seems to have cleaned up the amount of crevices around on the G502 X Plus and that might help keep the mouse a little cleaner. My G502 Lightspeed has a lot of little places where dirt can build up like around the profile switch button, under the forward and back buttons, and on the rubberized sides. I won’t know how well the G502 X Plus does in keeping dirt out, but most of those places seem better except for the indentation where the RGB light strip is.

The main buttons have a very healthy spring blade underneath providing a very satisfying feeling - and sounding - click when pressed. It might be that my G502 Lightspeed mouse is old and has more worn out springs, but I found the G502 X Plus to have much better feel to the top two buttons. We’ll see how they are in a few years, but I found the main buttons to feel really good when pressing down on them. They use what’s called Lightforce Hybrid Optical-Mechanical Switches that boast a mechanical feel with the accurate, low latency actuation using light. Logitech also says that it should also account for a longer switch life as it’s not using as many things that wear out. You can see more details on the switches at https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/innovation/lightforce.html.

For the wheel, you’ll get the option to switch between a ratcheted rotation or smooth rolling with a press of the button. What’s changed is that the surface wheel has a lot more smaller grooves to it while the G502 Lightspeed’s had larger square bumps. As for preference, I liked both, so not much there in terms of which one is better. The ratcheted feeling when scrolling on the G502 X Plus is really good and feels pronounced while the smooth scrolling is, well, very smooth. You can also push the wheel left and right for side scrolling or two more actions for you to program to your liking.

Underneath the wheel are two buttons, with one switching the mouse wheel scrolling style and a button that’s defaulted to cycling between profiles. As usual, all the buttons are programmable so you can change up the operations to whatever you like. You don’t have to settle for the default action. The profile changing button has a more muted click when pressed and compared to the G502 Lightspeed, the two buttons are thinner and closer together vertically on the G502 X Plus. I still have to move my hand back a little to reach the profile button comfortably, but it’s not one that I use often and if you keep it as a profile changing button, it’s probably not something you’ll press often.

The DPI up and down buttons on the top left of the G502 X Plus are also thinner and have been made a little smaller than the Lightspeed version. That said, they are still pretty easily accessible with my index finger and clicking on them feels very similar to the Lightspeed mouse.

Moving to the forward and back buttons on the side of the G502 X Plus, they too have changed in size. It seems the forward button has changed to be more uniform in size from front to back compared to the flared out approach on the G502 Lightspeed, while also making the height of the front button a little smaller on the G502 X Plus. The back button looks to have grown a little in height making it bigger than the G502 Lightspeed back button. As with the other buttons, they both have a satisfying click to them and in my hands, are easily reachable without adjusting my palm grip.

Just below and to the front of the forward button is the DPI shift button and here contains one of the new features of the G502 X line. The DPI shift button can be flipped around to bring it close to your thumb and is held in by a nice magnet. Or, if you prefer not to have it in use, Logitech provides a cover so you can just have a smooth area near your thumb rest. I always like it when companies give you options and here, I like Logitech’s decision to make this DPI shift button configurable physically. It took me a little bit to stop pressing it accidentally and if you can’t adjust to it, just cover it up with the included cover.

Both sides are covered in a nice rubbery coating to help with gripping the mouse easier. There’s a small textured feel to it as well, which feels softer than my G502 Lightspeed. As with the G502 Lightspeed, the G502 X Plus has an extension on the thumb area for you to rest on with the coating extending all the way to the edge.

The sensor gets a nice upgrade from what the G502 Lightspeed was using with the HERO 25K sensor that was released a few years ago. The HERO sensor will let you go from 100 DPI all the way up to 25,600 DPI in increments of 50. It’s a very precise sensor that makes using this mouse a joy as I never felt I was out of control and the mouse cursor was always where I expected it to be when moving. There’s no smoother or acceleration in play, just accurate tracking.

