Those who've already read our review of the wired ROG Gladius III may be inclined to say the ROG Gladius III Wireless is a fairly straightforward mouse—after all, it is a Gladius III, just wireless, right? But of course, it's never that simple, especially with gaming mice.

First of all, and much like on the ROG Keris, the stock firmware of the Gladius III Wireless has a fatal flaw: Both in wired and wireless operation, a motion delay of upwards of 10 ms is present, effectively rendering the mouse unusable for anything even remotely latency-sensitive. Thankfully, ASUS has cooked up a new firmware that fully fixes this issue. Nonetheless, such a serious oversight simply shouldn't happen. In addition to that, one absolutely needs to install Armoury Crate right away to get said firmware, which is something not everyone possibly wants to do, but more on that later.

With that out of the way, let's get to the good things about the Gladius III Wireless, of which there are quite a few. With the fixed firmware applied, sensor performance is bordering on perfect. Motion delay is low across the board, CPI deviation virtually nonexistent, and polling stability near-flawless except for 250 Hz in 2.4 GHz mode. What's more, owing to the included wireless extender, the isolated wireless delay is around 1 ms, which is on par with the likes of Logitech, Razer, or SteelSeries and therefore highly commendable. Click latency is incredibly low as well without suffering from double or slam-clicking right out of the box. Wireless performance is in general a strong point: With RGB enabled, polling rate set to 1000 Hz, and the default ROG switches, a battery life in excess of 30 hours can be expected in 2.4 GHz mode, which is pretty good. Bluetooth operation is available as well, allowing one to squeeze significantly more running time out of the battery, or use the Gladius III Wireless as a travel and office mouse, which is further facilitated by the dongle storage compartment on the mouse. The battery also charges very quickly, which the USB Type-C connector eases further. The charging cable is incredibly flexible, too, so if needed, the Gladius III Wireless can be used as if it were a wired mouse with pretty much no drawbacks. Speaking of switches, the Gladius III Wireless is outfitted with second-generation push-fit switch sockets, which allow for the installation of either 3-pin mechanical or 5-pin optical main button switches, and a set of the latter is included. As with the Gladius III, the usefulness of this addition is somewhat limited, however. Click latency already is low enough with the default mechanical switches, and the optical switches have higher power consumption, limiting their appeal further on a wireless mouse. It's a nice thing to have and allows one to test switches with an entirely different click feel, but I'm inclined to consider it more of a gimmick than a selling point. Excellent mouse feet round everything off, a replacement set of which is also included in the box.

The Gladius III impressed with very high button quality across the board, and in theory, the same should apply to the Gladius III Wireless. For this review, I've tried two samples. On both samples, side buttons and scroll wheel are just as good as on the Gladius III (wired), but the main buttons leave a lot to be desired on my first copy. The left main button in particular is loose, leading to the button moving below the finger during use, and though the right one sits much firmer, it too deteriorated a bit over time. Previous ASUS mice I've tested were pretty much flawless in this regard, so I'm inclined to consider this a one-off—and sure enough, the second sample I've tested shows no such issues, much like the Gladius III (wired). I've informed ASUS of my findings and was told that all the other samples sent were fine and, more importantly, that manufacturing has been adjusted to prevent this already rare occurrence from happening altogether. In short, button issues are rare enough with current batches and will likely not be a thing altogether for future batches. Looking past the buttons issue on my first copy, build quality is again very solid: no creaking, no flexing, and a weight of 89 g without externally visible holes—no complaints here.

Lastly, some words on the software, which of course is Armoury Crate. This time around, my experience with Armoury Crate wasn't too bad, though I'd definitely want it to spawn less processes in the background, consume less RAM, and be less of a hassle to install, uninstall, and maintain. Functionality-wise, there is little to complain about, and even a battery life indicator with single-digit accuracy found its way into the UI, which is very much appreciated. If it weren't for the crucial firmware update, installing Armoury Crate could actually be safely skipped considering how CPI accuracy is on point right out of the box and reasonable CPI steps are set by default. On the bright side, the Gladius III Wireless has five profile slots, so it's possible to set everything up to your heart's content and give Armoury Crate the big boot right after.

As core performance is just stellar, the Gladius III Wireless would be a no-brainer Editor's Choice winner in a world without firmware oversights. But in the real world, you absolutely need the fixed firmware, and the firmware requires Armoury Crate, and Armoury Crate isn't too reliable—sometimes it cannot be installed, sometimes updates don't work, and so on. Hence, the Gladius III Wireless gets a Recommended from me, along with the Innovation award for the new switch sockets—a compromise, if you will. Looking at the competition, the ROG Gladius III Wireless does pretty well. The Razer DeathAdder V2 Pro is the obvious competitor, featuring largely comparable sensor performance, slightly higher wireless delay, equally low click latency owing to optical switches, and strong battery life, but suffering from main button quality issues, for $129.99. ASUS' own ROG Keris Wireless has great performance, low click latency, flawless build quality, and hot-swappable switches, but is much smaller than the Gladius III Wireless and lacks an extender, for $99.99. The ASUS ROG Chakram does well in terms of performance, click latency, and button quality, but is fairly heavy and very pricey, at $159.99. Finally, the ROCCAT Kain 200 suffers from poor wireless performance, but has great buttons and build quality, for $99.99.