ASUS RoG Gladius II Core Gaming Mouse Review

Performance

There are four rubber screw guards on the base of this mouse. These can be picked out with a fingernail or your screwdriver.

Then you can undo the four screws holding the mouse together.

The top panel then easily lifts away.

Now we can see the inner workings of the mouse. Actually, it’s very clean and tidy in here. I suspect that’s because consumers are meant to be opening it up, they don’t want you damaging stuff, so they’ve covered up the main PCB hardware.

Towards the front, you have the LMB and RMB switches.

You can just pull them out with two fingers, it’s pretty easy.

These switches are Omron D2FC-F-K, rated at 50M clicks. Just grab some compatible switches from eBay or wherever really, they’re really cheap, and drop them in and try them. It’s that simple.

The side nav buttons are Kailh switches, and have a nice and light click to them.

While these ones aren’t hot-swap switches, the little PCB lifts out and has very easily accessed solder points, so anyone with truly basic soldering skills can still change those too.

RGB exposed!

The RGB is kept pretty simple on this mouse, just the logo at the back and on the scroll wheel. However, it does look very nice, with really rich and vibrant colours.

Of course, because it’s AURA Sync you can match up the lighting with that of your PC hardware, other peripherals and more thanks to the easy to use AURA software.

The grip on the mouse is really fantastic, but if you’ve used the old Gladius or any ASUS RoG mouse, you’ll know they’ve always been pretty fantastic with ergonomics. I have quite large hands, but it still fits my palm really well. However, it’s not a big mouse, and even my kids said it felt comfortable to use.

There’s a slight undercut towards the base, meaning you don’t need to grip it too tight to pick it up, again, it just feels very natural in the hand. Plus, it’s really light at just 92.5g (without cable), so making quick and twitchy movements in game is a breeze.

The optical sensor is faultless, it tracks super smooth and accurately, with no jitter even at higher DPI settings. Admittedly, you have to try pretty hard to find a bad sensor these days, but this one is exceptionally good.

The swappable switches is a fun gimmick, one that few will use, but I do like having the option to put in my favourite switches.

Plus, the way the buttons are mounted means they respond well from both a fingertip grip at the back of the panel as well as a more relaxed palm rest position. Overall, this is a truly solid gaming mouse, I love it.