Issue 1404 49
ON
TEST
ReviewsAsus ROGGladius Gaming MouseO
ver the past ten years or
so, I’vereviewed a fair
few gaming mice from
a huge range of
companies. Generally, they’ve
been impressive, but one or two
of them, through long-term use,
revealed themselves to have
some significant weaknesses,
which it would have been
impossible to see at the time of
review. Chief among these
problems were broken cables
and unresponsive buttons.
Asus, it seems, is well of aware
of these issues, though, because
with the Republic of Gaming
Gladius, you get not only two
spare switches for your two main
mouse buttons, you’ll also find in
the box two cables of different
lengths (one 2m braided and one
1mregular rubber coated).You
also get four spare stick-on feet,
in case the ones already on the
mouse peel off, two ROG stickers
and a handy little pouch to put
the Gladius in.
The mouse itself is a right-
handed affair, with a mostly
standard shape, although Asus
claims it’s particularly ideal for FPS
players. That might be the case,
but it should be okay for any
game genre.
As well as the main two
mouse buttons, the Gladius also
offers back and forward
navigation buttons on one side
and, on top, a single button used
for alternating between two
customisable sensitivity settings.
This is all fairly run-of-the-mill
for a gaming mouse and, ifDETAILS
- Price: Around £50
- Manufacturer: Asus
- Website: goo.gl/rf50Qi
- Requirements: USB
ports, Windows 7 or
later for Armoury
software
anything, some players might
expect more from a £50 device.
But that would miss the point of
what Asus has done here.Yes, it’s
true that other gaming mice have
more buttons and a greater range
of on-board DPI settings. And the
absence of an adjustable weight
system and a profile switch might
put some buyers off (although
others consider such things little
more than gimmicks).
Whether these are things you
use or not, there’s no doubt that
a lot of the luxuries you’d
normally associate witha
premium mouse are missing from
the Gladius, but the focus is
clearly on long-term use. The
mouse cable, for a start, is
detachable. Sliding the switch on
the underside of the mouse’s
body, you can pull out the cable.
Looking at the end, you'll find ituses a standard micro-USB
connection, so you won’t
struggle to find areplacement if
you somehow manage to break
both the included leads.
Thereplaceable switches,
meanwhile, are easy to fit. They
dorequire you toremove the
feet underneath and to take
out the screws beneath them,
but changing the switches over
is simply a case of pulling out
the old ones and slotting in the
new ones.
The software, meanwhile, is
straightforward. Going by the
name of Armoury, it allows you
to define functions for each
button, as well as assigning
macros to them. This is also
where you choose your sensitivity
settings (up to 6400dpi), perform
a surface calibrationroutine, alter
acceleration and deceleration,Anthonylooks at a mouse that encourages a bit of DIY
tweak the polling rate (up to
2000Hz) and mess around with
the potentially useful ‘angle
snapping’ feature.
And for those who care about
such things, you can toggle the
red LEDs under the logo, the
scroll wheel and the DPI switch.
What you don’t get is different
coloured lights, which can be
useful for quickly seeing which
profile you’re on. This makes
sense, though, seeing as there’s
no profile switch on the mouse
itself, but that in itself just
highlights another problem: to
change profile you need to go
into the Armoury software. It
may not be a massive chore, but
it’s yet another thing missing
from the Gladius that can be
found elsewhere.
But in the end, none of these
things arereally necessary. The
Gladius has all the essentials ofa
good gaming mouse, and it gets
them all right. And what matters
most is its potential longevity.
Sure, you could get something
more fancy for around the same
amount of money – or even less- but the modular nature of the
Gladius means it’s more likely
than the competition to still be
functioning in a few years’ time.
For thatreason alone, it’s worth
serious consideration.
mmAnthony Enticknap
Not fancy but built
to last7
6
Quality
Value
77
Overall