Logitech M510 Wireless Mouse Review

The M510 is a mid-priced wireless mouse from Logitech that I personally purchased for use with my laptop when I am on the go.  I wanted something reasonably priced that was full-sized, had a few additional buttons, great battery life, and a minimum of a 1,000-dpi sensor that I could use for light gaming and video editing on my laptop.  The Logitech M510 delivers on all of these points, and has thus far proved to work well for my usage.

Logitech M510 wireless mouse

The M510 is a full-sized mouse, not one of those   dinky mini-mice that I see a lot of people using with their laptops on the go.  I am used to a full-sized, relatively ergonomic mouse at home (I use a CM Storm Inferno for my primary at-home wired mouse) and after using that mouse I can't bear going back to something as small and non-ergonomic as those mini-mice.  Speaking of non-ergonomic, my previous mouse for use on the go was a spare Apple Magic Mouse that I had lying around.  In many areas Apple makes great products.  Mice however, is not one of them.  The Magic Mouse utilized a slow 800-dpi sensor and is extremely non-ergonomic.  I use a palm grip with my mice, and the Magic Mouse doesn't doesn't really allow for such a grip by design.  It also uses bluetooth to wirelessly connect to my laptop, which is all fine and good (and many prefer this method of connectivity) however, bluetooth wireless devices seem to burn through battery power far faster than non-bluetooth wireless devices in my experience.  Enter the M510.  It's a full-size mouse in an ergonomic shape.  While it's not quite as large as my CM Storm Inferno, it's big enough to be comfortable to use for hours on end.  There is no disputing Logitech's "full-size" description. I would say that I have medium sized hands, and I can palm grip this mouse quite comfortably.

Left-hand side forward/backward buttons

The textured rubberized material on the sides (where the thumb and pinky finger typically rest) is also a nice design choice, as it feels like thick, quality rubber material that isn't going to wear off after a year (like my at-home mouse). The remaining portions of the mouse are constructed from dark grey and silver glossy plastic, that somehow manages to remain glossy and not become a fingerprint magnet.  The overall weight of the mouse is fairly light (around .06 oz), even with the added weight of the batteries.  While I prefer a somewhat weighty mouse in general, for on the go it's fine and weighs around what my wired at-home mouse weighs anyway.

The M510 connects wireless to your device using an extremely small USB "unifying receiver."  It is called a unifying receiver because you can connect multiple wireless Logitech devices to one receiver, negating the need for having multiple receivers for each wireless device plugged into your computer, taking up all your free USB ports.  You could, for example, connect both your wireless Logitech mouse and keyboard to one receiver.  The receiver is extremely small, and barely protrudes out from the USB port it is inserted into.  This is a nice design, as you can essentially leave the receiver in your laptop's USB port and forget about it, as it's so small you don't need to remove it when sliding your laptop into a bag, for example.  If you don't want to keep the receiver permanently attached to your laptop, there is an area where you can store the receiver inside the mouse itself, right next to the batteries.  A caveat of the receiver is that in my testing it does not have nearly the range that my bluetooth wireless Apple Magic Mouse did.  Despite this, the mouse will operate flawlessly if used within any reasonable radius of the receiver.  Another obvious downside is that the receiver method uses up a USB port, and for us USB starved Mac laptop users, that leaves us with only one remaining USB port. The upshot of the whole use of the USB receiver is that the connectivity method uses substantially less power than connecting via bluetooth.   Logitech claims that the M510 gets two years of battery life, which is incredible compared to the few months (with light usage) my previous bluetooth mouse got.  The M510 takes two standard AA batteries, and comes preinstalled with two quality Duracell's which is really nice to see.

The M510 has an on/off switch located on the underside of the mouse, and the mouse reconnects to the computer extremely quickly after being turned back on.  You also don't have to worry about draining your battery power when leaving the mouse in the on position, as the M510 appears to go into some kind of low power state when in "on" mode, but not in use.  You really can just pop two batteries in this thing and forget about it.

M510 underside

Left and right click feel is great, with nice tactile feedback and a highly audible click.  There are a total of seven buttons on the mouse.  Obviously left and right click, forward and backward buttons on the lefthand side of the mouse, and the scroll wheel, which can be depressed downward or moved left or right for horizontal scrolling. (Note: I didn't include the vertical scrolling action of the scroll wheel as a button).  All of the buttons feel solid and have good tactile feedback, although the forward and backward buttons on the lefthand side of the mouse do feel a tad bit mushy (but still let out and audible click when fully depressed, nonetheless).  I love the inclusion of the left and right horizontal scrolling action achieved by moving the scroll wheel left or right, it really helps when navigating sideways through webpages that are too large for a smaller laptop screen.  Scroll wheel feel is good, and it is the "notched" feeling wheel that most mice use and is not completely linear.


