If you prefer to sketch on your laptop rather than on your tablet in Xactimate mobile, a gaming mouse may be for you. It takes a little bit of practice to get used to the custom buttons, but soon enough you’ll be burning through sketch’s with efficiency, accuracy and speed.
The Design
Logitech is a solid brand and has been in the tech hardware game for many, many years. With the G602 they’ve elegantly packed a lot of punch into a mouse while maintaining comfort and an ergonomic feel to it. Beyond the standard scroll wheel and left/right mouse buttons, the mouse features eleven customizable buttons along the left-hand side of the mouse, where the thumb rest is. This layout makes it easy to assign various actions and macros to the buttons and activate them with a quick flick of the thumb. For example, you could assign the ever valuable control key to the most accessible button, or F9 for making notes.
An unseen design element of the mouse is the option to adjust the weight and feel of the mouse by using one or two batteries. If you like a heavier feel, you can run the mouse with two batteries, but it’s also possible to run off just one battery on the side of your choosing to account for weight distribution. Of course, using a single battery drops battery life by half, but since you’ve followed our gear guide, you’ve got plenty of rechargeable batteries.
Another small detail is that the right mouse button is slightly longer than the left mouse button to account for the fact that, generally speaking, a person’s middle-finger is longer than their index finger. All of these finer details make the hours that you’ll spend sketching and clicking easier on your mind and body.
Set Up: Super Easy
Setting up the Logitech G602 starts with plugging in the included 2.4GHz wireless receiver. The tiny receiver, which plops right into a USB port. You would think why do I need this when I already have bluetooth, but this receiver is designed specifically to reduce lag to the absolute minimum. The mouse will not connect to standard bluetooth. It’s really not a big, since you’ve followed our gear guide and have tons of extra USB ports at your disposal.
Comfort: Sketching for long periods is not an issue
Gaming mice should be comfortable in every sense of the word and the G602 manages that easily. The left/right mouse buttons are long, with a large surface area to click. The scroll wheel is nice and tactile, and the customizable buttons on the side of the mouse add additional convenience and increase efficiency. The thumb rest also keeps your thumb off the desk surface and provides a better grip on the mouse as a whole, which is nice in those frustrating moments that arise in sketch from time to time.
Software: Plenty of room to customize
Logitech Gaming Software, which can be downloaded via Logitech’s website, works with the G602 and other Logitech gaming peripherals to help check the status of the devices, upgrade the firmware when possible, and customize the various buttons. Once downloaded, the software will automatically recognize when a device is connected via the receiver. Once recognized, you can click through the various menus to adjust everything including each button on the mouse, corresponding it to a command in Xactimate.
Verdict: Worth it
Just from the health aspect of using an ergonomic mouse, the G602 $36 is completely worth it considering the hours you’ll spend using it. Add in the features that will improve your sketch times and make your life easier while on deployment as an independent adjuster, and it’s a simple choice.
