Journal of the Day - Indocomtech 2013

So after the today's class is over, I went over to Indocomtech 2013 at Jakarta Convention Center before going back home. I took busway from Slipi Kemanggisan (nearby Slipi Jaya market) and the busway shelter was unbelievably crowded. It usually isn't this crowded at that day and time around (Saturday and 13.30), guess that's because many people wanted to go to Indocomtech. But that doesn't last long because just as I was about to wait for the bus to come in that crowded yet small shelter, there were 3 buses coming in a row. The first one was kinda crowded so I skipped that. But on to the second one, it was really empty. So without hesitation, I jumped in and grabbed myself a seat. Luckily third quarter of the people at the shelter got on to the first bus so the second bus was still quite spacious until it reached JCC.

Arriving at JCC, I went straight to JCC and to the Indocomtech ticket booth. And guess what, I had to wait in line for getting the ticket! I was buttfrustrated and almost thinking about going back home instead because I was too lazy to wait in line to get the ticket until I realized that this queue is nothing compared to what I encountered 2 months ago (read: AFAID13) and so I finally waited in line, paid IDR15,000 (it costed IDR15,000 on weekends while IDR10,000 on weekdays), got the ticket, and got in.

Inside, the place was, as I had already expected, crowded as hell. Especially the Smartfren booth where an auction was occuring. And just like back in AFAID13, I kept getting bad signal inside the building. What a joke.

Taking an extra caution, I switch my backpack from my back to the front and kept holding on to my phone inside my pocket. Yes, I am that paranoid about thefts. There wasn't many things I did in there. I just walked around, looking at things and sometimes trying them out. I didn't plan on buying anything or whatsover. Just... walked and looked around. And here's the interesting part begins.

I came across the Cross booth with a (gay) MC (yes, he fucking talked like Olga which was annoying as shit) attracting visitors' attention. "Now if you do silly dance, you'll get prize. "Oh, but wait. Won't that make a bad name for my family?" Hohoho never mind that. It doesn't matter anyway, you'll get the prize." That's what I roughly recall when the MC talked about what he was about to do with some of the visitors. "Oh, this silly dance bullshit again. Will they ever stop?" that's what I said  to myself while standing there stoned a bit by what the MC had just said before walking away to Logitech, Sony, and Asus booths to look at some stuff.

When I was done, I passed by the Cross booth again and now with some visitors doing some fucking retarded dance (and while being watched by other visitors as well). "Holy shit what the fuck," that's what I said to myself at that time. "I can't believe someone's actually buying into this bullshit. It's almost like prostituting yourself," what I said again to myself as I walked away to look at some last booths before finally leaving the location.

Complete retardation. Crime against humanity.

On the way leaving for home, the street was jammed due to massive amount of vehicles trying to get into JCC. Knowing the situation on the street, I assumed that the busway which would take me to Cawang UKI is gonna take a really long time before it finally arrived. And so I took the busway headed to Grogol. I got into a really crowded bus but I somehow managed to get a seat half way through the trip. Being an oblivious child I was, I got down at Mall Taman Anggrek, only to find that I had to pay again for switching to another shelter for the bus that's headed to Cawang UKI. What the hell :^)

The shelter was completely crowded. And being paranoid I was again, I decided to put my phone inside my backpack and had my backpack in front of me. And then another shit happens: there were 2 buses coming and both of them were crowded as hell. Without thinking, I jumped into the second one and moved deeper inside the bus to escape the cramped space inside the bus. My paranoia just wouldn't stop. Knowing being stuck in such crowd could make me an easy target for theft, I kept looking at my backpack in front of me and made sure that I had nothing inside my pocket.

When the bus passed by JCC again, the bus got significantly less crowded (but still crowded though) than before. Guess there were so many people wanted to go to Indocomtech that much. And at the same time, I got myself a seat. Yay! But that's not all. Here's the real interesting happened.

When the bus stopped at Gatot Subroto LIPI, suddenly a woman reported to an on-bus staff that she lost her phone. She attracted every single passenger on the bus pretty quickly including myself, just as I was about to put on my pair of IEMs to listen to music. The woman was panicking, claiming that she still had her phone until the bus stopped at Semanggi, suggesting the culprit took her phone and got off the bus back at Semanggi. Some people were telling her to try to call her phone and whatnot but she just gave up to the fact that she had just lost her phone and the culprit had run away.

