ASUS ROG Gladius III Mouse Review

Conclusion

The first thing that strikes you about the Gladius III, although by no means it’s main feature, is the weight. Or, rather, the lack of weight. Many mice have recently been appeared with sub 80g weights and it’s something we can definitely get on board with. Whilst some mice go down the adjustable weight route, a light mouse is perfect for those marathon sessions. Weight equals inertia after all, so the lighter it can be the less your wrist has to do to move it and thus the longer you can play without fatigue. Sure if you’re 20ish you’ll wonder why that’s a big issue, but as someone who has been moving mice for the best part of 35 years, eventually your wrists will cry enough and you will be grateful for a lighter model. It’s rated, and indeed weighs, at 79g, but it definitely feels lighter in the hand than that, partly due to it’s compact dimensions.

Similarly the coating is excellent with a matte feel and heavily textured side panel that keeps what little weight there is well under control. It’s very slightly right-handed, but the curve is so gentle that lefties who’ve practised on gently curved rodents will find nothing to quibble about. The side buttons are both large and well placed. We’ve seen a few mice come through the office that take minimalism on the side buttons to the extreme, perhaps forgetting that we need to be able to press them at the speed of thought whilst smiting our enemies. Although whilst we’re on the subject of designers doing odd things the profile switch button on the Gladius III is on the underside. A truly bizarre placement. Sure many people set their mice up to work in everything and never change a thing once it’s to their taste, but if you’re going to give us the ability to move profiles on the fly at least let us do it without lifting the mouse up and hunting for a tiny button.

Speaking of buttons the Gladius III has a crisp pair within the body but you also get a spare pair in the box. Whether you want to use them for the microscopic differences there might be between them, or just have them so that once you hit the multi-million click limit you can switch to a fresh pair is entirely up to you. We very much enjoyed it in “out of the box” spec and left well enough alone. He who breaks a thing to see how it can be improved has stepped onto the road to madness.

The lighting is excellent as you would expect from ASUS. The colour reproduction is excellent and even on 100% brightness it’s subtle enough to not keep catching your attention out of the corner of your eye. Although the side panel text is covered up by your thumb – and even if you play claw it’s tough to see when not looking at it horizontally – we really like it. It’s a nice touch and certainly unique to the Gladius III. However, everyone is here for the sensor. ASUS offer some software interpolation in the Armoury Crate to take it up to 26000 DPI if you so wish, but we will always take hardware tracking over any software option and with 19000 DPI @ 400 IPS you can have no cause for complaints. It’s fantastically accurate as all optical sensors are, tracks well with no inertia on those microfine motions nor unwanted angle snapping. It’s very much the star of the Gladius III show.

There is a wireless model available but we can only speak about the wired model we tested, although we can’t imagine how the wireless one will be any less impressive. With a light weight, outstanding sensor, crisp buttons and a very comfortable design the ASUS ROG Gladius III wins our OC3D Performance Award.

  

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