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ASUS Gladius - review of the game mouse from the Republic Of Gamers series

Continuing the development of accessories for gaming computers and laptops as part of the ROG (Republic of Games) gaming line, Asus has launched a new product on the market.
Meet:

GLADIUS Gaming Mouse



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Its name is Gladius, the mouse received from the name of the Roman gladiator sword Maximus.
Thus, Asus conducts a direct connection in its ROG lineup between the ROG Maximus motherboard, giving it the role of a soldier and its weapon - a sword, the role of which is in our case performed by a gaming mouse - Gladius.

When creating this mouse, Asus focuses on the complete design modification of its mouse-structure technology to ensure a comfortable and polished game process.

Shortly before the start of official sales, many well-known online resources specializing in the field of digital devices made announcements of this product with the technical characteristics of the device, so this information has not been secret in recent days.

However, in the flesh until September 9, the site of the Russian branch of Asus was committed to a non-disclosure subscription))

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However, the main Asus website in the ROG section published a press release of this product on September 5, 2014, which also contained photos of the device and a brief description of the key technical issues that the manufacturer focuses on when positioning the product on the game controller market.

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The very first information on this product that I found was dated on the official website of June 7, 2014 and contained all the same, with the exception of other illustrations.
It was also noted that this mouse is designed to compete with devices such as the Razer Deathadder 2013 and SteelSeries Rival. It is worth noting that for the struggle in the market, Asus has chosen serious competitors, both companies specialize in the development of game controllers, and this means that the approach of these Brands to their products is very serious.
Actually, I will not bore you with historical moments and will begin to approach the most studied object))

Specifications



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Packaging, packaging and design



The mouse comes in a small box with dimensions of 140 x 230 x 70mm. Printing has a matte texture with glossy inserts for inscriptions and photos. The colors used are classic for ROG rulers, burgundy and almost black colors, the inscriptions are made in white and red.
On the front side of the box is a large image of the mouse itself in gloss and three lines of the main advantages that the manufacturer declares.

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The reverse side shows us a disassembled mouse in the manner “how it was done” with signatures to the main elements of the mouse design. Below is a list of the main technical characteristics.

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The sides are filled with illustrations, which focus on the individual elements of the device.

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At the conventional bottom of the box, as usual, there are serial and batch numbers, compliance with various standards and manufacturer's coordinates.

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When you open the lid on the front of the box, we have a view of the mouse itself and a letter describing the historical origin of the name of the mouse and its positioning as a weapon for computer games with reference to the Asus Maximus motherboard.

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The mouse is packed in a separate plastic block with an insert of thin cardboard with a transparent plastic lid, the block itself is quite easily removed from the box.

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Together with the storage mouse, the entire delivery set is extracted from the box, which includes:

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The quick start guide contains a section in Russian. The handbag for the supplied mouse is not bad, a little harsh due to synthetic material, as a whole leaves a pleasant feeling and will be very useful when transporting the mouse.

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Cables from a set of different stiffness, a short meter cable is softer than a two-meter braided cable.

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Braided cable for rigidity is exactly the same as the Logitech G9X, but slightly thinner. The cables have very interesting forms of USB connectors with embossed inscription "Republic of gamers"

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Due to the fact that the cables are removable, the micro USB connectors have a special shape of a plastic case, with guides that precisely position the connector when connected to the mouse.

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Particular attention Asus focuses on the "chip" replaceable microswitches of the Japanese company Omron.
There are complaints on the network that with time (one and a half years) the contacts inside the microswitch oxidize, which creates problems for the device to operate. And if Asus cannot solve such problems with Omron, then it is very logical to solve this problem by the ability to quickly change the microswitches themselves, adding two more “mikrika” to the package. To replace the microswitches, you need to unscrew the bolts, and for this you need to remove all 4 legs, in this connection, there are spare legs in the delivery set.

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Simple and elegant solution for the manufacturer))

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The conditional lifetime of the “mikrika” from Omron is, according to the manufacturer, up to 2 million press cycles. Given that Asus gives two sets of microswitches, then from the point of view of mathematics, we get logical up to 4 million cycles of clicks. These figures allow Asus to bring its product to battle with a competitor in the face of the mouse from SteelSeries - Rival, in which the safety margin of microswitches is declared to be up to 3 million.
Well, let's go back to the mouse itself.

Mouse



The mouse is designed for right-handers and this is uniquely indicated by its design and the location of the side keys.

