Logitech MX Master 3S review: the best mouse for power users?

Let’s cut straight to the chase with the Logitech MX Master 3S – it’s the best mouse I’ve ever had my hands on. If you want it, you’re going to have to prise it out of my right hand. Or pay Logitech £120 for one. Yes, that’s one heck of an expensive mouse. Let me explain why it’s brilliant.

Logitech MX Master 3S: what’s so good about it?

• It’s deathly quiet. One of the few modifications that Logitech has made from the MX Master 3 is the buttons have been dampened. If you click the main left or right buttons, you can barely hear them. They’re not silent, but they don’t have that distinct click either. If you’re using a mouse while recording a podcast, for example, your audience won’t be distracted by the clicks.
• Comfort. The mouse is beautifully contoured. The soft rubber shell is pleasant to touch and there’s a shelf for your thumb to rest on. That shelf includes an extra button, which on my Mac can be used to open Mission Control or Launchpad (more on this later). It feels great from the moment you start using it.
• The scroll wheels. The MX Master 3S has both vertical and horizontal scroll wheels. They are awesome. The main scroll wheel can be used in either free-scrolling mode at a ridiculous 1,000 lines per second speed, or you can click the button beneath it and put it into the more granular notched mode, where it scrolls line by line. The horizontal scroll wheel, used by your thumb, may sound faintly pointless – who scrolls from side to side? – but it has other functions. In the browser, for example, it flicks between open tabs. In Slack, it moves you between different workspaces. I’ve never understood why I needed a horizontal scroll wheel until now.
• The software. I’m not a huge fan of Logitech’s Logi Options software. It can be buggy and erratic. However, the new Logi Options+ is an improvement. The power of this software is that it lets you customise the buttons for different apps. In Photoshop, for example, that horizontal scroll wheel is set by default to change brush sizes, but it can be easily remapped to zoom or undo/redo changes. There’s a wide range of compatible apps.

• Battery life. The mouse has a rechargeable battery, so no need to head to the petrol station for a pack of AAs. Logitech says the battery should last 70 days between charges with the supplied USB-C cable. I’ve only been testing it for a few days, but have no reason to doubt those figures, if the battery gauges in the Logitech software are reliable.
• It’s versatile. As with the Logitech MX Mechanical keyboard it launched alongside, the MX Master 3 can be paired with up to three devices. It’s simple to switch between them using a button on the base of the mouse. You can even cut and paste text (and files) between different systems, a long-term Logitech feature.
• It’s sensitive. DPI is a bit of a nonsense metric when it comes to mice, but for those who like such stats the MX Master 3 is rated at 8,000dpi. Logitech claims you only have to move the mouse 2.5cm to move right across two 4K screens that are positioned alongside one another. You can adjust the tracking speed in your operating system settings if that’s too sensitive for you.

Are there any downsides?

Only one major one: the price. Paying £120 for a mouse is some commitment. Yes, it’s a critical device that you’re going to be using every day, but it’s still a heck of a lot of money when you can get decent mice for much less than half that price.

Still, if you want the very best there is, you’re going to have to meet Logitech’s inflation-inducing price.

One other thing: I’m not a fan of the grey variant shown here. The black is much more stylish. (Yes, Esquire are constantly begging me to do their style pages.)