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Steelpad Round-Up
Testing 4S
So, by now you are saying in your best Megatron voice, "I command you to be silent fool! Tell me, how did the pad perform?" It performed better than I had anticipated. To be quite honest, an aluminum mouse pad really didn't sound like something I couldn't live without. And, as it isn't as essential as water or oxygen or cable TV, you can live without it, if you don't game. Gaming-wise this pad is quite useful. So much so, I had to turn down the in-game mouse sensitivity for some of my games. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the mousing surface alone was enough to elicit a noticeable performance increase in my mousing. Did it help me score higher and frag better? Not really. But the true measure of score enhancing potential is somewhat subjective in my opinion and will probably vary from user to user. The lessened surface friction definitely made my laser mouse easier to move; hence the need for reduced sensitivity. Speaking of the mouse cord (I know I didn't mention cords, but just run with it) let me get back to that paperweight thingy. Its usefulness is revealed, voila! On occasion I noticed that my mouse seemed to bog down and that friction appeared to increase and decrease randomly. At first I thought this was a result of the Teflon tape wearing down, when in fact it was the damn mouse cord getting in the way and rubbing on the pad. If you tie the cord down with the weight, it stays out of the way and frictionlessness* is preserved. . (*Note to physics geeks! I am aware no surface can ever be truly frictionless!it's a figure of speech in this instance, OK? So just lay off Newton!) As unlikely as it seems, this mousing surface was a bit loud. Yeah!loud. Not unbearably, but as the mouse is manipulated to and fro, scratching sounds are apparent. While this doesn't affect the performance of the pad, it could be construed as mildly annoying, especially so as the scratching sound has a timbre similar to that of fingernails on blackboard!only not nearly as goose-bump inducing. Another caveat of the 4S is its incompatibility with older Logitech mice. On their website, Steelpad mentions that the 4S will not work with Logitech laser mice other than the MX line. So, don't say they didn't tell ya. That said, if you are even considering the possibility of investing money in a "Professional Mousing Surface' you may want to consider upgrading your turd of a mouse while you're at it. My roller mouse performed notably on the aluminum surface as well, which surprised me, actually. Often I find that very smooth surfaces don't work well with the old rollers. The 4S's matte coating must offer enough friction to really grip those mouse balls!oh wait, that didn't sound good at all!well, you know what I mean. Coupled with the Padsurfer Teflon tape, the old rolly faired respectably, but unfortunately the scratching sound persisted. Though I was impressed by the roller ball mouse's performance, I would say that in comparison, I preferred the performance of the laser mouse upon the 4S.
Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Testing 4S Page 3: Testing 4D Page 4: The Padsurfers & Conclusion 
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