Logitech's MX Master 4 mouse buzzes with haptic feedback but lacks lefty love

Logitech has unveiled its latest MX Master mouse, filled with impressive new productivity features, including an added button and haptic feedback. However, like most mice on the market, it's right-handed only. The device in question is the MX Master 4 mouse, which is a delight to use. As with its predecessor and others in …

[FIA]

But for others, the MX Master 4's combination of ergonomics, scroll wheel feel, side scroll wheel, customizable buttons, and powerful software is hard to beat . . . as long as you're right handed.

Why do right handed people use their mouse with their dominant hand? Most people don't need fine pointer control, but being able to type with the other hand is surely more useful?

I'm left handed and have always used my mouse on the right for this reason.

[GlenP]

I *can* use a mouse left handed, I've sat at enough left handed users' desks over the years (and occasionally end up with two computers on the go at the same time) but I much prefer using my right hand. I could probably learn to be better with more practice but then there's the issue highlighted here, a reduction in choice of device. My current work mouse (a Cherry Stream) has two thumb buttons on the left side only which are easy to use with the right thumb but would be awkward left handed.

Although it's very much a generalisation I find left handed people are far better with their right hands than the opposite, probably through necessity!

[Bill Gray]

I'm right-handed, but switched the mouse to my left hand when I developed carpal tunnel. I now swap back and forth, but would agree with you : it helps to delegate the mouse to your non-dominant hand, leaving the "good" hand for hitting the keyboard.

[Dan 55]

I'm not shilling for Logitech, but I'd recommend a Lift mouse if you have carpal tunnel. Mine was gone in about a week. Feels a bit odd at first but you'll get used to it.

Also, everyone should probably use a vertical mouse to prevent damage in the first place.

[Bill Gray]

Vertical mouse

Interesting idea. That particular model appears to be aimed at people with smaller hands, i.e., not me. But the same review mentions vertical mouse options for the larger-handed person.

I had carpal tunnel issues about thirty years back. I switched to a split keyboard, better chair and desk, and from QWERTY to Dvorak. (I was in considerable pain and willing to try anything, or everything then available.) I recovered completely, but because I did "everything" at basically the same time, I don't actually know what worked.

So I'm currently pain-free. Still, as you sort of imply, a vertical mouse might help ensure I stay that way.

[Dan 55]

Re: Vertical mouse

I don't have Trump's tiny hands, the Lift works for me but it wouldn't be suitable for everyone. They also do the MX Vertical which is a bigger vertical mouse.

In the end I went for a Lift because it uses an AA battery and I can use my own rechargable AA battery or fully use up batteries which have been used for the remote controls/clocks, the MX Vertical has a built-in rechargable Li-Po battery.

Also that review says there is some cloud-based settings software... It works without it, I didn't even realise Logitech wanted me to download and install it.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

I'm right-handed, but a weird sort of ambidextrous that some things are just more natural with my left hand, my various mice being one of those things.

I'm not sure if I developed carpal tunnel or impinged nerve on right hand\arm. Acupuncturist says yes, nerve conduction guy said no to the former!

The one thing that surprised all of them & my massage therapist was that I use the mouse with my left hand!

[GlenP]

carpal tunnel or impinged nerve

I can empathise on that one. I had steroid injections in both wrists and was referred for carpal tunnel surgery until two sets of nerve conduction tests ruled it out. The next referral was to Rheumatology where the registrar didn't have a clue but consulted with the clinical physio who happened to be in the department that day; she knew exactly what the problem was - trapped nerves in my upper back due to my spine not bending properly. Physio helped alleviate the immediate issues and I've self managed for 15 years or so but it's never going to be cured.

[lotus49]

I'm not sure what you're doing that means you don't need fine control over the mouse pointer but I do, whether I'm playing games or trying to tweak a Powerpoint presentation. There are lots of situations where moving the cursor less than 1mm is important. I can do that with my dominant left hand but not my right. However, I type with both hands all the time so both hands are capable of doing that.

[Neil Barnes]

Try PCB layout... fine control is essential.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any CAD work requires precision. I found a trackball was great, as you can put the curser where you want it and click without the risk of moving the curser. I'm sure trackpads are as good, but haven't done CAD in a while so never got to try one.

[Giles C]

If you have the desk space and are doing a lot of graphics work they are good, but for general input tasks a small trackpad or a mouse I find better.

[Snake]

Ya

Yeah, I mouse with my left (a remnant of when I broke my right wrist), leaving me free to use a Wacom with the right at the same time. I need to keep my left-hand penmanship up, it's been a while.