I didn't know what her phone was because I couldn't hear it clearly when she was describing what her phone was and I didn't know where did she put her phone before it was lost because she only said "I put it in here," and I couldn't see her at all at that time due to the crowd inside the bus.

After the bus stopped for quite a while, the bus finally moved again when the situation had calmed down. After that, nothing else that was worth telling on my way back home.

That's all for now folks. And remember, you cannot be paranoid enough about your security. Stay paranoid.

Hardware Review - Logitech G100

Logitech G100 on a Razer Goliathus Speed Edition mousepad.

"To be honest, I can also play osu! using a normal mouse... so long as it doesn't have shitty sensor and it can glide smoothly."

Overview is mostly useless so feel free to skip it.
You are advised to learn some of the mouse technology terminologies from here.
This post contains some swearings. Reader discretion be advised.

Overview

How I got here

About a year and a month ago, I bought a Razer DeathAdder 3.5G from a friend of mine, awesomewithin. It costed me IDR600,000 and I got a bonus Razer Goliathus Speed Edition Small mousepad back then. Pretty sure it costs much more than it used to be now, especially the newest Razer DeathAdder 4G (which I recall it costs around IDR800,000 today).

When I first got it, I was quite happy. The ergonomy of the mouse was the best I've ever had my hands on so far. However, either the durability of DeathAdder is quite bad or I just happened to get a bad unit, my DeathAdder creates creaking sounds every time I squeeze the body of the mouse. It's like a part of the mouse body got loose or something is about to break. Mind you that this has been happening ever since it was new and out of the box. And so I contacted awesomewithin about this problem and told me to go to a distributor to get it RMA'd. However, I just got over with it and decided to keep using the mouse anyway because I felt this mouse was perfect. I mean, that ergonomy. That comfort. That sensor. That precision. It was the best mouse I've ever had...

...until a month ago when the warranty ran out, which was when the clicker part of the mouse tend to create creaking sound as well, which feels like something inside the mouse is about to break whenever I click. And also, the mouse switches are getting worn-out so I can't feel as much tactility as I could when it was brand new (which quite gets in the way for playing Counter-Strike). Although the scroll is smooth, it is also loose when I first got the mouse. tl;dr - my DeathAdder is fucking dying after a year of (ab)use. Fuck you Razer :(

But that's not all. Due to my stupidity to not listen to what people said online about Razer DeathAdder Black Edition being way better than the normal Razer DeathAdder 3.5G, and during that time I was looking for a mouse that is flashy (yeah, retarded ain't it?) and so I chose the normal Razer DeathAdder 3.5G. Even awesomewithin told me to get the Black Edition instead of the normal one yet I still insist on getting the normal one. So here's what happens: it's the most fucking dirty mouse I've ever had. Why? To begin with, I have quite a sweaty hand. And it can be worse whenever I play osu!. After months of use, the gunk built up like fucking everywhere. It was seriously dirty, thanks to that glossy plastic sides it had. Note that Razer DeathAdder Black Edition has matte plastic sides so it doesn't build up gunk as much as its normal counterpart does.

Another thing is the mousefeet on this mouse are so thin, unlike my other previous mouse that is Logitech G400 which had thicker mousefeet. Sure they're made of real teflon and glide nicely and smoothly, but they got worn out so quickly. They're so thin to the extent the bottom side of the mouse got scratched everywhere although I always use it on a mousepad.

So there, minus points for you, Razer. Better take an extra care to your Razer gears, kids. I remembered someone having their Razer DeathAdder 3G for 5 years before it finally died. But that is only one person. I've seen like 10 persons having their Logitech MX518 for 7 years and still going strong. And there, a bonus for Logitech durability :D

Now let's talk about the present.

What finally happened
Having enough of my DeathAdder bad condition, last week I was looking to get a new mouse. I was looking at a G400 (the old one was given away to AeroRange btw) but due to the shit-tier condition of the national economy, it is now waaay a lot more expensive than it used to be. I still remembered how a G400 used to cost me IDR300,000 from Pazia Shop and even cheaper if you buy from Kaskus FJB or any other places (you can even get it at IDR270,000 from Kaskus FJB back then) but now it is averagely priced around IDR340,000. Sucks, right? Yeah, fuck economy.

