The Gladius is a pretty refined looking rodent. It has but two colours, a black for the sides, with a slightly contrasting bullet grey shell covering the main body. It is an interestingly shaped mouse, with mild ergonomics and is designed to be right handed only.
It has a strong feel to it and clearly has great build quality, with a hard, but smooth plastic used for the main body. The only real styling to break up the grey and black is the slightly red, clear section at the back in the shape of the Republic of Gamers logo.
On the left hand side are the usual pair of buttons, that are stock mapped to forward and back in your browser respectively. The thumb grip is rubberised, with an interesting groove pattern that ASUS calls “Mayan.”
The front of the Gladius features the usual left/right click buttons, separated slightly from the main body of the mouse, along with a central scroll wheel and DPI selector, with two options.
The very front has a small hole where the main input cable goes. The fact that it can be detached makes travel safer and easier as you can bag it up. However it also means that ASUS is able to offer options for its cabling and it in-fact comes with two: braided and rubber (see later).
As you would expect with a right handed mouse, the Gladius' right hand side is shaped a little different than the left hand side, with a more supportive ridge for your ring and pinky fingers, as well as lacking any sort of side buttons. It does however feature the same “Mayan,” rubber pattern for grip.
The underside of this mouse features a centralised optical sensor (Avago ADNS-S3988) and four separate teflon pads, one located in each corner. There is also a small slider that unlocks the main cable should you wish to change or remove it.
Here are the two cable options as we discussed earlier. There is a braided one and another with a standard rubber coating. Both feature gold plated connectors, though that won't do much beyond improving durability.