[jlturriff]

Lucky for you that you're not as profoundly left-handed as I am. For me, coordination in my right hand is such that its use with mouse or numeric keypad on the keyboard is too jerky to be useful, so I'm stuck with an ambidextrous mouse and a keyboard with a lot of useless keys. One would think that a company like Logitech would be big enough to be able to afford to cater to the left-handed 20% of the population that it serves, but no, we aren't as important as to merit their notice in the face of profit-making.

I notice, when searching their website, that the search string "left-handed mouse" returns many instances of "ambidextrous mice." Oh, thank you, Logitech, that's just what I'm looking for. Of the rest, the prices are astronomical, most being designated "gaming mouse", which is irrelevant to me. Again, thank you, Logitech (though of course, other vendors' offerings are much the same).

[NetMage]

You can get a keyboard with a a separate numeric keypad and use it on the left.

[Giles C]

I am a southpaw, sinsister, lefty whatever takes your fancy.

But I have never used a mouse with my left hand, I think it is starting out as a cad draughtsman using graphics tablet (big 15” square one) with a decidedly right hand only pick - this is back in 1989. Since then I have always used my right hand and mostly use touchpads these days rather than mice again with my right hand.

As as for those you swap the buttons around - why.

I do use scrolling in natural mode so that confuses people who try to use my machines though….

[Steve Crook]

Yup. I do the same, Got forced into it because we used to have to share workstations and I got fed up with having to switch the mouse controls round.

It was easy to adapt and I found one handed left hand keyboard wrangling much easier, I'd never switch back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Running behind the scenes is Logi Options+

So a £120 mouse with no left hand option with a lot of the functionality dependent on the continued maintenance of vendor bloatware for Mac and Windows only. Clearly indispensable!

[JClouseau]

Investment ?

Developing a left-handed MX Master mouse requires significant investments

Excuse me ? I have zero experience in mouse design and development, so can someone please explain to me why building a symmetrical device is not good enough ?

Had they said "it's too costly to build moulds and factory lines for 10% of the consumers" I would have understood, but "developing" ?

I know we lefties are artists, brilliant, creative and all that, but we can adapt. We don't need bespoke mice.

[O'Reg Inalsin]

Let's not generalize

Several studies over the past few decades have explored the potential link between left-handedness and criminal conduct. Some of the earliest evidence came from studies of prison populations, which suggested that left-handed people may be over-represented in prisons compared to the general public. For example, a 1989 study of prisoners in New York found that 15% of inmates were left-handed, compared to 10% of the general population. Similarly, a 1992 study of prisoners in Canada found that 25% of violent criminals were left-handed.

[JClouseau]

Re: Let's not generalize

Surprised ? This is out of frustration for not always having proper left-handed devices available. QED.

Don't get me started on screwdrivers and tennis rackets. Shame !

[David 132]

Re: Let's not generalize

You're not alone. As a southpaw, I, too, feel homicidal urges when made to insert/remove screws with a tennis racket.

[Roland6]

Re: Let's not generalize

Now look at the intelligence level of the prison population - whilst many may be under educated, many have very sharp minds…

Whilst study’s have found no correlation between left-handedness and higher intelligence ie.intelligent lefties are just as intelligent as righties.They have found that in equal sized groups, more lefties will be intelligent than righties.

Translating that into the prison population and you have a larger population of bright minds with little to occupy them with…

I suggest we and Logitech need to do similar handedness analysis of their target users. From my experience, I would not be surprised if lefties are more numerous in CAD, IT etc. and specifically in those job grades that could justify the expense of a MX Master.

[Roland6]

Re: Investment ?

Agree, given a right handed mouse, it isn’t that difficult to translate it into a left handed mouse. Okay the circuit board might have to be adapted to fit the mirrored body. Beyond that the costs are in production tooling; something SE Asia has got good at.

I suspect the real issue is the leftie market is smaller, do RoI is likely to be longer. But given mice aren’t something that gets changed every few months or years that probably isn’t too much of a problem as a batch can site in the warehouse for a while.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubber oil goop coating

> However, in a step backward, most of the body lacks the soft-touch, rubberized plastic we saw on the MX Master 3 and 3S.

Hogwash! As someone who has had multiple Logitech mice long enough for that soft touch plastic to turn back into goop long before the rest of the mouse was ready to go, I'd much prefer a mouse without any of it. I'd call this a distinct upgrade.

