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21-Way Mousepad Roundup

Others/Mice & Keyboards by glenn @ 2007-04-21

In this large roundup we test 21 mousepads from RatPadz, Allsop, Compad, Nuke, Rantopad, Raptor-Gaming, Sharkoon and Steelpad, comparing their gliding performance, characteristics and overall look and feel.

SteelSeries - SteelPad 5L, QcK, QcK Heavy, S&S

SteelSeries
Provided by: SteelSeries

The SteelSeries website has an excellent description of their company’s activity and goal:

SteelSeries is all about gaming. Our mission is to create performance enhancing gaming gear, created for and by leading professional gamers. We continuously strive to better ourselves, and work with leading professional gamers from 3 different continents to create our products.

The Steelpad is just one of their product lines, others include keyboards, headset and gaming gear. I received 4 different pads:

SteelPad 5L ( 380 x 280mm – Hard - packaging)

The newest kid on the SteelSeries block is this 5L, it’s made from a combination of cloth and plastic and is relatively thick at ~4mm. The product name actually does mean something, 5L = 5 layers; the reason why it’s so thick, the top layer is durable plastic which actually feels like cloth; the 2nd layer is cloth, the 3rd a layer of soft foam (good for the wrist), then a layer of hard plastic for stability and finally a rubber layer for anti slip.

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All its layered goodness pays of for day to day office work, as you wrist sits comfortably on top and the mouse movements are tracked with okay accuracy. Overall performance is definitely above par.

SteelPad QcK ( 320 x 285mm – Flexible - packaging)

The QcK is a low sense cloth mouse pad with integrated anti slip at the bottom, at ~2mm its quite thin.

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Performance wise it falls slightly behind the 5L but not by much. I tried this mouse pad for several AutoCAD sessions and found the QcK to be on par with the rest of the mouse pads, not really excelling there.

SteelPad QcK Heavy ( 450 x 400mm – Flexible - packaging)

This mouse pad is the biggest, thickest and heaviest pad in the group test, at 45cm width it covers a significant portion of your desk, it’s very comfortable to work on as there’s 6mm of foam padding to ease your wrist and hide any uneven surfaces beneath. Its large size is ideal for very low sense gaming as you got all the room needed to move around.

As with the other Steelpad a bottom layer of rubber is present to prevent slippage.

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I had a good time gaming with this pad, setting the mouse sensitivity low in-game I could snipe from miles away with deadly accuracy. Overall performance was good, the QcK heavy was better at AutoCAD and Photoshop than its smaller brother (QcK) and 5L.

SteelPad S&S ( 320 x 270mm – Hard - packaging)

The S&S is the top of the line product in the SteelPad series, it comes with its own nylon carrying bag and mouse-skates. The pad offers a good working surface and is only ~2mm thick. The top layer is hard plastic with offers good accuracy, the bottom layer is rubber for anti slip.

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This is a high performance pad for high sense gamers, my mice needed little encouragement to slide over its surface; combined with high accuracy it excelled in gaming sessions for hours on end.

Comment from A-star @ 2007/08/22

Still using my everglide here.
No need to replace it.

Comment from Rutar @ 2007/08/23

It is missing the Icemat, which is the best mousepad because it never wears out, transfers excess heat away from the hand, slides well and looks and feels great. And glass is SEXY.

Comment from jmke @ 2007/08/23

stop thread digging!

Quote:

21st April 2007, 12:52

Comment from uni1313 @ 2007/08/29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rutar

It is missing the Icemat, which is the best mousepad because it never wears out, transfers excess heat away from the hand, slides well and looks and feels great. And glass is SEXY.

I completely agree with you. I used Everglide but they wear out quickly.

Icemat is the best. I would recommend only to use mousemats that are made of steel or glass. They're durable and easy to clean.

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