masterofpuppets
03-16-2007, 08:06 AM
Product: QPad CT Large Black (4mm thick version)
Size: 40.5x28.5cm (or 15.95x11.23inch for you Americans)
Price paid: £15 @ Overclockers.co.uk
Uh yes, this is a review of a mousepad, pretty bizarre but it's still a vital component of any machine (provided you are a gamer :)).
I'm a big FPS player. No, I don't play CS:S, BF2141 or any of the other "current" FPS games, I play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (referred to as ET by it's players). Unlike the majority of current FPS games out there (with a few exceptions), which are very much "spray and pray", a good ET player must have a perfect aim, as well as good tactics, and to have this "perfect aim" of which I speak, one must play with a low in-game sensitivity (though this is very debatable, I will no go into the specifics, but I can tell you that almost all of the top European ET players are playing with low sensitivity). Unless you have tiny hands and the precision of a robot, high sensitivity isn't really a viable option for ET, as a big part of aiming in ET is about slow tracking, as opposed to reflexes (again this is debatable, but refer to my previous bracketed statement). Tracking an opponent is easier said than done, you need a steady hand and a smooth mousing surface.
So, you've got the steady hand, but do you have the latter? This is where a high-end mousepad comes in. If you want to be able to track the opponent steadily, you'll need a smooth surface to keep a consistant mouse movement going, if you are playing on a surface plagued with friction, bumps and scratches, you won't be able to keep your crosshair steady enough to get in that vital headshot that could cost you a kill or a death. There are two types of high-end surfaces out there, hard (plastic/rubber) and soft (cloth and coated-cloth). To be honest, this choice all comes down to personal taste, as both have their advantages and disadvantages. I personally find cloth pads superior, as I like a little grip on my mouse, hard pads feel much too slippery for my liking. Previously I was using my desk (cough cough dining table) as a surface, and this was terrible for my performance. There were multiple scratches on this surface, and everytime my mouse hit one, my crosshair would go flying, often costing me a death, so I decided it was time for a change. I had owned a hard pad in the past (a fUnc 1030), which was fine in all regards, until it game to an unexpected end (lol dropped a CD drive on it which dented it and rendered it useless >.<), but I found it far too slippery for my liking. I like a little more control over my mouse, which is what attracted me to buy a cloth pad. I decided between the Steelpad QcK and the QPad CT, eventually choosing the QPad after hearing many rave reviews from the ET community. I decided to purchase the 4mm thick large variant, in a black finish. I placed my order...
...then yesterday, this arrived at my door (apologies for the bad quality image):
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4316/img1175ax6.jpg
I was worried the pad would retain it's coiled up shape when removed from the tube, but amazingly it didn't. Also in the tube were a sheet of 5 "Glidz" (replacement teflon feet for Logitech mice), which I'll talk more about later. I underestimated how large 40.5x28.5cm was, this thing is huge, and only JUST fits on the table, with an inch of pad hanging off of the edge, this should keep ultra-low-sensitivity players veerrrrryy happy. I found the image on the pad pleasing to the eye. It's not the most interesting artwork in the world, but it's not over-the-top like some of the other pads out there.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/5594/img1181yu5.jpg
Another thing I was initially worried about would be the pad slipping about on the table, but that was not the case. The rubber surface on the underside of the pad more than sufficiently held the pad firmly in place.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1558/img1182wn5.jpg
Time to give her a test run! I connected to my favorite ET public server (Midnight Spikage, where my clan and another clan share administrative rights). At first I found myself sucking more than before, so I decided to lower my sensitivity a little to counteract the lowered friction of the pad. Still sucking. Frustrated, I decided to give the "Glidz" a spin. They fit perfectly over the current feet on my Logitech MX518, however I found they made my mouse feel too slippery (which made it feel like I was playing on a hard pad, defeating the purpose of the cloth pad), so I removed them and threw em away, they weren't for me. As a last resort, I decided to lower my "m_pitch" (a setting in pretty much every FPS game that controls the sensitivity of the vertical axis) to further counteract for the almost non-existant friction of the pad, and behold, my aim returned to normal! The pad didn't dramaticly improve my aim, however it made tracking other players in close-combat far easier, as well as making it less of a chore to turn around 180 degrees (which had been the cause of many deaths in the past when being flanked by opponents). Overall, this is a very nice accessory, and I'd certainly recommend it.
Pros:
+Very fine, high-quality coated cloth surface.
+Good grip on your desk, won't move about.
+The artwork, while pretty plain, is pleasing to the eye.
+Cheaper than some of the other options on the market.
Neutral:
+-Glidz make the surface too slippery, but fans of hard pads will probably like that.
+-Maybe a little too big, but that's not really a bad thing.
Cons:
-I forsee the edges fraying in the future, but I doubt the effect will be as dramatic as with normal cloth pads.
I'm no aiming god without this pad, and I'm certainly not THAT much better with this pad, but it's certainly smoothed it out a little and evened out some of the annoying difficulties I've had with aim in the past. If you currently don't have a mousepad and still use your desk/table, or you are unhappy with your current pad, I'd certainly recommend the QPad CT for any FPS player, particularily those who play with low-sensitivity.
