While you can game withanymouse (and I have!) there’s nothing like a tuned gaming rodent to give you the best experience while playing on PC—and sometimes even on consoles!
While plenty of people will spend a huge chunk of money on fancy gaming mice, I’m notthatcompetitive, and instead I’ve been wielding a gaming mouse for a while now that’s not only a budget champion, butwirelessto boot—theLogitech G305 Lightspeed.
Small, but Mighty
Logitech G305 LIGHTSPEED Wireless Gaming Mouse
The G305 is an affordable wireless gaming mouse that doesn’t feel any less responsive than the wired competition.
I have pretty large hands, and my daily productivity mouse is the excellentLogitech MX Master 3S, which I’ve waxed lyrical about before, but its slow-and-steady mouse sensor is really only suitable for playing the slowest of spreadsheet games.
Given that I have big hands, you’d think that I would prefer a pretty bulky gaming mouse, but actually my style of mouse grip while playing games is such that a smaller mouse works better for me. On top of that, I don’t have a desktop PC and only play PC games using my gaming laptop or PC handheld. My G305 is absolutely perfect for gaming laptop use where space in my laptop bag is limited already, and I don’t want to use a wired mouse.
This is the cheapest mouse to feature Logitech’s “Hero” sensor, which has a great reputation among gamers, and the build quality is exceptional. So I really feel confident taking it everywhere with me. It’s limited to a polling rate of 1000Hz and a maximum of 12,000 DPI, but that’s overkill for 99% of PC gamers and don’t let anyone tell you any different.
For the rest of us, this is more mouse than we need. I love playing “boomer” shooters and will rip throughQuakeorDuke Nukem 3Dseveral times a year, not to mention all the new boomer shooters that are coming out these days. For those games, the G305 feelsexcellent, andI’d say I’m not a casual FPS player, but certainly not a competitive one either. So take that as an estimation of where the G305 falls in the greater scheme of things.
Wait, It’s Wireless?!
Not to belabor the obvious, but the Logitech G305onlyoffers wireless connectivity. Now, if you haven’t checked in on mouse technology in a while (and who could blame you?) that might sound like a recipe for disaster. After all, wireless peripherals have traditionally had some noticeable latency.
However, the whole point of the “Lightspeed” technology is to offer wireless performance with latency that’s indistinguishable from a wired mouse. Granted, I don’t have anything like fighter pilot reaction times, but I honestly cannot tell the difference in the latency between this mouse and a gaming mouse that uses a wire. In fact, I’d argue that the little bit of drag the USB cable causes on a wired mouse puts itbehindthese wireless gaming mice in the latency department.
Using a proprietary wireless technology via USB dongle instead of Bluetooth is the only way to achieve this right now, and the G305 doesn’t even offer Bluetooth for that reason. This isn’t a very comfortable mouse for non-gaming usage, and so having Bluetooth is just pointless bloat in this product anyway.
The Drawbacks Don’t Matter at This Price
As a budget mouse, the G305 obviously has to make some compromises. There are no compromises when it comes to the build quality in my opinion. Though, as always, there are people who complain about the micro-switches in every mouse, and there are people whosimply upgrade them. I play a fair bit though, and after just over a year nothing on my G305 has stopped working (touch wood).
The real drawbacks, depending on your point of view, are worth mentioning. First, there’s no USB connectivity at all, and as I mentioned, no Bluetooth. You must use that Lightspeed dongle. You can’t use Logitech’s Unifying Receivers with this mouse either, so that dongle is going with you no matter what. However, if you were using a wired mouse, you’d have to give up a USB port anyway, so think of this as a mouse with the same performance as USB, but without the actual wire, and it’s still a win-win situation.
A bigger issue might be the lack of an internal, rechargeable battery. You get one AA battery in the box, and that’s rated for just over 200 hours of operation. I play a moderate amount of PC games every week, and I still haven’t changed out the battery that came with my G305, but obviously your mileage may vary depending on how much you play. I should also add that I turn the mouse off with its physical switch when I’m not using it, which might also help preserve battery life.
Still, AA batteries aren’t expensive, and you always have the option of buying aUSB-rechargable AA batterythese days, which means you don’t have to keep buying batteries and slowly eroding whatever savings a budget mouse offers in the first place.
I don’t see these as drawbacks, however. I bought a wireless gaming mouse to use it without a wire, and Bluetooth would also just be another pointless cost. Instead, I got a solid mouse, with premium core components, and no non-gaming fluff for a fair price. Now that the Logitech G305 is down to only $29.99 for Prime Day 2025, those “compromises” matter even less and if you’re already using a non-gaming mouse for your non-gaming needs, this is the perfect second mouse for when you want to frag noobs instead of scrolling through spreadsheets.
So I can give my personal recommendation when it comes to the G305 as a well-built, basic piece of gaming equipment that will make you hate going back to wired gaming mice.
