My venerable MX510 has served me well but after a few years of concentrated (ab)use it was somewhat the worse for wear - the scroll wheel died a few months back, and more and more of the low-friction feet had become detached, making it start to limp like a wounded animal. I finally caved this week and took it out to the barn with a 12-gauge.
I thought about getting a wireless mouse this time around, but I concluded that I really can’t be arsed to charge yet another wireless device or keep it stocked with batteries, so I stuck with a traditional wired rodent. I’ve always preferred the design of Logitech mice so I just went with a fairly conservative choice of the G5, because it has the same basic shape I’m used to.
It’s nothing particularly special, a high-precision laser product as you’d expect these days, and you can vary the sensitivity dynamically which is a bit of a gimmick for me since I’m hardly a pro gamer. However, the cool thing that actually is useful is that it’s not a fixed weight. The base mouse is quite light, but undernearth there’s a slot for a ‘ballast cartridge’, which is just a piece of plastic with 8 round slots in it. In the box they give you a metal tin with tiny metal weights in it - 8 x 1.7g and 8 x 4.5g - which are quite nicely designed. You just snap in whatever combination of weights you want; this way you can vary the weight by up to 36g in 1.7g increments. It’s a nice idea actually, since weight does have a bearing on how comfy a mouse is to use and you’re not forced into a one size fits all setup. I have mine set to 30.4g 
July 6th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I’ve been using a G5 for ages but must admit I use it without the cartridge in… don’t want RSI
[)amien
July 6th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Ah yes, the G5. I actually bought this exact mouse at the end of last year, as my old mouse needed to be put down as well. I absolutely love the G5. I appreciated the adjustable weight as well. I took my weights out entirely as a lighter mouse requires less force to move, and seems to help with my various ergo issues.
The absolutely best part of the G5 is the cord. You wouldn’t think that a cord would be very impressive, but the fact that it is a nylon wrapped stiff cord that holds nearly whatever shape you give it is great. Usually my mouse cords get caught on all sorts of things on my desk, and generally just get in the way. I’m pleased to say that since I picked up a G5 my days of fighting with the mouse cord are finally over.
If you’re in the market for a new keyboard, look at the G15s. They’re a little big, but the field programmable macro keys are actually quite useful for source code editing. I use them for creating throw away macros when I’m refactoring C++ code. Visual Studio never did have any decent refactor abilities for C/C++, and my G15 takes a lot of the pain out of updating function declarations.
July 6th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
@Damien, does weight heightens the chance for RSI?
I’m actually wondering if people would perform better with a certain weight? As Fitts’ law does not take this into account :).
July 6th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Looks like I’m in good company
The only way I find I can avoid RSI is to use the mouse as little as possible. My favourite pointing device is my MacBook Pro trackpad. I prefer a slightly heavier feel to my mouse, the ballast-less weight felt a little too light for me. However I’ve scaled down a bit and I’m comfortable with 15g ballast now, maybe over time I’ll get used to none at all.
And yeah, now you come to mention it the cord is pretty cool.
Keyboard wise I use an Enermax Aurura low-profile keyboard with scissor switches (basically a laptop style keyboard), which I find far more comfortable than a regular keyboard. The only downside is that it could use a curve in the middle.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I have an MX1000, which is wireless. The charging isn’t really a problem - I just put it in the cradle when I’m done using it. In the couple of years that I’ve had it, I’ve never had it run out of charge while in use, or have to change batteries. The cord on my old mouse wasn’t quite long enough for comfort, so that makes the MX1000 seem all the more wonderful.
July 6th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Heh, Ive been using a weighted mouse two, mines a Logi G9 though - you can choose different covers for it for comfort. I did a nice big upgrade around christmas time, and the G9 and my “gamers” keyboard, the G15 that zeroSkill mentioned were sweet little nice to haves I treated myself to.
I’m still not 100% convinced the weight thing gives me any sort of edge, but I do use the mouse speed increase button in Battlefield 2142 quite alot when flying
July 7th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I have an MX1000 like Marble, and I agree with him that charging on it has NEVER been an issue. Even on days when I’m at my computer for 12 hours straight, it still has enough of a charge.
The ballast idea is interesting though.
July 7th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I use wow pen to avoid RSI for a year now, And I must say it works well at reasonable price. ( http://www.wow-pen.com ) Even, if I wish they made multiple ’size’ because I find it small, but perhaps it’s part of the thing.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Hmm, the wow-pen looks pretty interesting…
July 9th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I currently use an MX Revolution. It’s so annoying now to use a mouse without a free spin wheel. Damn cool mouse.
I’d like to try a Sandio 3D O2 mouse. http://www.sandiotech.com/sandio_product.php
It has 3 hat switches, one on each side and one on top. Using them in different combinations gives you 6 degrees of freedom. Although the main reason for wanting it is probably for adding support to my input library.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Huh, oddly enough I have the maximum weight possible in my G5, I really like the heft of it. My wrist hasn’t been any more sore than with any other mouse due to the weight, and I am prone to 14 hour runs of TF2.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Ah-ha! I too own a MX1000 wireless mouse like Marble and Kentamanos. I love the rubber body of the mouse. It prevents my hand from slipping. I had a problem with the weight (very heavy because of the rechargeable battery) of the mouse at first but got used to it.
Unfortunately, my MX1000 stopped clicking right (double clicks when you single click or sometimes doesn’t click at all). I tried to fix it by opening it up and following a DIY tutorial on the web. Well, I can safely say it’s in a worse condition than before I opened it.
I still have it (in storeage) but now I use a G5 mouse like the one in the picture of this blog post. I initially used the G5 with all max weight for the first week. Then gradually I removed all the the weights. Now I use it without any weights and loving it.
The cord and ‘feet’ of the G5 is top notch. I only wished logitech had used the rubber body like the MX1000. That would have made it the perfect mouse for me.