On the bottom of the G502 X Plus are white PTFE feet which is a stark contrast in color to the black PTFE feet of the G502 Lightspeed. It still glides really well and compared to my well used G502 Lightspeed, the G502 X Plus feet are nice, new, and ready to endure many hours of gameplay and work.

There’s the round cover that’s magnetically attached where you can remove and store your USB receiver when not in use. And for those who have a Power Play mat like I do, it uses the same circular disc that enables wireless charging. I was easily able to switch the disc out and pair the G502 X Plus with my Power Play mat in order for me to use the mouse.

Without the wireless charging of the Power Play mat, you’re looking at around 120 hours of usage with the mouse, which is really good. But there is one caveat with the battery life.

The G502 X Plus features an 8 zone RGB light strip that goes around the palm area of the mouse. The RGB lights actually do look bright and well diffused. It can be synced with your other RGB products and you can enable a few different effects on it. The problem though is that enabling this will significantly reduce your battery life. We’re talking an estimated 70% less charge time with the RGB enabled, translating to about 37 hours of usage. Also, the RGB is going to be blocked most of the time with your palm resting on the mouse. Thankfully, you can turn the RGB off, but that’s the only difference between the G502 X Lightspeed and the G502 X Plus. The light strip is also located a little below the shell so the indent might bother some people. For me, I didn’t notice it at all with my palm resting on it. The RGB strip also adds a little bit more weight to the mouse so unless you really want RGB, you might be better off picking up the G502 X Lightspeed for a little less.

Speaking of weight, the G502 X Plus comes in at around 106 grams. It is lighter than the G502 Lightspeed, which was 121 grams and when I have both in each hand, the G502 X Plus does feel a little lighter. Unfortunately, there’s no weight adjustments included in the G502 X Plus so it weighs what it weighs.

Charging the mouse can be done with the included USB cable and thankfully, Logitech has moved to a USB-C connection for the G502 X Plus. The G502 Lightspeed had a micro-USB port, but now, you don’t have to see which way to plug in the cable with the USB-C port the G502 X Plus has.

As mentioned earlier, you can connect the G502 X Plus to your PC using the included Lightspeed dongle. The dongle can handle two Lightspeed products so if you do have a keyboard, you can save a USB slot by pairing it with the dongle along with the mouse. Logitech was also nice enough to include a female USB-C to female USB-A dongle so you can also extend the dongle with a USB-C cable away from your computer.

Performance in game is outstanding as well as doing well in work situations. I played through a gamut of first person shooters, RTS games, and spent time using it doing some programming in Visual Studio and was very happy with how well it performed. It was accurate, fast, and never stuttered either when doing slow movements in sniping or fast movements when spinning around to face an enemy. Movement on the brand new PTFE feet was smooth and we’ll see how it holds up over time. I’m expecting it to be the same as my three year old G502 Lightspeed,, which held up OK.

The G502 X Plus also stores up to five profiles so if you do take your mice to other places, you can have your settings in memory and not have to install the software on another computer if you don't want to. The G Hub software make it simple to adjust DPI settings, change bindings, change the RGB, and setup macros. The G Hub software even lets you know the status of your battery life as well as an estimate on how long you have left.

Coming in at $159.99, G502 X Plus is certainly an expensive mouse. Is it a good upgrade if you already have the G502 Lightspeed? I would say probably not unless your old mouse has been worn down through extensive use. The G502 X Plus does offer outstanding performance, and the switches are top notch. I absolutely love the switches on the G502 X Plus and I really hope they perform well over time. I’m also not a big RGB person, but if you want lights on your mouse, it does look bright and consistent; it’s just too bad that it sucks so much battery life when in use. It covers a lot more area than the G that was glowing in the previous mouse, but again it’s covered up when you are using the mouse in your hand. A refinement in design over the G502 Lightspeed, the G502 X Plus is a great feeling gaming mouse that continues the great design of the G502 line, but you could save some cost by picking up the G502 X Lightspeed version to bypass the RGB lightstrip as well as save a little weight.