I guess it’s not earth-shattering news, but here on Planet Doug, a new mouse, any new piece of technology, is a pretty big deal. And I say that in particular because of how long I’ve been fighting with and dealing with my old mouse as it aged and fell apart and stopped working properly. At some point, you’ve just got to give up on keeping the old tech running and bite the bullet and spend the money on new tech.
The new tech in this case is the Logitech Signature M650 L. In terms of how rapidly technology advances, you could say this is a relatively old mouse. It was released in January of 2022, so it is four and a half years old. But I don’t think Logitech ever released a newer version of this mouse. There is no V2 that replaces it. There is a Signature M750 and a Signature M850, but they are simply more expensive versions of this same mouse with more advanced features. If you don’t need those advanced features, such as multi-device switching, the M650 seems like a solid choice.
My old mouse, which is still my favorite mouse, is the Logitech M720 Triathlon. It is similar to the Signature M750 in that it has multi-device switching. Here is a photo of the M650 and the older M720 side-by-side. The M720 is on the left and my new M650 L is on the right. The “L”, by the way, just means that it is the large version. The M650 comes in a regular size and a large size. I have a story about that later on.
The reason I went shopping for a new mouse was that my trusty M720 has been falling apart. I bought it a LONG time ago. I think I bought it during the pandemic when I was living in Mae Sot, Thailand. And I bought the M720 in particular for the multi-device switching capability. I didn’t have a laptop back then, and I was editing video and doing other tasks on two smartphones and a tablet. And the M720 could be paired with all of them at the same time, and I could switch from one to the other just be clicking a button on the mouse. Once I had a reliable laptop, I didn’t need that feature as much anymore, but the M720 was such a great mouse on its own that I just kept using it. The best feature is that the scroll wheel has a tilt function. It’s possible to tilt the scroll wheel to the right or to the left, and this activates a programmable button. This is awesome for me because I assigned those tilt buttons to horizontal scrolling. That means while editing a video on a super-long timeline, I could easily scroll through the entire timeline backwards and forwards simply by tilting the scroll wheel with my finger. It was easy and intuitive.
This tilting scroll wheel is so useful to me that given a simple choice, I would just buy a new M720 Triathlon to replace the old broken one. However, the M720 is considerably older. It was released in 2016, making it a ten-year-old model, and you will never find it in stores. Logitech still makes it, but the only way to buy one is to order it online, and I just never got around to doing that. And my M720 problems became a bit of an emergency in recent days, and I couldn’t delay replacing it. I couldn’t wait until I could track down an M720. I had to buy a new mouse right away, and so I was limited to what I could find in stores in Melaka.
It happened so long ago now that I can’t even remember when the first problem appeared with my trusty M720. Essentially, the left click button became unreliable. It was nearly impossible to get it to click. And rather then replacing the mouse, my solution was to go into the settings and swap the main buttons. So now the left click was the right click and the right click was the left click. That worked pretty well for a surprisingly long time. I just had to train my brain and neural pathways to mentally switch buttons.
But eventually, with heavy use, the right click button also stopped working reliably. It was particularly problematic when I tried to drag something across the screen. I would click and drag but then partway through the drag, the click would release, and the item would get dropped in the wrong place or not get dropped at all. It was immensely frustrating. But I still fought through this problem, and I adjusted by clicking and pressing as hard as I could. I had to press really hard and be very careful so that the click and drag would not release early. And I lived with it like this for a long time.
But then suddenly, in just the last month here in Melaka, the right button started clicking and double clicking and even triple clicking all by itself. It was ghost clicking. And this caused major problems and was even dangerous because my entire editing project would explode. My mouse would just be clicking on things at random by itself and I had no idea what it was doing, and it was hard to repair the damage to the video editing project. I started to worry that I might accidentally buy something online worth a hundred thousand dollars because my mouse just clicked on the “Buy Now” button by accident.
I did a bit of research at this point, and I discovered a whole community of M720 users facing similar problems. And there were tutorial videos showing how to take the M720 apart and apply some WD40 or alcohol cleaner to the switches. And I did this, and to my amazement it fixed all the buttons! It worked flawlessly again. And I kicked myself for not finding this simple fix earlier. But the simple fix didn’t last. After a few days, the clicking problem returned. So it was clear that I had to buy a new mouse NOW. Right now.
And that, of course, sent me down the rabbit hole of online research as I tried to find the right mouse for Planet Doug in 2026. I won’t go into all the options I considered, but trust me when I say that I looked at and considered ALL of them. And after much research and the watching of countless online mouse reviews, I found myself circling the M650 as the best match for my needs and budget. There were just two wrinkles with this choice. The main one is that it didn’t have the tilt scroll wheel of the M720. That feature seems to be unique to the M720. However, it did have the ability to scroll horizontally. You just had to hold down a side button and use the scroll wheel. I didn’t like that idea, but without testing it for myself I didn’t know if it was good or bad. For all I know, it was better than the tilting action of the M720 scroll wheel. You just don’t know until you try something new or different for yourself.
The other wrinkle is that the M650 came in the two variants I’ve already mentioned: regular size and large size. And I think I have relatively large hands, so I definitely wanted the M650 L. And this idea presented a thought that I constantly have on Planet Doug: It always seems like the one thing I want to buy is the one thing the stores will NOT carry. I was absolutely positive that with a lot of shopping and going from store to store to store I might be able to find a Logitech Signature M650, BUT I would NEVER EVER EVER find the M650 L. It would simply not be stocked anywhere. And I would have to order it online. And in that case, I might as well just order the M720 and figure out a way to have it delivered.
