It's been a while since we reviewed a product from those geniuses at SoftTrading-- last we looked at the Black Icemat 2, and over the past-- wow, almost 7 months, it's dethroned my former favorite and has taken up a sizable space on my desk, paired up with my Logitech MX510. It's hard to imagine that a mousepad can get much better (and much more expensive, with the Icemat 2 coming in at about $45). But today, Danny and the gang out-do themselves yet AGAIN with the Steelpad S&S-- or so they claim.
Today we're going to take a look into this pad and show you what it's all about...it was go designed by SK Gaming, an elite gaming group. This combination of excellent mousepad history with 5 elite gamers can only mean the best. Start off by taking a look at this pad's packaging:
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A very attractive cardboard box, a simple flex of the box shows that we are working with a plastic pad in here, but only opening it up will reveal what is really inside.
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Once we open the box, we see that the Steelpad S&S includes a nice vinyl carrying case, the pad itself, and an apparently revised version of Steelpad PadSurfers, which we'll also have a look at. The carrying case is nice to have, to ensure that your mousepad doesn't get dirty on the way to your LAN. On the LANs I've been to, I've put my Icemat 2 in my LAN bag, it's never been much of a problem, but may prove to be one with a plastic pad.
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On the flip side of the pad we see that it also contains a pocket-- good for putting your mouse in, or maybe a few game CDs. The inside pocket is coated with vinyl and the zipper opening is about 8 inches. Enough with the case, moving on to the pad, shown below:
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Here's the pad itself-- as you can see, it's rather large compared to my Logitech MX510. That's about 12.5 inches wide and 10 inches deep-- just slightly larger than the Black Icemat 2. The edges are rounded, which doesn't really do anything except make the pad look cool, but there you have it. The Steel S&S logo is also printed on the bottom left corner of the pad.
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A close-up view on the mousing surface shows that it's a rough surface-- however, the particular surface used on this pad is coarser and more slick than that on the Steelpad 4D's rough side, which I didn't like very much. It should provide for good grip along with easy mousing.
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The flip side of this pad is non-usable, but it is glossy and sticks to the bottom surface fairly well. On the Steelpad 4D, the grip pad would often slip and get annoying, but not on the S&S.
Move on to the next page, we're going to test this pad alongside our Black Icemat 2.
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