[grndkntrl]

Re: Rubber oil goop coating

Came to say the same.

I put off buying a replacement for the 13yr old Logitech MX Performance Mouse which lost most of its rubbery coating over the last couple of years, but still worked perfectly until the rubber on the scroll/flywheel completely disintegrated earlier this year.

I've been using an almost as old, hard-plastic bodied Logitech G600 MMO gaming mouse as a daily replacement, but I really miss the wireless freedom of the MX Perf, as well as that lovely flywheel. So while not completely devoid of rubber surfaces, this MXM4 is heading in the right direction.

[shamgetz]

Re: Rubber oil goop coating

Fully agree. My MX Master is about 5 years old, gets used daily and, while the non-rubberized parts are fine apart from a little shininess where my fingers rest on the buttons, the rubberized part looks like it should be banned under the Geneva Protocol and is impossible to get properly clean.

[David 132]

Re: Rubber oil goop coating

Can’t ban it, as it may well have achieved sentience at this stage of its evolution.

[shamgetz]

Re: Rubber oil goop coating

In that case I welcome our new electro-rodent overlords!

[LaoTsu]

Re: Rubber oil goop coating

Mine is / was the same, but adding a https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09RWYHVL1?th=1 to it has restored it.

[Michael Strorm]

Re: Rubber oil goop coating

> "impossible to get properly clean"

In my experience, sticky rubberised coatings can normally be removed with isopropyl alcohol and quite a bit of rubbing. (*)

Of course, you'll end up with a smooth surface, but that's almost certainly preferable to the feel of sticky, degraded rubber.

(*) Obviously I can't guarantee this, and it's at your own risk.

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Re: Rubber oil goop coating

>In my experience, sticky rubberised coatings can normally be removed with isopropyl alcohol and quite a bit of rubbing. (*)

Small dabs of cooking oil can help remove that "Anti-bacterial" layer, goopifies the goop for easier removal by 99.99% isopropyl and rubbing with many paper towels.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Rubber oil goop coating

Absolutely. That rubber rubs off, but before that it sucks up the fat from the skin, combines it with dust, and that goopyfies the rubber into a mass which sticks on you skin. It feels like you could lift the mouse open handed, just by adhesion...

[elsergiovolador]

Obsolescence

Does it still have built in obsolescence?

They've been making them using coating that disintegrates after 12 or so months and becomes sticky and you have to replace it.

MX 3 was enshittification of MX 2.

I'll try MX 4, but from the article it's probably the same crap.

Good that MX 2 is still available.

Perfect example why patents are wrong. Logitech is holding onto the flywheel design and we have to buy their crap products, because other manufacturers cannot copy it and make it better.

[Roland6]

Re: Obsolescence

>” Perfect example why patents are wrong. Logitech is holding onto the flywheel design…”

Given the age of the flywheel design, that patent should expired 10+ years back.

Be interested to know just how many unexpired patents Logitech does have on the mouse.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Obsolescence

> flywheel

You mean the one which doesn't fly after about a year and then feels and sounds like every other mouse wheel?

[druck]

Re: Obsolescence

Both my home and work MX3 mice are coming up to 5 years old, and the coating hasn't degraded at all.

The only issue I've had was with my home mouse where scroll wheel was not spinning as freely as the work one (probably due to eating at the desk). I took it apart and cleaned it out, just needed a set of new feet after peeling off the originals to get at the screws, cost about 4 quid, and then as good as new again.

[BJC]

Does premium price attract long-term support?

It's an expensive mouse. However, my approach is that spending a bit more up front often saves in the longer term, because it lasts longer and the cost is spread over the lifetime. Unfortunately, I've been disappointed by Logitech.

Recently I rediscovered an original Performance MX mouse, and the associated Unified dongle. I figured I could press it into service, as an upgrade to the mouse I'm assigned at work. It worked immediately in Win11, as a basic mouse. Unfortunately, I can't get the additional capabilities to work (like the thumb button), using the Logitech software. I tried the current Logitech software. It's not listed as supported so no surprise when it didn't recognise the mouse. I was still disappointed. I tried previous Logitech software but they didn't recognise the mouse. That might be some underlying OS change that makes the app unable to find the mouse dongle. Again, perhaps not a surprise that years old Logitech software doesn't work in the latest OS (although why?).

Online suggestions are to use third party software that allows the generic buttons to be associated with generic Windows actions. If a third party can do it, why can't Logitech keep it going, in their current software? I appreciate this is legacy support, but shouldn't that be part of the implied bargain from the premium price?