But even with that thought, I still wondered if I should stop being M720 stubborn. Maybe since the M650 is a newer model, it could be better than the M720 in ways that I’m not aware of. Surely, mouse technology has improved and advanced since 2016. And there was one possible big advantage to the M650 that I could see for myself: The side buttons were larger. The M720 had three side buttons. One was for the multi-device switching. And there were two programmable buttons that default to Forward and Back. However, I never used those buttons. They were small and slim and placed too high to be easily reachable with my thumb on the M720. Plus it was hard to feel which was the front button and which was the rear button. From the pictures I saw of the M650, the two buttons were larger, more distinct from each other, AND placed lower down. It looked like those buttons would actually be useful. And if so, by buying the M650, I might lose the tilting scroll wheel, but I could be gaining two useful buttons.
The M650 also has the more modern SmartWheel, which automatically switches from regular line-by-line ratcheting to super fast freewheeling. The scroll wheel on the M720 doesn’t do that. Instead, it has a physical button that switches manually from one mode to the other. And it was possible that this SmartWheel technology plus the two extra buttons plus the lighter weight and perhaps some other advantages could make the M650 the better choice overall. At least it might be worth taking a chance on IF I could actually find one in the stores and could buy it right away. The M720 might still be the better mouse for me, but not if it takes me three weeks to track it down along with delivery hassles.
My plan was to go to the Aeon Shopping Mall here in Melaka. It appeared to have the largest cluster of electronics and computer stores. And I was kind of dreading the experience, because it felt like I would devote an entire day to taking the bus all the way out there, visiting every store, finding nothing, and then taking the bus all the way back. I didn’t want to waste a day. And I felt 100% sure that even if I could find the M650, I would NOT be able to find the M650 L.
But then I realized there was at least one smallish computer store in the nearby Mahkota Parade Mall. I was positive I would find nothing there. Nothing is ever that easy on Planet Doug. But I walk by the place all the time, and it’s nearby. So I decided to check there first. And after some fumbling around and walking in circles, I managed to find the CMS Computer Shop on an upper floor tucked away around the corner.
CMS was actually much smaller in real life than it even seemed in the pictures. But through the open doors, I could see that at least they had a few mice in a glass display. I was not feeling confident that they would have anything for me, and sure enough, the vast majority of mice I saw were knock-off 3rd party junk or the absolute cheapest of mice that had no button functionality at all. But on the upper shelf, I spotted one lone box that looked promising, and to my amazement it was a Logitech Signature M650 and not just the M650 but the M650 L!
I could not believe it. What are the chances that I’d find exactly what I was looking for in the very first shop I went to and this shop was right in my neighborhood and I could just walk there in a few minutes? The chances are astronomically small. Yet, there it was. I took this as an omen and I pretty much made up my mind to just buy it. Finding it so easily had to mean something.
I must say that I wasn’t entirely happy with the situation. Yes, it was the M650 L. But the box looked battered and old and bent. I got the impression that this box had been sitting on that shelf for four and a half years and had been dropped and torn and opened and closed and dropped again. I pictured this store owner going home every night and his wife berates him for stocking his store with this ridiculous M650 L that nobody in Malaysia would ever buy. And then, after four and a half years, this random white dude comes in and buys it! It’s a miracle. I could imagine him rushing home to tell his wife the good news. After all this time, some dumb white dude actually came along and bought it. There would be champagne and lobster on their dinner table that night.
There was a sticker price on the box: 169 ringgit, which is about $41 US. That price seemed reasonable based on what I had seen online. I had seen some online prices of 132 ringgit. But most seemed to be in the 170-ringgit range. But looking at the age of the box and the risk that it’s already worn out from just sitting there for so many years, I thought it wasn’t unreasonable to hope for a discount off that price. But at the cash register computer, the shop owner came up with 169 ringgit as the official price, and I paid in cash. The final issue for me was that while making this purchase, I had to stare at the signs telling me in very clear language that this shop offered NO returns and NO warranty and no after-sales service of any kind. You buy it, it’s yours. If it doesn’t work, that’s your problem. The store will not take it back for any reason. That’s always an issue in Malaysia. You are taking a big risk with every purchase.
I’ve now had the M650 L as a regular part of my life for a couple of days. First of all, it is SUCH a relief to just have a normal mouse that works properly. You have no idea how annoying it has been to work with a broken mouse until you suddenly have a new mouse. The difference is night and day and you wonder why in the world you put up with and struggled with a broken mouse for so long. I do miss the tilt scroll wheel for horizontal scrolling. I have powerful muscle memory for using the tilt wheel to scroll left and right in DaVinci Resolve while editing a video. It’s a hard habit to break, and I miss that feature badly. Perhaps over time I will adjust to a new workflow that is as good or even better. But I really miss it right now.
But I’m happy to report that the potential benefits of the M650 L are real. The two side buttons are much easier to access, and I have assigned them to very helpful actions, and I use them all the time. They went completely unused on the M720. The M650 L is also MUCH lighter than the M720. The M720 feels like a tank in your hand and it takes much more physical effort to use it and move your cursor around. At first, I didn’t like how lightweight the M650 L felt. It felt too light and too much like a child’s toy. But now I’m accustomed to it, I enjoy how much easier it is to move around. I was worried that the more symmetrical design of the M650 would make it less comfortable and natural. The M720 has a sculpted swooping design that fits my hand nicely. But the non-swoopy symmetrical shape of the M650 feels just fine. And I like the SmartWheel mechanism. It is very useful for moving very quickly to the top or bottom of a document or left to right on a video timeline.
In the end, I think I made the right purchase. I would have been happy with buying a new M720. But it’s fun to try something new. And I’m finding there are advantages to the M650 L that perhaps make up for the loss of the tilting scroll wheel on the M720.