Not wanting to wait and save enough money to get a G400, I started looking at cheaper alternatives. At first I was looking at some of the A4Tech mice. I looked at F3 but then I just remembered how A4Tech F3 has serious sensor problem in which it would easily spazz-out if you move the mouse too quickly. I was about to look at A4Tech X7-series mice until I saw Bloody-series mice which were also made by A4Tech. However the price of the mice are mostly around the price of a G400 today. And so I stopped looking at A4Tech mice and started looking somewhere else.

I remembered how DeathAdder's size somehow started to get in the way while I'm playing osu! due to its large size and I thought smaller mouse means more free space for the hand and which also means better agility in aiming -- I decided to go for a smaller mouse even if I have to sacrifice both ergonomy and comfort. And so I looked at Razer Abyssus. I've tried Abyssus in the past and it's great to hold and I'm able to move the mouse quicker than I do with DeathAdder. However the price is well out of my reach, and it's even more expensive than a G400. And so I decided to look at Logitech again and remembered about G100.

Being made for RTS players (and also preferred by many StarCraft 2 players), it is a small mouse with only 3 buttons. Its shape resembles Logitech B100 which is one of Logitech's many casual mice. Sure many people would skip this mouse because it's a lot more of a normal mouse than a gaming mouse. So it fits better as a casual mouse? Wrong. You'll see that later.

Having finally decided to get a Logitech G100, I contacted awesomewithin to know whether he had one in stock or not. Unfortunately, he only had the bundled one which came in with a keyboard and costing about twice the price of the mouse itself. And so I checked on Enter Komputer (one of my favorite electronic stores) if they had one in stock and yes they did. It costed me IDR230,000 (excluding delivery cost) and without any doubt I proceeded on placing my order, transferred the money, and received the mouse in the next following day.

And now here's the fun part.

Review

The Hardware
Logitech is known to create products with good quality and durability. And it is proven with Logitech G100. The design on this mouse is quite nice to say. I won't comment much on that. When I first removed from the box, I began checking for the mouse condition, starting with squeezing the mouse. No creaking sound made at all. Everything feels rugged unlike my old DeathAdder. The whole body of the mouse is made out of matte plastic. Nothing's special about that. It's not as slippery as the glossy plastic on DeathAdder sides which is good. This mouse is the ambidextrous type. You can use it left-handed or right-handed and there's no ergonomy made into this mouse. It feels just like your normal mouse when hold but just a bit better. What's more, this mouse is fairly light.

Logitech G100 body which is made out of matte plastic.

Logitech keeps the functionality of the G100 to minimum. It only features only 3 buttons with a DPI switch button. It is located right behind the scroll wheel and it can be assigned to anything through Logitech Gaming Software. If you're a gamer seeking for extra buttons, then you should probably stay away from this mouse.

Now this is the thing I love the most about this mouse: for IDR230,000, you'd get an entry-level gaming mouse with real teflon feet. So why does this matter? Most gaming mice around this price may have plenty of handful functionality such as braided cable, extra buttons, and macro capability (A4Tech mice for example) but those functionality sacrifice others. On a cheap gaming mouse, the feet are usually made out of plastic or a combination of plastic and teflon. Now this is bad because it would cause unsmooth glide on the mouse. Logitech G100, however, uses pure teflon feet. It glides really smoothly across my Goliathus Speed mousepad. It's about as smooth as Logitech G400. What's more, the feet are thicker and wider than the ones on DeathAdder which is nice.

The mousefeet on Logitech G100 which are made out of teflon and acceptably wide and thick.

For most users, what sensor does a mouse use doesn't really matter for them but for the hardcores it would matter a lot. Most problem with the sensor on a cheap gaming mouse is that the perfect control speed is quite low so for low-sensitivity FPS players like me can spazz-out the sensor easily only by turning back 180 degrees. Fortunately Logitech G100 isn't like that. Logitech G100 uses Avago ADNS-3055 2500 DPI sensor. Now this sensor emits the same red light just your usual office mouse. However it performs quite well even for an entry-level gaming mouse. Its native DPI steps are 250, which means it performs best when the sensitivity is used on 250, 500, 750, 1000, 1250, 1500, 1750, 2000, 2250, and 2500. Other than those, the sensor would cause DPI interpolation in which it would cause sensor inaccuracy. I tried to play using 900 DPI however I find the cursor movement is somewhat unnatural and so I switched to 750 DPI and everything's alright. If I recall correctly Logitech G400 also had this problem. However my DeathAdder didn't have this problem at all on 900 DPI. Guess it should be expected from one of the mice with the most flawless sensor.

