ASUS ROG Pugio II Wireless Gaming Mouse Review
Up Close
The Black with a red logo ROG packaging is now so familiar we wonder how the move from a red box ever seemed like a big change. With the red sides it’s as easily recognisable as the green of a Razer box or the yellow of the Corsair ones.
Inside the box we have a stick on ROG badge, a clear lozenge shaped plastic section we’ll discuss in a moment, the manual, cable and a box containing the things necessary to tweak the Pugio II to your liking.
Within that box there are alternative side buttons which are a little fiddly to swap due to their small size, and aren’t transformative in the same way that some of the mice which give you whole side panels can be. But it’s nice if you want a slight adjustment. There are also a pair of Omron switches as well as a set of ROG tweezers to change them easily. You can also use them to demonstrate your brand loyalty when removing splinters or shaping your eyebrows.
On the top side the body is transluscent rather than opaque, a choice which is good even if it does mean that the ROG logo itself diffuses greatly, something we’ll see in our lighting photos.
The top clips off to reveal the screws you can undo to remove the whole top section for switch changes. But behind those screws we have the ROG logo which can also be removed – a blank panel is included in the box – and customised to your own logo, should you so desire it. Behind the ROG eye logo is the wireless dongle which also can be removed if you so choose.
On the underside we find the DPI button missing from the space behind the scroll wheel where any sane designer would put it. With the “DPI scroll” feature being such a key element of the Pugio feature set we are incredulous as the placement on the bottom. Hey ho. However the power and pairing buttons belong here, given how rarely they are used. There is also a chance to see the large low-friction pads which work well with the low weight to give a smooth moving experience, as well as the under body lighting.
As befits an ambidextrous design there are buttons on both the left and right hand sides of the mouse. Not only is this a boon if you happen to be a southpaw, but it gives us all a couple of extra buttons we can configure to our tastes. Given the needless moving of the DPI button any extra chances to assign some buttons without losing primary functionality is a positive.
