You may not feel it on a day-to-day basis, but using a mouse and keyboard every day is bad for your arms. Holding a mouse forces you to twist your arm and wrist in an unnatural way, and doing so over and over again every day for years can stress and damage them. Ergonomic mice and keyboards, such as Logitech's MX Vertical Ergonomic Mouse ($99.99), offer healthy alternatives to the norm that are designed to minimize the damage to your hand. First released in 2018, the MX Vertical flips your grip so you don't need to twist in stressful ways. It's extremely comfortable, which is great, but the shape compromises the efficacy of the mouse, which is a problem for a productivity-minded product.
Going Vertical
If you've never seen a vertical mouse, the MX Vertical might look a little weird.
The base is a familiar oval shape, but a curved handle rises from that base to create a shape that, from the top-down, you might describe as a seashell. At 4.94 by 3 by 3.34 inches (HWD), it's actually taller than it is wide. The left side of the handle is deeply curved, creating a natural thumb rest atop the mouse's base. It also has a wavy, ridged grip, which looks great but doesn't feel like it's holding your finger in place. Above the thumb rest, there's a thin two-part side macro button. Above that, at the top of the handle, there's a third customizable button that you reach with your thumb. By default, it switches between two DPI presets. The right side of the handle shoots up straight at a steep angle. On that steep slope, you'll find your two click panels and scroll wheel.
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The MX Vertical mouse's shape minimizes the stress of holding a mouse on your hand, wrist, and arm. To grip a standard mouse, you have to twist your arm to bring it parallel to the surface on which it's resting, you shift your wrist from left to right for quick movements, and you grip the mouse with your thumb and pinky to maintain control. The grip of a vertical mouse, which Logitech compares to a handshake, the handle slips between your thumb and fingers so you do not need to twist your arm. When stabilizing left and right, your wrist flexes in a more natural way, and your thumb doesn't really need to grip anything because the handle fills the space and "holds" your hand.
Suffice to say, it's hard to overstate how good it feels to make the switch, especially if you use a mouse with a weak shape. Within a week, I could feel that the muscles in my right hand and wrist had relaxed because I wasn't twisting them for seven to 10 hours per day. (I'm a freelancer, so I work a lot). I'm an extreme case, so it may not feel as pronounced for you, but it is a significant change all the same.
That said, that first week was also a bit rough. Using the Vertical takes some getting used to. Pressing sideways to click felt funny for a couple of days. Scrolling down using the wheel feels a little like pulling a trigger. This is a productivity product, and your productivity will definitely take a hit until you adapt to the mouse's distinctive shape. That said, it's a short-term investment for what will be a long-term investment in your physical health and well-being.
Even after adjusting, though, there were still performance issues. I never really felt like I could move my mouse as accurately as I would with a standard mouse. I think it's because the sensor is in a different place relative to the palm of your hand. It's like having a new center of gravity—your movements make sense, but they don't land exactly where you want them to. If I need to click a small icon, like the X in the corner of a MacOS window or the notifications button in the bottom-right corner of Windows 10, I might need to make one extra small adjustment to center my cursor in the spot I wanted.
For some people—gamers, video and image editors—it's a disqualifying factor. For most people, though, it's a small annoyance you might not have noticed if I didn't point it out. That said, it's a real, long-term concession that you should be aware of if you're making the jump to a vertical mouse. And, to be clear, this seems like it would be an issue with any vertical mouse. There's nothing wrong with this specific design, it's a universal flaw endemic to the vertical shape.
Setting aside its signature shape, the MX Vertical is a high-end Logitech mouse, and comes with many of the same useful wireless features as other mice in the same range. It supports Bluetooth and a dongle-based RF wireless connection. Its USB wireless dongle is a Logitech unifying receiver, which means it can sync with multiple compatible devices. (In other words, there's no need for a second dongle for your Logitech keyboard). It also has a quick-swapping button on its underside that allows you to connect and switch among three wireless connections. You can also, of course, use it as a wired mouse by plugging in the USB Type-A-to-Type-C charging cable.
It also gets great battery life. Logitech claims the MX Vertical should last up to four months on a single charge. I've found that mine has gone from roughly 40 percent to "low" in about two weeks without a charge, so that may be an overstatement, but 6-8 weeks on a full charge ain't bad, either.
Last, but not least, the Logitech's optical sensor in the MX Vertical tracks at up to 4,000 DPI. That's the same as the Logitech MX Master 3, which came out a year later. Realistically, this is fine for most non-gaming applications, especially when you consider the mouse is a bit unwieldy, but it does feel low when you look at the gaming space and see that similarly priced mice offer far more versatile specs.
Weighing Your Options
As part of its elite MX productivity line, the MX Vertical supports Logitech Options, the company's configuration software for productivity gear. Options is simple, but slick, and makes it easy to remap the MX Vertical's four customizable buttons (the clicks are off-limits), adjust the DPI, and tweak a couple of other miscellaneous settings. Though it doesn't let you save multiple overarching configuration profiles, Options allows you to set and store different configurations for specific apps.
The MX Vertical also supports Logitech Flow, a feature that lets you sync to multiple devices and switch between them on the fly as if they were connected. It's a really cool feature, and very useful for power users who use two devices for work regularly. If you also have a Flow-compatible Logitech MX keyboard, such as the MX Keys, you can actually go from typing on one device to another just by clicking on a window. Flow ultimately is only necessary for a certain subset of users, and works best when you pair two Logitech products, but it is nice to have.
Slow and Easy
In general, ergonomics-minded gear is not cheap. The MX Vertical goes for $99.99, the same price as its newer flagship productivity mouse, the MX Master 3. Since the MX Vertical is a bit older at this point, though, you find it for about $80 at Amazon and other retailers. From a comfort standpoint, the MX Vertical more than justifies the cost, as do Logitech's high-end features and strong build quality. Then again, it's pretty rare to say that a mouse's shape actively makes it harder to use, even by just a little bit. Choosing whether or not the tradeoff is worth it will depend entirely on how you use your computer day-to-day, but it's a real consideration and something we hope manufacturers strive to improve upon as they develop more hand-friendly mice.
Logitech's wireless MX Vertical Ergonomic Mouse is incredibly comfortable, but that comfort could come at the price of reduced productivity for some users.
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