I appreciate the mouse is many years old, but be aware that there doesn't seem to be any attempt for Logitech to keep it supported, despite the premium cost.

[grndkntrl]

Re: Does premium price attract long-term support?

My Performance MX is technically working perfectly (discounting the nasty disintegrating rubber coating which is the only reason why I've had to stop using it) on Win11 Pro (24H2) using the last version (6.90.66) of Setpoint from https://support.logi.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360025141274-SetPoint, so it should work for you barring any possible group policy put in place on your work machine to prevent it.

[ComicalEngineer]

Trackball

I have a rather nice Logitech Trackball which I use with my right hand. I am a left hander.

The cost of *developing* a left handed version of the above mouse is bugger all as the CAD can easily be mirrored to produce a LH version. What they mean is that they can't be bothered to tool up for production of a LH version.

[jlturriff]

Re: Trackball

Well, reflecting the physical layout of the device is trivial, but redesigning the circuit board that it encloses is not so much (but not so difficult as to justify not providing such support).

[vZeroG]

Terrific hardware.

Literally the worst software ever made for pointing devices - Options+

Sad.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

What? It is only a 500+MB install, which only an 800+ MB memory footprint, which updates itself into oblivion after only five updates, and the stays unfixable broken?

Do you want mouse software which fits on a 720 kb disk? Or 1.44 MB for the new Windows NT 4 drivers? Marketing would have something to say about the missing video as background animation...

If you don't give a s... about the battery notify (well, there is the warning LED anyway), try X-Mouse. I use that to configure the back-forward buttons of the mouse to switch the sensitivity on the fly. Great for graphics work where you have to be pixel exact quite often, or to hit the super thick scroll-bar in MS-Teams. And if you toggle scroll-lock (i.e. turn it on) x-mouse temporarily deactivates itself and you have your normal buttons.

Which, in my case, are captured by Autohotkey which transfers them to PgUp and PgDown :D. Nobody need "forward backward" on a mouse...

[steviebuk]

Probably

Is expensive as they always are, but are, also actually good mice. Got several MX as they go on sale. Have one that recently, after several years of use, gave up as the battery is gone. Holding onto it as may change the battery.

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Which switches does it use? They don't last like the old days. I'm forever soldering new switches to my Logitech meeces...

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Try oiling the contacts. No, literally. While they still work use a few drips of typical motor oil and get that into the micro switches on the contacts. It works like a air-isolator, preventing the spark and dampens the spring-jump on the contacts, increases the life time, and make them less noisy on top. I've been doing that for two decades now...

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Thanks for your suggestion, it gave me an idea. The problem started after I'd used an electric air duster to blast away a surprisingly large quantity of fine dry looking filth, some of which had formed miniature tumbleweed-like structures inside the Trackball mouse casing, only fluffier - I suspected very fine and slightly oily dust was blasted into the microswitch by the powerful electric air duster, causing it to immediately become glitchy, registering double clicks, not registering clicks etc. It drove me potty. Rather than try motor oil, I held the microswitch open and squirted 99.99% isopropyl alcohol into the switch, clicked it many times, squirted in more to clear filth away, clicked rapidly some more, and the problem appears to have disappeared. That's saved me a fiver on a new microswitch, and the soldering thereof. Suddenly I feel daft at having bought so many replacement microswitches over the years...

[QuiteEvilGraham]

Have to say I'm a fan of the Logitech MX Master series, now being on my third one, the 3S. I gave up on the numerous Dells and Microsofts which seem to lie spare around the office years ago, because they were doing the muscles in my hand no good and had become painful to use and the MX series do not do that.

I only moved to the 3S because the 2 was getting a less than smooth scroll wheel. I passed that on to my son and freed the wheel up with a short application of WD40. It works perfectly well now.

I've worked remotely for years, so it seemed sensible to invest some of the money I save by not commuting on decent kit to work with, so may as well have a setup that makes my life easier.

Unicomp IBM M-type keyboard and 4 24" (all 1920 * 1200) monitors, plus the mouse. One of the monitors has been in continuous use for some 17 years, so may have to be replaced soon. Only my laptop & docking station are employer-supplied, which is quite enough thank-you. The idea of using a single laptop with chicklet keys horrifies me. I will leave such things to the lanyard classes.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Try the Logitech Lift. It is, up to now, the best tilted mouse. And I've been through a lot. They made a huge amount of tiny details better compared to the others. But I am German, of course: Why are the screws still hidden behind the glidepads...