The Avago ADNS-3055 2500 DPI sensor on Logitech G100.

The switches used for the Logitech G100 clicker are Omrons. These are the same switches used on DeathAdder and it can withstand up to 10 million clicks and this kind of switches is quite light to click. And it still is on Logitech G100. G100 is lighter to click compared to my current DeathAdder which has its switches worn out. However as I recall it's not as light as the switches on my DeathAdder when it was still brand new.

Unfortunately, the cable on this mouse is quite mediocre. It's not braided just like DeathAdder does and it's quite stiff. I do find it rather annoying when the cable hits the wall or other objects. And the connector is not gold-plated but then again, gold-plating on a connector is all gimmicks. To be honest, I only like gold-plated USB connector because it only gives me a premium feel to the mouse and nothing else.

The cable is not braided so you have your usual stiff cable on this one.

The scroll is nothing special too. It is clicky. It feels exactly the same as normal mice but just slightly even smoother to scroll with. You can feel every click every time you scroll. Compared to DeathAdder, it's less smoother but I'm fine with that.

Hardware scores:
Body - 7.5/10
Durability - 8.0/10
Design - 7.5/10
Weight - 8.0/10

Buttons - 6.5/10

Mousefeet - 8.0/10

Sensor - 7.0/10
Switches - 7.0/10
Cable - 6.0/10

Scrollwheel - 6.5/10

Overall - 7.3/10

The Software

Now most people would think "what's a gaming mouse for if you can't have a driver to customize the mouse?" Well, that is quite true. Logitech G100 doesn't have any disc to install the driver. So where can you get the driver? You can get Logitech Gaming Software from Logitech website. The one for Logitech G100 is here and the driver is 50MB in size, much larger than the old driver that I used for my DeathAdder which is around 8MB (not Razer Synapse 2. It's crap.) However, Logitech Gaming Software is a universal driver for any and all Logitech gaming peripherals just like Razer Synapse 2 if you're familiar with it. So if you already had one then there's no need to download the driver again. Just plug in your mouse and the driver will detect it.

Home section of the Logitech Gaming Software which features a render of Logitech G100.

Logitech Gaming Software mainly features 2 things: buttons and pointer settings. I'll talk about the buttons settings first. You can assign everything to the buttons including keyboard keys and the DPI switch is also programmable which is nice. There's also profile settings which would allow you to preset the settings for your games. I believe there's no limit for the profiles and what's more, the profile can automatically set to whichever game you're running, reducing the hassle of opening the driver back-and-forth only for changing the profile. I mostly use the driver only for changing the sensitivity so I don't really take advantage of the buttons settings.

Buttons settings of the Logitech Gaming Software. You can assign almost everything here.

Not forgetting about the "Create new command" option. When you click the + sign next to the "Commands" text, a new window will pop-up which gives you access to more commands to assign to the buttons. You can even record a macro and use it later on. My past experience with macro on Logitech G400 and Logitech Gaming Software was quite okay. The only thing I would complain about the macro is how the macro is not really responsive. It executes commands somewhat a few milliseconds late than it should.

Multi Key option of new command creation. You can create a new macro here.

On to the pointer settings. You can only set up to 5 sensitivity levels on this mouse and only up to 500hz polling rate. The default levels are only 1000, 1750, and 2500. It requires no driver if you're going to use any of these sensitivity. Just cycle over the DPI from the DPI switch button and you're done. And also the default polling rate is set to 500hz. You can also assign separate X and Y axis sensitivity. I personally don't use this but some FPS gamers would need this so they can easily keep their crosshair on head level for an easy headshot.

The pointer settings option.

Software scores:

Ease of use - 8.0/10

Functionality - 7.5/10
Design - 7.5/10

Overall - 7.7/10

Performance

Peripherals:
Keyboard - Logitech K100
Mouse - Logitech G100
Mousepad - Razer Goliathus Speed Edition Small
Headphones - Sennheiser HD201

osu!
Settings:
Mouse sensitivity - 750 DPI
Windows sensitivity - 6/11
In-game sensitivity - 1.0x

The nature of G100 is it fits better for RTS players. Now I personally do not play RTS. However, osu! requires precision in pinpoint aiming just like RTS does. First thing I noticed while playing with this mouse is I got better speed than I did with my current DeathAdder, probably because the feet are still new and as mentioned in the hardware, they're pure teflon. I managed to pass some jumpy maps such as Skrillex - First Of The Year (Equinox) [ND1], DJ Sharpnel - IVALTEK [HappyMiX], and DystopiaGround - AugoEidEs [nao] which I was unable to pass with DeathAdder.

