Yep. It’s a flat inert piece of plastic, alright... but does SteelSeries' serious piece of flat plastic boost your gaming success?
We'd like to be able to say there is a fine and technical art to reviewing mouse pads - something that's is at once scientific and irrefutable. Sadly... there isn't. Even more so than mice, using a mousepad is a rather individual thing.
The truth is it's more than possible to get similar performance from a suitably clean and smooth desktop surface - although they can be little more inconvenient to whack in the dishwasher if you want to clean them off. It's also a truth that most people have a desktop surface already - it comes free with every desk after all, and to some people shelling out money on a mousepad, especially one as expensive as SteelSeries' 9HD, is the height of insanity.
But if you want gaming performance at any cost, surely this is the way to go?
We're not sure.
There's no denying that the 9HD isn't a premium piece of kit - it feels good the minute you plop almost any mouse down on in. Movements feel slicker and more confident, and it's triple layer construction delivers both solidity (no cloth matt this one!), and non-slip sturdiness.
But it doesn't really add anything quantifiable to your gaming. Our progression through the killhouse in Call of Duty 4 was neither helped nor hindered by the 9HD. In fact, if we had to be pushed... there's a transient stuttering effect that sees your crosshair jump a few dozen pixels. It's not something we could reliably repeat, but it didn't happen on the plain desktop.
All that adds up to... well, more accurately, it doesn't add up to $50 worth of gaming value. Sorry, SteelSeries, but them's the facts.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012