Gaming mouse FAQs
Sarah Saril/Insider
Should you buy a wireless or wired gaming mouse?
Back in the day, the most serious gamers stood by wired gaming mice for their stable connectivity. However, top wireless gaming mice today with 2.4GHz connections are just as good when it comes to latency.
With that out of the way, the main benefits of wired gaming mice are lower prices, lighter weights, and battery-free operation. If those are your priorities, we recommend a wired mouse like our budget pick, the Razer Cobra. However, wireless gaming mice offer a lot of freedom that is worth considering if you can afford it. Specifically, folks tired of cable management, pet owners, and gamers using fast or sweeping movements can benefit from a wireless option that doesn’t tether them down.
What is the difference between a gaming mouse and a regular mouse?
When it comes to responsiveness, connectivity, programmability, and comfort, a normal mouse designed for productivity just won’t cut it — a gaming mouse provides a competitive advantage with quality of life improvement for gamers.
The best gaming mice stand out with their extra customizable buttons, RGB lights, wide DPI ranges, soft braided cables, and specialized switches. It’s these kinds of features that can make a big difference between winning and losing, and they also make gaming on a computer more enjoyable as a whole.
What is DPI in a gaming mouse?
DPI is a measure of mouse sensitivity and stands for “dots per inch.” Literally, the number translates to how many pixels your cursor travels corresponding to the inches your mouse moves on your mouse pad. The higher your DPI, the more sensitive your mouse feels.
Generally speaking, a lower DPI is good for more precision and accuracy, but requires more desk space to play games. A higher DPI is better for speed, with especially high settings capable of crossing your entire monitor with just the flick of the wrist. Most gaming mice also include the ability to adjust their DPI within a certain range, so you can toggle the sensitivity depending on your style of play.
What about the Logitech G502 Lightspeed?
The Logitech G502 Lightspeed is a beloved gaming mouse with a cult following, and for good reason: it pioneered the game-changing asymmetrical feature-loaded design that so many brands have adopted for their own mice. It’s still an excellent mouse that we recommend as our runner-up in our guide to the best wireless gaming mouse — but we otherwise find that the Razer Basilisk V3 Pro has it beat in terms of build quality and technical specs.
