Why Logitech redesigned a beloved gaming mouse

It's been five years since Logitech has completely redesigned its flagship gaming mouse, as much as 11 years depending on how you define the core design, so it was with immense care that they rolled out a replacement for their popular G500S.

The G502 Proteus Core tunable mouse hits stores this month, replacing the G500s with what Logitech product manager Chris Pate said is the best technology put into a mouse.

"It's replacing the beloved shape of the G500s," he said. "It's designed to feel good to people who have used the G500s, but to also improve the design.

"This is our flagship gaming mouse."

The biggest change that the Proteus brings to the market is a vastly improved 12,000 DPI sensor. The new component has zero sensor acceleration, smoothing, filtering or pixel rounding and can track movement at 300 inches per a second.

"The sensor is a huge thing," Pate said. "We wanted to make sure that the flagship Logitech product has the best sensor on the planet."

The team also reexamined the shape, materials and functionality of the mouse while redesigning it.

"We looked at the performance of things like the scroll wheel and we made improvements on all of those things," Pate said.

The new mouse also has a reconfigured weight tuning and balancing system designed to make it more functional and easier to adjust.

Before finalizing the design, Pate said, the team did a lot of testing with existing G500s users to make sure the new shape was as comfortable as possible for those fans, Pate said.

Pate said the fact that basic technology like the mouse and keyboard are constantly evolving isn't really a reflect of changing gamers' tastes as much as it is their growing knowledge of technology.

"What people really care about hasn't changed on the basic core fundamental level," he said. "But there understanding of what is possible and the ability for developers to make use of new technology is always changing.

"The gamers of today aren't more demanding of hardware then back when they were playing Doom, they just have a better understanding of what is possible."