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The mouse itself is more than medium size and its length is 126mm and, in my opinion, with a good length-height ratio. Height 45mm.

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Below four teflon legs. The legs sit in the grooves, which uniquely set their landing when installing a new set.

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The legs are slightly shorter than the landing pads. This is done so that it would be convenient to dismantle the old set before changing the microswitches.

Also located below the slider lock locking the connected USB cable. The slider is most convenient to move the nail of the index finger of the right hand while holding the mouse with the rest of your fingers, you will need your left hand to remove the cable itself. I adapt myself to the implementation of this operation from the third time))
In general, the shape of the mouse itself is successful.

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The color scheme of the mouse is calm, black bottom and graphite top. All surfaces are matte, except for three buttons, two side and top buttons, which are responsible for switching the DPI mode.

I really liked the scroll wheel - moderately wide, without backlash with a clear indication of the position of the wheel. The scroll wheel is visually similar to the mouse wheel on the Razer DeathAdder 2013.

The manufacturer pays special attention to the separate left and right keys. Maybe it really has some deep meaning, but the keys have a slight backlash, which one way or another you pay attention to, especially for me, the “bump” of the right key was noticeable.

The top button for changing the DPI mode and the two side keys do not cause any complaints about the quality of the material or the lack of backlash and the quality of keystrokes. The DPI shift button has the most bass and at the same time muffled sound from all the available buttons. Next are the side buttons but with greater volume, then the key press the scroll wheel and the thinnest sound of the left and right keys.

In other words, all the buttons sound in their own way and with different loudness, I suppose, over time, the owner of the sound can determine which key was pressed in the dark))

I want to separately pay a little attention to the side keys, while using the mouse, they never came under a random press, in my opinion a very good location and geometry (bevel angles) of the keys themselves.

I didn’t disassemble the mouse, but exploring the edge of the rubber lining under the thumb, ring finger and little finger gave me reason to believe that the rubber linings are glued. The quality of fixing the lining, in my opinion, is pretty good and gives the impression that they are one with the body. It will be possible to confirm or deny it in the process of long operation.
The manufacturer presented the general construction in one of the published illustrations.

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Illuminations



The mouse has a logo illumination system (on the “under-palm” area), scroll wheels and stripes around the DPI shift button (it turns on with a reduced DPI value).

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Or this is how it looks live.

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The backlight, unlike the competitor in the face of Rival, does not change, since Gladius is uniquely positioned as a mouse of the ROG line and corresponds to the color ideology of this line.

Operation notes



The fact is that I got the mouse before the official sales date and I had difficulties in obtaining the appropriate software. Because of this, the publication date of the material has been shifted. Additionally, due to the lack of specialized software, the mouse had to be operated with the default settings.

More certainly grieving the fact that it was not possible to play around with the DPI settings. However, the settings from the factory were not quite bad, which did not cause any special problems in games. It was felt that it should be cooler, otherwise it’s just an ordinary, albeit comfortable, mouse.

All this time I have been using two mice in parallel, the test mouse Gladius and my two-year-old G9X. Due to the fact that the G9X has five gradations of DPI sensitivity, and changing the G9X mode alternately, comparing with Gladius in parallel, I realized that the basic settings for the button are in the range less than 600 dpi for the minimum and less than 1800 dpi for the maximum (on the G9X the step setting was 600 - 1200 - 1800 ...). Later it turned out that these values ​​are equal to 400 and 1600 dpi.

Size matters!


Another point on the operation of Gladius was connected with the geometry of my hand.
Everyone understands that a mouse cannot be universally convenient for everyone. Firstly, everyone has different hand geometry, fingers can be longer or shorter, thinner or thicker than the palm is wider or narrower. And to all this, the factor of convenience of the mouse’s grip is added. I'm used to the “finger grip” for me, the mouse should be short and wide in the grip zone. If you switch to palm grab, then because of the long hand, the mouse turned out to be short for me. But I definitely liked the height of Gladius! With my style of grip of the mouse, the height of the Gladius was optimal, after switching to the G9X, I clearly lacked the height of the buttons.

However, the width of the Gladius was not enough for my grip with my fingers, and the right inclined plane presented some inconvenience.

Therefore, I conclude that the mouse will be convenient for the owners of the right hand brush shorter than 20 cm and the palm itself is shorter than 11 cm for all three types of grip, perhaps it will be convenient for owners of the same hand as me if I have a habit of narrower mouse waist than the G9X.

Nevertheless, the grip itself did not cause me much discomfort, just when changing mice, I noted that Gladius size is not under my arm.