The mouse uses a laser sensor, with a resolution of 1,000-dpi.  Overall tracking is pretty good, and seems relatively smooth.  It's still not as smooth or jitter-free as the much higher DPI optical sensor in my CM Storm Inferno, but that's somewhat to be expected.  I noticed that when moving to the extreme or outside of the M510's 10-meter operating range that the tracking quality significantly worsened, with more cursor jitter and laggy performance.  If you find that tracking is less than ideal with this mouse, make sure you are using it within the appropriate range of the receiver.  When inside the appropriate range, the tracking substantially improved and was far better than the tracking I was used too with my previous wireless mouse.  There is a little bit of cursor jitter upon setting the mouse back down on whatever surface you are using it on.  If you are the "slide and lift" type of mouse user, you may find this slightly irritating.  I pick my mouse up frequently and place it back down on my mouse pad when tracking, and I quickly became used to the little stutter the cursor has when using the mouse this way.  It's an extremely small cursor movement, but noticeable nonetheless.  In addition, this mouse does not work with very light surfaces, glass or granite countertops.  It does work with the darker wood grain color of my desk however.  I would recommend using a mouse pad if your desk or tracking area isn't on the darker side.  Other than these few minor issues, the mouse does track very well, and performs more than adequately for the current price of around $25 to $30 dollars. (The full retail price is $40 dollars, according to Logitech's website)

If you are looking for a reasonably priced full-size wireless use for use with your laptop on-the-go, or even if you want something permanent for your desktop that won't break the bank, the Logitech M510 should definitely enter into your considerations.  With two year battery life, quality buttons, a solid build and good tracking, the M510 is definitely a high quality peripheral that should last for years.

Thanks for reading!


CLICK HERE for Logitech M510 Product Page

The Sony MDR-7506's revisited and a note on equalization

Five years after purchasing my first good pair of headphones, I want to revisit the Sony MDR-7506's and talk about why I believe they are still a fantastic pair of headphones.  The 7506's really kicked off my whole interest in headphones and audio as a whole, and was the primary reason I started blogging about headphones. I also want to touch on the topic of equalization and using an equalizer to change the sound of a pair of headphones.

Sony MDR-7506

Since their original purchase in 2010, my Sony MDR-7506's have been haphazardly tossed in many backpacks, dropped, sat on, accompanied me on road trips and vacation destinations that could only be reached by plane, and been around my neck as I walked through the hallways of my High School, which always resulted in strange looks from passerby's.  The 7506's were first introduced in 1991, and were based off of the design of the V6's that were introduced in 1985.  They do have a dated look to them, which I personally like.  No one expects something that looks as plain, boring, simple and somewhat "retro" to sound very good.  It's always a nice surprise for people who listen to them for the first time.

They are exceedingly tough and durable headphones, and are extremely simple in their construction making them easy to fix if need be.  Over the years, the hinges have become a bit squeaky, a small squirt of WD-40 remedied the problem and they are back to near new.  The sound quality hasn't suffered over the years, despite accidentally leaving them plugged into an amplifier that's volume level was set at several times higher than it should have been.  In all honestly, I think a lesser headphone would have blown a driver if put in the same situation.  Five years later, the 7506's are battle-scarred.  They have small dents and scrapes and areas of rubbed away paint.  They still work flawlessly, and I believe they will continue to work flawlessly for years to come.  You can really beat on these headphones and they will continue to keep chugging away.  The only issue is with the ear pads, which if you read any review about the V6's or 7506's, the ear pads do deteriorate relatively fast depending on a host of factors.  Third party replacement pads are cheap and easy to come by however.

The 7506's are studio headphones, and as such are designed to pick up and uncover flaws in a track.  They are mostly very neutral, with very pronounced treble that some find to be harsh and somewhat sibilant. This assessment is relatively accurate, I do find that in certain tracks, the treble is harsh enough to make listening to them fatiguing.  The bass on the other hand is my absolute favorite quality about the 7506's.  It's extremely well controlled, with incredible extension into the extreme low and upper bass ranges.  It's really some of the best bass reproduction I have heard in a headphone, even when compared to headphones several time's it's cost, and thats another thing about the 7506's, they are dirt cheap for what you get.  The bass is clean, with absolutely no muddiness or booming.  The midrange is nicely represented as well, and is not recessed like many competing products (such as the Audio- Technica ATH-M50X's).

Circling back to the somewhat sibilant and harsh treble, how is it that I can listen to the 7506's for hours on end without getting tired of the sometimes fatiguing treble? Well, pretty much all music players have this nifty thing called an equalizer, and audio elitists will always tell you to never use one.  Their reasoning is mixed, but it usually has to with audio elitists not being able to stand the concept of modifying the sound of the original track or the naturally produced sound coming from your headphones (god forbid). For some reason it's ok to use a tube amplifier which purposely colors the sound, but not use an EQ which essentially does the same thing. I do use an equalizer when I am listening to the 7506's for enjoyment purposes and leave them unequalized when I am trying to find flaws in a track.  When you lower the treble of the 7506's to cut down on some of the harshness and give the bass frequencies and ever so slight boost, you can really get the 7506's to sing.  This significantly warms up the headphone and still retains all of the aspects that make the 7506's so good such as the fantastic bass response.  You have to do subtractive equalization however, as the 7506's are extremely sensitive when it comes to distortion, as they are purpose built to uncover such issues in tracks.

7506 connector plugged into Objective 2

In all honesty, I don't understand the adversity towards equalization.  Many of the same people who feel that equalization is bad use tube amplifiers which sole purpose is to color the sound.  Equalizations sole purpose is to change the sound as well, and the distinction between the end result of both is minimal.  Do whatever sounds best to you, whether that be unequalized, equalized or a fancy and incredibly expensive tube amplifier.  

As far as the 7506's are concerned, they are still being manufactured and sold, Sony discontinued them for all of a month before continuing them again in response to the incredible demand for both the V6's and 7506's.  If you wan't insanely durable headphones that sound good for a low price, and you like the treble spike or are willing to use an equalizer, the V6's and 7506's are a fantastic choice.