However the control of this mouse is worse than DeathAdder so it takes time to get used to it. The way I do jumps is by snapping. It's sort of an acquired technique where I would quickly move the cursor to the next object in a split second. Now here's the problem: it's hard to stop the mouse exactly on target. It would always glide a few millimeters away before it can finally stop. This is pretty annoying at first but I'm getting over with it over time.

The clickers on this mouse is quite light, as mentioned in the hardware review. I tend to accidentally click the left mouse button while doing jumps due to how light the clicker is. Same thing also happens to my DeathAdder but only on the right mouse button. It's not really of a problem but I thought it's kind of worth posting here.

Quake Live

Settings:
Mouse sensitivity - 750 DPI
Windows sensitivity - 6/11
In-game sensitivity - 5.0

One of the most favorite FPS games for die-hard FPS gamers. I did say that G100 performs better for RTS players but I do find G100 performs nicely for FPS as well. I'm not going to say much on this one. The only thing that I find G100 can perform better than my current DeathAdder is when I'm using Lightning Gun. I score better accuracy with Lightning Gun than I did with my DeathAdder. I found that the smooth glide on this mouse is what improves my accuracy with Lightning Gun.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Settings:

Mouse sensitivity - 750 DPI

Windows sensitivity - 6/11

In-game sensitivity - 3.0

After testing the mouse on Quake Live, I tried it on another FPS game and it was Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The small size of the mouse somehow played quite a role in here: I could easily get more headshots than I did with DeathAdder. Due to its small size, the mouse left more space inside my palm to move around so it's really nice to have if you use claw-grip style or palm-claw-grip like me. And in here, the mouse switches did also play an important role: I can control my burst fire better due to its tactile feedback. If you're an experienced Counter-Strike player then you know firing full burst won't hit anything and thus controlling your burst fire is really important to keep your accuracy to maximum.

Performance scores:

Click accuracy - 8.0/10

Comfort - 7.0/10

Speed - 8.0/10
Control - 6.5/10
Glide - 7.5/10
Overall - 7.4/10

Final Verdict

And we're finally here. G100 is a really great gaming mouse if you want a bang-for-the-buck gaming mouse and small enough for your hands (some people prefer a gaming mouse with the same shape and size as their normal mouse). Granted, it can perform nicely for many games of any genres. Sure it can use some extra buttons. But for IDR230,000 with a performance that is close to a mid to high-end gaming mouse, I can't really complain much about it.

Final scores:
Price - 8.5/10
Combined scores - 7.5/10
Overall - 8/10 (recommended!)

However, if you happen to have more money in your pocket, then you may want to consider getting a Logitech G400 instead. It is bigger than G100 but it's a 8-buttons mouse, highly recommended if you're a gamer demanding tons of extra buttons for the sake of your fragging.

The direct rival to Logitech G100 is probably Razer Abyssus. Sure it may cost way more expensive than G100 does. But its 3.5G Infrared sensor is proven to be flawless (jitter problem mostly occurs on older batches of Abyssus).

Comparison with G100s

People have been wondering about the difference between G100s and G100. Is it any different? Yes and no.

The spotlight is on to the mouse clicks lifetime. It is advertised that it can withstand up to 20 million clicks. That is twice as much as the original G100 which is only 10 million clicks. Bonus point for the durability.

Another thing is the coating used for the G100s is better than the original G100 but I don't really know how better it is. It is said that it's much more resistant to residue caused by sweat and whatnot.

Another thing is that the sensor is "slightly" different. While the original G100 sensors emits red light, G100s does not, or rather, invisible. The new sensor is, however, found to be worse by an overclock.net user. To put it simply, it has lower perfect control speed which causes the sensor to spazz-out easily than the original G100 does.

Last but not least, this one's quite unimportant: the design and the price. I find the design is way better than the original G100. And about the price, it's slightly more expensive than the original G100. While the original G100 costs around IDR230,000, G100s costs around IDR270,000. IDR40,000 difference.

"So should I get G100 or G100s?" The answer is I don't know. I can't comment much about the difference between G100 and G100s as I have never tried G100s before.