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| SteelSeries Steelpad S&S Professional Gaming Mouse Pad Review |
| Page 2 - More Info |
| Page 3 - Accessories and Conclusion |
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SteelSeries, a company
well known for their professional range of gaming products have given us one of their Steelpad S&S gaming pads to have a closer look at and I have to say it’s quite impressive.
First of all no it’s not made from steel, the Steelpad S&S is a hard plastic gaming mouse pad with a finely textured surface which according to SteelSeries is suitable for Optical, Laser and Ball mice alike. Its size is quite formidable, measuring in at 320mm * 270mm, so quite a bit larger than your typical mouse pad, so hopefully you won’t be running out of room when playing games with this one.
The Steelpad S&S is wafer thin with a height of only 2mm so it doesn’t feel much different than using the mouse straight on the desk surface and avoids the discomfort of big spongy or tall pads can cause. The base of the S&S has no feet, but rather is splattered with small specs of rubber across the entire surface which does a great job at keeping the pad flat and still, there is no way this pad is going to move when you don’t want it to.
We’ve tested the surface of the S&S with several different mice, namely a Cyber Snipa Intelliscope (Laser) Logitech G5 2007 (Laser) and Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse (Optical) and all of them performed perfectly, no jitters or odd movements on any part of the pad surface, and with the gaming/laser mice the response to both slight and fast movements was excellent, even on the ultra-high resolution mode of the Intelliscope which can cause the mouse to move a little erratically when used on average surfaces, such as my wooden/laminate desk. However there was no noticeable difference to the Cyber Snipa Game pad we used in the Intelliscope test a few weeks ago, but you have to realise it’s only a mouse mat, how much difference can it make? Unfortunately I didn’t have a ball mouse on hand to test, not like anyone uses them these days, anyway.
All the mice we tested today had quite slippery feet on them as standard, but if you’re using a mouse that doesn’t slide on the S&S surface too well for some reason, SteelSeries actually include some (5) “Padsurfer” mice feet to have you slipping and sliding all over the shop... well your mouse anyway.
If you’re going to be taking this pad around to LANs then you’ll want to protect it won’t you? From getting scratched, bent, spilled on, leered at, touched by n00bs etc... For this purpose SteelSeries include a soft slip case to carry it around in, with a pocket on the outside to carry your mouse or caffeine pills.
Conclusion:
The SteelSeries Steelpad S&S sells online for around AU$52 and for that money you get a very, very nice large mouse pad with a great gaming surface, as well as the accessories such as the slip case and mouse feet, but it is one of, if not the most expensive mouse pad I’ve seen, which sadly brings down our OzHardware Rating a fair bit. SteelSeries do offer a “Solo” version for about AU$10-$15 less which is the mouse pad on its own with no accessories, but it doesn’t seem to be available in Australia. If you can get the solo version, it would be my pick, because other than the price it’s simply an excellent pad!
OzHardware Rating – 7.5/10
This product can be purchased online at www.techbuy.com.au (Direct Link)