But what really bothered me at my grip of the mouse was the tactile sensation of rubber covering the side edges of the mouse. It seems to be all right, there is an anti-slip pattern, but I got the impression that the pattern was not made for the sake of convenience, but for the sake of some beauty. Additionally, after some time of operation at the fingertips there was a feeling that the rubber becomes greasy. There is nothing strange in this, we “salt” with our hands all the surfaces we touch, especially when we touch them very often (for example, smartphone screens, keyboard keys, car steering wheel). But after 2 years of operation of the G9X, I have never rubbed it and it still creates the feeling of a matte and non-slippery surface except for one place where the top layer began to rub down to plastic and polished.

Weekly operation Gladius quickly identified a weak spot in the form of tactile sensations from the rubber surface. Just in case, I note that I wash my hands very often;)

I also admit that this feature is connected exclusively with my physiology and on this I will close this question))

Software



On September 10th, the mouse appeared in the product list on Asus.com, and with it the software became available.

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After installation, the program immediately issued a window with a proposal to update the mouse firmware, which was done immediately.

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Next, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the possibilities that the software provides.
Window for setting mouse buttons with the possibility of assigning them various functions

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You can create different profiles and assign different functions to the buttons inside the profile, including macros.

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In the next window, you can fine-tune the response of the optical sensor, accuracy, sensitivity values ​​during slow and fast movement, as well as the frequency of polling via USB

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The backlight mode setting window, with the ability to turn off specific areas and change the backlight type from flickering to a constant glow. Unfortunately, these functions did not work for me in this software version.

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And the last, quite useful window - adaptation of the optical sensor for work with different materials of a surface.

The fact is that at first I checked the work of the mouse on different surfaces and was surprised by the capriciousness of the mouse to surfaces different from the material of the mat. The mouse sensor was very twitchy on the white surface of the IKEA table, and on the glass surface refused to work at all.
Software sensor adaptation eliminated all the shortcomings.

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There are two adaptation modes - manual (essentially automatic) and selection of surface materials from the list.

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In the case of manual adaptation, you need to hold down the left mouse button and the scroll wheel on the desired surface until the program displays a window notifying that the adaptation has been completed, otherwise you will need to repeat the procedure.

In conclusion of the software review, I’ll say that the capabilities of this set of functions really allow you to fine-tune the operation of the Gladius optical sensor to suit your needs and capabilities in computer games.

Jobs in the Games



Gladius is positioned as a mouse for FPS games. Of course, this absolutely does not mean that this is its only purpose, many in principle are ascetics in terms of the need to have additional buttons on the mouse and are more comfortable with keyboard capabilities. Due to the presence of a button with a variable DPI (two values ​​are set for the minimum and maximum), Gladius can be well suited for working with programs of the * CAD family or graphic editors.

Nevertheless, I checked the work of the mouse in World of Tanks, and in spite of a different genre, the meaning of the game remains the same - we run and we shoot - we shoot, and even the fact that the mouse didn’t have the right dimensions for me left a very good impression of the process of the game.

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But I will say that in order to achieve the required results, I had to tinker with fine-tuning the functions in the profile software.

Having only two variable DPI values ​​only simplified the operation process in this game due to the fact that you do not need to track intermediate DPI values, and in fact I need only two modes - the sniper mode and the artillery mode for quickly moving the sight around the map.

Plus the ability to change the sensitivity curves at different speeds of movement of the mouse gives a more flexible scheme of work of Gladius.
Then everything will depend only on your hands;)

findings



The new product from Asus completes the line of gaming mice in the ROG line and thereby expands the freedom of choice for adherents of this brand in general, and of the Asus product line for gamers in particular.

An interesting idea of ​​the mouse as a simple and at the same time accurate and reliable weapon for a gamer in the relevant genre of computer games corresponds to reality, and a marketing move with a conceptual linkage of product names to each other strengthens the position in the market among fans of this brand.

The set of technical capabilities of the gaming mouse Gladius and the functionality of the profile software give it the legal right to take part in the fight for the consumer among the designated competitors, as well as expand the choice of the tool to fit their needs among the adherents of the ROG mice.

The main question for non-ROG fans is the question of price. At the time of the sale, Asus claims a recommended price of 3,500 rubles, which may be logical for a new product. The rest of the findings on marketing research, I think you will do it yourself.

However, this is definitely an interesting product that would attract your attention.

And for starters, I suggest you enjoy the roller from the manufacturer;)

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/236533/


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