Software

The GEM Plus comes with its own lightweight software. All options are distributed across several tabs. The first one has button remapping to mouse, keyboard, media, and macro functions. The second page includes CPI adjustment for up to seven color-coded levels, at a range of 50 to 19,000 and in increments of 50. Key Response denotes click latency and can be adjusted from 1 to 100 ms in increments of 1, though this setting will only be applied if the latest firmware is installed. Further options are polling rate (125, 250, 500, or 1000 Hz), lift-off distance (1 or 2 mm), and the ability to set x and y-sensitivity separately. The third page concerns lighting options and is detailed below. The fourth and final page has the macro editor. Lastly, profile management is available, too. When applied, all settings are saved to the on-board memory, so the software does not need to be running (or be installed) all the time. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of 20 MB on average, which doesn't change when minimized to the system tray. Upon exiting the application, all processes are terminated, as they should be.

Lighting

The GEM Plus has three physical lighting zones, which are the scroll wheel, logo at the back, and LED strip looping around the back. Nine pre-defined lighting effects are available: Standard, Breathing, Gliding, Raindrop, Glisten, Neon, Wave, Rolling back and forth, and Glisten 2. Colors, transition speed, and brightness can be further customized. Of course, the lighting can also be disabled altogether.

Color accuracy and vibrancy are good throughout; on color-uniform effects, a difference in displayed color between the scroll wheel and other lighting zones may be perceived. Here's a short demonstration video in which I go through the Standard, Breathing, and Wave lighting effects. Please note that the flickering visible in the video is a recording artifact: