Glorious Series 2 Pro review: “comfortable and nimble, but not quite punching with the flagships”

Competitive gaming mice have been reaching new heights in speed, weight, and accuracy over the last year, and now Glorious is getting in on the action. The Series 2 Pro launched in September, taking over from the limited release of the Series 1 to hit more regions with 8kHz wireless polling, its 55g form factor, and 26K motion sync-ing sensor. That all comes wrapped up in a $129.99 / £119.99 package, a price point starting to step on the toes of the Razer Viper V3 Pro and Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2.

Those are some of the best gaming mouse models on the market for competitive players, so these are some tough boots to fill, especially since both Razer and Logitech come with a much higher sense of prestige. Glorious has cash on its side with a slightly lower MSRP, but this is still a premium device. I’ve spent the last three months running this rodent daily, to find out whether it’s time to drop the bigger names from the shopping list.

Design

There’s very little to sing about in the design department. Picture a black FPS-first gaming mouse and you’re already looking at the Glorious Seires 2 Pro in your head. There’s no flashy design elements, no RGB, and no extra ergonomic grooves or panels for support – this is a performance-focused gaming mouse with an exceedingly simple form factor. Only a small Glorious logo and ‘Series 2 Pro’ stamp at the top of the right flank gives any sense that this is a branded device, but the overall result is one of subtlety and simplicity.

This is the perfect pointer for those who don’t like brand names stamped across their setups, especially if you want your peripherals to fly under the radar. I’m personally one for a few more bells and whistles. Yes, FPS gaming mice tend to stick to a cleaner aesthetic, but at at least the Razer Viper V3 Pro and Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 have something going on with their logos on the back.

The Glorious Series 2 Pro feels smaller than these devices, with a shorter dome that feels more like the skinny FPS mice of yore than the taller devices on the market today. I personally prefer this feel – I use a fingertip grip that slides into more of a claw style during intense moments of precise aiming, and prefer using different parts of my palm to re-orient the mouse in various positions depending on where I’m pointing. A taller hump sometimes feels too cumbersome to truly maneuver in this way, but there’s still plenty of room for the rear of the mouse to snap into different positions under the hand here.

The entire device is coated with a matte black finish similar to that of the G Pro X Superlight 2 and Viper V3 Pro, though it’s a little grainier in this implementation. That doesn’t exactly provide better grip, both other options are just as wieldable, but it’s worth noting if you’re looking for something with a more rubberized or textured surface.

At 55g, the Series 2 Pro is punching pretty well in the weight department. It’s lighter than the now-awkwardly named Logitech Superlight (the heaviest of this testing pool at 60g), and only one gram away from the Viper V3 Pro’s impressive 54g form factor. That’s about as light as they come without getting into specialist territory or honeycomb designs.

I’m impressed with the build quality on offer despite that low weight as well. I’ve never heard a rattle from this device, the sides stand strong without a creak no matter how hard I push them during regular gameplay, and the rear only makes slight noises when actively held between the finger and thumb and pushed as hard as possible. What’s perhaps more impressive is these switches feel and sound the same after three months of heavy, daily use – never crunching or losing their springy feel like so many tend to do.

Features

The Glorious Series 2 Pro isn’t a gaming mouse for most players. It’s for tournament-level competitors, which is where things start to get a little tough to swallow. The spec sheet looks impressive from an everyday standpoint. 8,000Hz polling straight out the box is commendable when most wireless gaming mouse models require extra accessories to make the most of this tech and the 26K Glorious BAMF 2.0 optical sensor hits the ceiling of what most players will be using day to day.

The problem is casual players aren’t going to be getting their money’s worth with these features. 8,000Hz polling isn’t going to make a difference to mine and your gameplay, it’s a buzzword that applies to a very small sector of players but marketed towards the entire community as a must-have next step. A 26K DPI is nice and all, but I tap out at 5,000 dots-per-inch of tracking – and if you really want a finer level of control, both the Viper V3 Pro and Logitech G Pro X 2 Superlight move well beyond this upper limit. The Glorious BAMF 2.0 sensor is also lagging slightly behind Razer’s Gen 3 Optical model in its IPS tracking speed, posting up to 650 inches-per-second compared to the Viper’s 750.

The Glorious Core software is a little tricksy, but it provides access to a few of this PixArt-like sensor’s extra features. The biggest for me is Motion Sync. Higher polling rates allow your mouse to send packets of information to your PC faster, reducing the chance of a missed movement should it occur in between these transfers. More packet transfers = fewer missed inputs. Motion Sync helps keep this snappy by putting both your mouse and PC on the same wavelength – lining up the receiving rate from your PC with the sending rate from your mouse.

That doesn’t mean it’s always helpful, though. Syncing this report rate introduces a very subtle, but still noticeable delay that I found in both aim training scenarios and even slower experiences like TCG Card Shop Simulator. There’s sometimes just a beat too much time in between finer movements that are instantaneous when the mouse and system are free to communicate at will. The best way I can think to describe it is this; it’s still incredibly fast, but it’s speed with a woolly feeling. I kept motion sync turned off when using a higher polling rate and everything felt slightly more precise. The software also allows for customization of lift-off distances, set to either 1mm or 2mm, and debounce timings running from a 0ms delay to 10ms.

Glorious Core isn’t the most pleasant software out there. Keybinding menus are set up in a tiny menu that never quite feels navigable, and earlier versions of the software repeatedly failed on me. Assigning custom macros to the side buttons never worked until a more recent release, though all is now fixed.

All of that to say, the Series 2 Pro feels like an awkward middle child in its feature offering. It’s not quite enough to capture the interest of the high-end competitive crowd it’s supposed to make sense to, and it’s a high price to pay for features that won’t be utilized by more casual players. This really is an all or nothing market sector, and the Glorious Series 2 Pro isn’t doing enough in its spec sheet to separate it from models with more raw power under the hood.

Performance

Very few gaming mice sensors don’t perform well anymore. Testing a mouse’s performance is more about making sure it nails the basics and seeing what else it can offer your gameplay. Glorious’s sensor keeps up with tracking well in both slower and faster scenarios and on a range of different surfaces, with super responsive movement and a snappy feel to on-screen action, particularly when paired with higher 240Hz refresh rates. That 8K polling rate ramps up CPU load and drains battery fast, without offering too much in return.

Sprinting the mouse across the screen during performance tests, I saw a 525% increase in CPU usage in 8K mode (hitting 25% CPU load from a base level of 4%), compared to a 225% increase when polling at 1,000Hz (13% CPU usage). That’s a draw on your system that can’t be taken lightly – while these numbers were taken under testing conditions, an older system running a more demanding game might not have that CPU bandwidth to stretch. I could just about sense a slight uptick in response when moving from 1,000Hz to 4,000Hz, but nothing was noticeable beyond that.

The main clicks offer a super low latency, everything is pretty much instant under the hood here, especially in a more casual setting, but they’re far from my favorites under the fingertips. They’re not exactly heavy enough to feel slow, but they certainly border on feeling a little clumsy during faster firefights. There’s a deep-feeling actuation, which requires a little too much force to truly feel snappy in repeat presses and can run the risk of growing cumbersome after a while.

Should you buy the Glorious Series 2 Pro?

I’m in a tough spot here. I can’t recommend the Glorious Series 2 Pro to esports pros – the Razer Viper V3 Pro is lighter, packs a more substantial sensor offering, and its main clicks are more balanced in their tension, all for just $30 more. At $129.99 / £119.99, though the Series 2 Pro is a pricey rodent and most casual players won’t be using the tech they’re paying for. And yet, I like it. It’s a no-fuss pointer that prioritizes speed while still feeling both comfortable and nimble in the hand (a rare combination). If you’re looking for a low-weight mouse to train up with and have a hard $150 / £150 budget, it could be worth a look. If you don’t want to spend on that high-end sensor tech, though, the Razer DeathAdder V3 Hyperspeed is your go-to. It’s a much cheaper device, still comes in at 55g, strips out some of these more expensive polling features, and offers a similar subtle design.

How I tested the Glorious Series 2 Pro

I used the Glorious Series 2 Pro for three months, testing the pointer across all daily work and play in that time. That’s a lot of testing, but I was primarily playing across Fallout 4, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Apex Legends, Final Fantasy XVI, and Hogwarts Legacy. For more information on how we test gaming mice, check out the full GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

If you’re after more brand options, check out the best Razer mouse models and the best Logitech gaming mice we’ve tested. I’m also rounding up all the best left-handed gaming mouse options out there.