Trying very hard to hold back a torrent of rants about the state of tech. I’m clinging onto an older model of something at a time when they don’t make a good new alternative, you can figure out where the problem is.
So far I’ve changed the switches (the mechanical things inside the mouse that click), the outer shell, the scroll wheel, and the teflon pads at the bottom.
Am quite pleased with how it doesn’t feel like it’s falling apart anymore.
It’s sad that the switches and rubber shell especially feel like they were intentionally built to age very poorly. This was not a cheap mouse, and switches that don’t break in two years are like 2$ more than the ones they used. The rubber coating on the outside peeled and crumbled until I finally replaced the whole outer shell with a solid single piece. And the scroll wheel was beginning to rust.
Overall some of the replacement parts don’t feel quite as rigid. The older rubber part, while crumbling from the outside in, was glued to a sturdier-feeling plastic frame than the replacement, which is just a little creaky.
But hey. I love fixing my stuff and using what I want, marketers and their poor record of product discontinuation be damned. I probably wouldn’t have bought a new one. But I don’t like that I can’t if I needed to. I don’t like that everything is built to be disposable when things as simple as a scroll wheel that doesn’t rust, a shell not made of crumbly rubber, or switches that don’t break after two years have all been the default for 40 years before the current tech dark age.
Donor switches? The ones that come with most mice aren’t very good, and if you’re extracting them they’re probably not new anyway.
You can buy some online that last much much longer.
I wholeheartedly believe that Logitech is intentionally using the older, rapidly-failing Omron D2FC-F-7N switches to make people buy more peripherals more frequently. Spending an extra 1-2$ on lasting switches should really not be too much trouble when they’re selling fancy computer mice that cost like 100$ now.
I looked up that part number, I don’t know it off the top of my head, just to be clear. This isn’t a niche special interest thing. You use your computer mouse more than you use your car and probably your phone.
My post is about my G604, but it mirrors my earlier adventures with the G700s. When the G604 was announced and then released, I felt like Logitech were actually trying to make a decent product again, and the tiniest bit of tech doomerism got lifted off my chest. Pity that it didn’t last.