A lot of us have been converted over to the world of high-performance mousepads, but there are undoubtedly a few who are still in the dark as to why they matter, and why they should spend their $20-40 on a sheet of plastic or metal (or in this case both), as opposed to a new game or a pair of jeans. I admit that I was one of them, and I was an unbeliever until the fine folks at SoftTrading sent me a new SteelPad 4S for evaluation.
Nowadays, I'll tell any gamer or other computer user that a good mousepad is essential. It doesn't have to be the most expensive model, but it needs to provide a smooth, continuous, and large surface on which to mouse. It's also got to be durable.
Today we're going to not only hook a few more otherwise unconvinced gamers, but we're also going to bridge that hotly debated line between cloth pads and metal pads. SteelPad surprised me when they sent me the 5L, which is what I call a "hybrid" mousepad.
The Size
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The SteelPad 5L is a pretty big pad and measures in at a nice 15x11 inches, and has a slight curvature at the bottom. It's shown here still in the packaging, which is very easy to open, and contains nothing other than the pad itself.
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Here is a comparison next to the Black Icemat 2 for size. It's not too much bigger, but enough to make you notice. In accordance with things going wide these days (wide screen monitors, etc, it's definitely biased towards being a wider pad as opposed to deeper.
The Material(s)
Hard pad or soft pad? Ask me before I received this and I would have stubbornly insisted on a hard pad. They are more modern than their cloth counterparts, they are much more sturdy and can handle a lot more wear and tear, they are easily washable, they'll never get stained, torn, or ruined, and they absolutely fly with Teflon feet on your mouse. Others disagree with me, and swear by the cloth pads.
SteelPad has taken a unique approach to this, by combining the feel of a soft pad with the structure of the hard pad. SteelPad 5L uses a five-layer system as described below:
- Plastic coating: Thin plastic coating ensures durability and maintains the texture of the underlying cloth material.
- Cloth: A highly durable and extremely strong cloth material provides a smooth gliding experience. The texture of the plastic coated cloth surface allows for minimal mouse movements and maximum precision.
- Soft polyisoprene: Specially treated soft polyisoprene provides softness to the touch. The softness of the rubber foam is very easy on the users' wrists, even for hardcore gamers and others who use their mouse for extended periods of time.
- Hard plastic: A hard plastic compound maintains the stability and the shape of the mouse pad, and helps ensure a consistent gliding experience even on uneven surfaces.
- Rubber elements: Small soft rubber elements ensures complete non-slippery steadiness.
I'm sure you're nodding your head thinking, "That's nice, but what does all that marketing mumbo-jumbo really mean?" What it means is that it's essentially a reinforced cloth pad. There's a plastic coating on top of the cloth to keep it from staining or ruining with time. There's foam underneath it to keep the surface soft and comfortable since it's got a hard piece of plastic underneath that. And of course, the rubber elements just help it stick to the table.
Now, coming from a guy who doesn't like cloth pads, I'm starting to think twice... sure, it's cloth, but look at the advantages it has over ordinary cloth pads!
Turn to the next page and I'll be doing a few close-ups on the surfaces of the mousepad.
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