Logitech MX Master 3S Review: Nine Weeks on a Working Desk

Bought at: Office Depot OfficeMax · Paid: $99.99 · Time on test: 9 weeks of daily desk work

Logitech has been selling variations of the MX Master for close to a decade, and the 3S is the quiet revision rather than the dramatic one. We put one on a working desk for nine weeks — spreadsheets, photo edits, two laptops and a desktop sharing the same pointer — to find out whether the upgrade earns its asking price or simply rides the reputation of the model before it.

What arrived in the box

The retail package holds the mouse, a Logi Bolt USB receiver, a short USB-C charging cable and a folded leaflet. There is no travel pouch and, more irritating for anyone who moves between desks, no cavity in the chassis to park the Bolt receiver. Logitech expects you to leave it plugged in forever, which is fine on a tower and a nuisance on a laptop that lives in a bag.

Physically this is a tall, sculpted, unapologetically right-handed shape weighing 141 g, finished in a soft matte that resisted shine for the entire test. There is no left-handed variant and no small-hands variant.

Living with it

Two changes separate the 3S from the older MX Master 3. The first is the sensor, now rated to 8,000 DPI, which finally makes the mouse usable on a 4K display without flinging the cursor across the panel. It also tracked on a lacquered wooden table and on a glass shelf, two surfaces that defeated cheaper mice we had on the desk at the same time.

The second change is the switch under the main buttons. Logitech claims roughly a 90% reduction in click noise, and in a shared room that figure feels honest — the sharp plastic snap is replaced by a muted thud. Tactility survives the swap, which is the part we expected to go wrong. You can still feel the actuation point clearly; it simply stops announcing itself to everyone within three metres.

The MagSpeed wheel remains the headline feature. It ratchets with a firm, metallic step for short scrolls, then spins freely when flicked hard, and the switch between the two modes happens without you consciously asking for it. On a 4,000-row spreadsheet this genuinely saves time. The secondary thumb wheel handles horizontal scrolling and is less successful: it is stiff out of the box and stayed stiff, and in nine weeks it never stopped feeling like an afterthought bolted to the side.

Battery life is the easiest thing to recommend. Logitech quotes up to 70 days. We charged it on arrival, then once more at week eight when the software finally complained. A one-minute top-up via USB-C buys roughly a full day, and the mouse keeps working while plugged in.

Multi-device switching worked as advertised across one Windows desktop and two laptops, with Logitech Flow dragging a text selection from one machine to another on the same network. Setting that up requires Logi Options+, and here the experience sours. The app is heavy for what it does, it nags about accounts, and on two occasions it lost our custom button assignments after a system update and had to be reconfigured from scratch.

Scores by criterion

What we liked

• The quieter switches are a real improvement in a shared office, and they did not cost the mouse its tactile feedback.
• Nine weeks on two charges, with USB-C top-ups that work while you keep using it.
• The ratchet-to-freespin wheel is still the best scrolling mechanism we have used on any pointing device.
• 8,000 DPI tracking copes with high-resolution panels and with awkward surfaces such as polished wood and glass.
• Controlling three machines from one mouse, including drag-and-drop between them, removed a second mouse from the desk entirely.

What we did not

• Right-handed only. Left-handed buyers have nothing to consider here.
• Nowhere to store the Bolt receiver, which is a strange omission on a mouse aimed at people with several computers.
• The horizontal thumb wheel is stiff and never bedded in.
• Logi Options+ is bloated, pushes an account on you, and lost our button mapping twice after Windows updates.
• At 141 g and with a tall hump, smaller hands will find it a stretch; try before committing if you can.
• Full price is steep for an incremental update if you already own an MX Master 3.

Verdict

The MX Master 3S is a mature product being nudged forward rather than reinvented, and the two things Logitech chose to fix — noise and sensor resolution — happen to be the two complaints we had about the previous model. Nine weeks in, nothing has loosened, the coating has not polished up, and the battery has stopped being something we think about. The software is the weak link and the ergonomics exclude a chunk of buyers outright, but for a right-handed person who spends the working day in documents and spreadsheets, this is the mouse we would buy with our own money.

Score: 9.3 / 10. Upgrade from an older or cheaper mouse without hesitation; skip it if an MX Master 3 is already under your hand and the clicking does not bother anyone.

Disclosure: this unit was purchased at retail with Coupontdn funds. No brand reviewed the text before publication.