Introduction

By Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner
In years gone by I’ve reviewed a number of mouse pads and all from the perspective of a player who was very picky about sensitivity in games and the control I required from my mouse and therefore the surface below it. Put simply, I am picky bugger.

I am also one of those players who loves cloth mouse pads. I have tried various others surfaces including glass, metal, plastic (of various types) and even wood. I just can’t get on with any of them as their primary goal seems to be to make the mouse glide over it with the ease of a hockey puck on ice. All well and good, but I actually like to feel the resistance between mouse and surface, which provides me with the feedback I need to move and aim in games. Think Todd Carty resistance but without the crap in his pants rather than say Suzanne Shaw.

Imagine my joy then, when those lovely guys at Qpad sent me through a brand new Qpad UC to review. The last time I reviewed one of their products I hardly gushed huge praise but it was a well made pad and let’s face it, you can’t go to a LAN these days without someone having a Qpad taking up all the room on a desk.

What differed this time however was that Qpad believed they had come up with the ideal mouse pad for gamers who like cloth pads and I was assured perfect for picky bastards like me. We’ll see.

Packaging and unwrapping

My review pad came in the retail box you would get if you ordered the mouse pad yourself, a pleasing fact considering review hardware doesn’t always get to you the way it appears in the shops. In the past, Qpad were a little on the cheap side and used clear plastic tubes to sell their pads, but not this time. I received a nice solid cardboard box in black with the words “Esport for life” on the side, irrelevant, but a nice touch all the same.

I also got a set of Qpad stickers in the packaging and whilst these were deemed pretty pointless, the free mouse skates included were a real plus. Just a warning for anyone with young children here: The stickers seem to use some form of epoxy resin glue made from some nuclear strength substance that once stuck to something, in our case the damned fridge, want to come off  about as much as a leach sucking on a testicle. I love my 2 year old, but Id rather not have my fridge decorated in Qpad stickers.

Beyond that, it’s a simple package with your pad inside. You get what you pay for in other words and simplicity suits the pad perfectly.

Technically speaking

What you get for your money is a 3mm thick pad slightly on the large side but not as big as most other large pads. It really does fit right in between most of the old Qpad’s both in terms of depth (the old ones were either 2mm or 4mm) and in size and desk space.

The review pad comes in at 35cmx25.5cm which makes it just about right for me at home and at LAN. It’s not too big that I have to steal my neighbours desk space when at a LAN party and doesn’t take up a huge footprint on my desk at home either. For those who simply don’t have any space, good news, there is a version for you too and likewise if you really have to take up the entire room, you can do that too. Qpad manufacture the UC in 4 sizes, 1 more than they used to with small (28.5x21cm), medium (our review pad) and large (42x30cm) and if you really do need to add extra inches to your e-penis, X-Large (50x36cm).

All of the pads in the UC range are standard 3mm, although I have seen some sites claiming to sell a 4mm version, which according to Qpad, doesn’t exist!

The pad is soft to the touch on top but obviously doesn’t feel as smooth or slippery as their former pads in the CT range which had the Hybratek coating on them. This pad has no coating at all.

The backing is pretty standard fare with high performance grooved rubber allowing minimal slip. In fact, on my glass surfaced desk, it didn’t move anywhere unless I physically picked it up and peeled it off my desk. It didn’t perform all that differently on my other desk which is maple wood and as with all modern pads it remained in place wherever I placed it.

The one other note here is that it differs from the standard (square or oblong) of old cloth pads like the CT or the Everglide DKT (my personal favourite from the last 8 years). Instead this pad is shaped like a sting ray with flaps or wings on each side in and a “dent” of some kind at the bottom. I initially thought this would annoy me as my wrist would get annoyed by it, but it turns out I was completely wrong and it works perfectly. It is not unlike some of the older pads made from plastic, in terms of shape. Frankly I like the shape a lot although I’m not sure it wont give Steve Irwin fans nightmares.

One final note on the design is that this is a plain black pad. It has no design on it, although Qpad have shown off how cool designs can be at various events this year, I have always found the mouse will skip on these over complicated designs, especially (and for some odd reason) if the mouse is a laser mouse.

The Tests

I won’t lie, it’s near on impossible to actually test a mouse pad properly. What do you measure exactly? What do you set it against? How do you prove scientifically one pad is better than another? Well, you don’t, but what we can do is provide a comparison against another pad using the same games and software and see how it affects mouse movement, sensitivity and plot any changes that are made to enhance my mouse movement. Bear in mind however, most of this is subjective to the user.

My comparison pad is an old Titan, which I have updated many times over the years and generally been very happy with. It is also a cloth pad which is roughly the same size in footprint and depth. My default mouse for the tests is a Logitech G5 (800 dpi) with all weights included and Qpad glides replacing the original pads on the bottom.

Windows Vista

I saw no real change in using windows for any software I use on a daily basis. Perhaps a slight improvement in accuracy in Photoshop, but nothing I could really demonstrate statistically. I did need to move the sensitivity up a little however as the pad seems a little slower and more resistant to my mouse. I am therefore doing a tiny bit more work in moving it over the surface. Whilst this isn’t a good thing in windows, it almost certainly means I should have more control in my games, so here goes.

Counter Strike Source

My normal sensitivity is 1.23 (I know it’s stupidly low) in source and I began using this when I first used the pad. After an hour or so of playing, I had begun to understand what Qpad said about this pad. It felt much more accurate or at least more responsive to my changes in direction. With this addition also came a little sluggishness when changing direction, particularly with my 180’s which were more like 160s. A little tweak on the sensitivity and a little more time playing around with it, I finally settled on a slightly higher 1.45 which still gave me my aim accuracy but also allowed me to pull off my 180 degree movements with the same amount of mouse travel across the pad.

I didn’t notice my shot accuracy going up, it just felt more responsive and therefore gave me more confidence to attempt a particular shot which before I perhaps wouldn’t have.

This was all compared to the Titan, which skips very occasionally, but not much. The Qpad (the CT version) I had in between had a design on it and the G5 really hated it and would skip if I ran over the wrong part of the pad causing instant loss of control until I picked the mouse up and moved it to a different part of the pad. Luckily with this Qpad, there is zero skip using my G5. Again, this hasn’t helped my aim as such, just given me more confidence that my shot and my movement is consistent with my input via the mouse and that alone is worth its weight in gold.

The biggest compliment, two weeks in to using it, is that I no longer find myself moving it around my desk to its original place or fiddling with my sensitivity in game all the time as I have done with previous pads. In fact, I don’t even notice the pad and sorry Qpad, but that’s how it should be. I need to be worrying about aiming properly and I don’t have time to worry about my pad, its bad enough with the packet loss thanks.

Summary

They have had plenty of years to make the perfect mouse pad and finally I think they may just have pulled it off, at least for lovers of the cloth variety in any case.

Frankly, the Qpad UC is perfect in every way has no gimmicky coating or design to confuse your mouse and the medium sized one was a perfect fit for my needs  at home and at LAN. It’s the right depth, the right shape and you really can role it up, throw it in a rucksack and take it out 36 hours later and it lays flat first time.

Combine this with strong resistance which increases feedback to your hand and you have a no frills, right sized, plain mouse pad which does exactly what it says on the box “feel the control”.

At less than £10 (11.50eu) you really can’t go wrong. The Qpad UC is not just a great piece of kit for a serious gamer, it’s a must have piece of kit.

Pros:

Superb feedback from the pad
Simplicity
Great build quality
Helps shoot heads
Value for money

Cons:

Collects dust! (Could just be me!).

Awards