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/2605/img1186lj5.jpg
9/10
masterofpuppets
PS: This is my first attempt at writing a review, so apologies if it sucks, but I wanted to give it a go ;)
Size: 40.5x28.5cm (or 15.95x11.23inch for you Americans)
Price paid: £15 @ Overclockers.co.uk
Uh yes, this is a review of a mousepad, pretty bizarre but it's still a vital component of any machine (provided you are a gamer :)).
I'm a big FPS player. No, I don't play CS:S, BF2141 or any of the other "current" FPS games, I play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (referred to as ET by it's players). Unlike the majority of current FPS games out there (with a few exceptions), which are very much "spray and pray", a good ET player must have a perfect aim, as well as good tactics, and to have this "perfect aim" of which I speak, one must play with a low in-game sensitivity (though this is very debatable, I will no go into the specifics, but I can tell you that almost all of the top European ET players are playing with low sensitivity). Unless you have tiny hands and the precision of a robot, high sensitivity isn't really a viable option for ET, as a big part of aiming in ET is about slow tracking, as opposed to reflexes (again this is debatable, but refer to my previous bracketed statement). Tracking an opponent is easier said than done, you need a steady hand and a smooth mousing surface.
So, you've got the steady hand, but do you have the latter? This is where a high-end mousepad comes in. If you want to be able to track the opponent steadily, you'll need a smooth surface to keep a consistant mouse movement going, if you are playing on a surface plagued with friction, bumps and scratches, you won't be able to keep your crosshair steady enough to get in that vital headshot that could cost you a kill or a death. There are two types of high-end surfaces out there, hard (plastic/rubber) and soft (cloth and coated-cloth). To be honest, this choice all comes down to personal taste, as both have their advantages and disadvantages. I personally find cloth pads superior, as I like a little grip on my mouse, hard pads feel much too slippery for my liking. Previously I was using my desk (cough cough dining table) as a surface, and this was terrible for my performance. There were multiple scratches on this surface, and everytime my mouse hit one, my crosshair would go flying, often costing me a death, so I decided it was time for a change. I had owned a hard pad in the past (a fUnc 1030), which was fine in all regards, until it game to an unexpected end (lol dropped a CD drive on it which dented it and rendered it useless >.<), but I found it far too slippery for my liking. I like a little more control over my mouse, which is what attracted me to buy a cloth pad. I decided between the Steelpad QcK and the QPad CT, eventually choosing the QPad after hearing many rave reviews from the ET community. I decided to purchase the 4mm thick large variant, in a black finish. I placed my order...
...then yesterday, this arrived at my door (apologies for the bad quality image):
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4316/img1175ax6.jpg
I was worried the pad would retain it's coiled up shape when removed from the tube, but amazingly it didn't. Also in the tube were a sheet of 5 "Glidz" (replacement teflon feet for Logitech mice), which I'll talk more about later. I underestimated how large 40.5x28.5cm was, this thing is huge, and only JUST fits on the table, with an inch of pad hanging off of the edge, this should keep ultra-low-sensitivity players veerrrrryy happy. I found the image on the pad pleasing to the eye. It's not the most interesting artwork in the world, but it's not over-the-top like some of the other pads out there.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/5594/img1181yu5.jpg
Another thing I was initially worried about would be the pad slipping about on the table, but that was not the case. The rubber surface on the underside of the pad more than sufficiently held the pad firmly in place.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1558/img1182wn5.jpg
Time to give her a test run! I connected to my favorite ET public server (Midnight Spikage, where my clan and another clan share administrative rights). At first I found myself sucking more than before, so I decided to lower my sensitivity a little to counteract the lowered friction of the pad. Still sucking. Frustrated, I decided to give the "Glidz" a spin. They fit perfectly over the current feet on my Logitech MX518, however I found they made my mouse feel too slippery (which made it feel like I was playing on a hard pad, defeating the purpose of the cloth pad), so I removed them and threw em away, they weren't for me. As a last resort, I decided to lower my "m_pitch" (a setting in pretty much every FPS game that controls the sensitivity of the vertical axis) to further counteract for the almost non-existant friction of the pad, and behold, my aim returned to normal! The pad didn't dramaticly improve my aim, however it made tracking other players in close-combat far easier, as well as making it less of a chore to turn around 180 degrees (which had been the cause of many deaths in the past when being flanked by opponents). Overall, this is a very nice accessory, and I'd certainly recommend it.
Pros:
+Very fine, high-quality coated cloth surface.
+Good grip on your desk, won't move about.
+The artwork, while pretty plain, is pleasing to the eye.
+Cheaper than some of the other options on the market.
Neutral:
+-Glidz make the surface too slippery, but fans of hard pads will probably like that.
+-Maybe a little too big, but that's not really a bad thing.
Cons:
-I forsee the edges fraying in the future, but I doubt the effect will be as dramatic as with normal cloth pads.
I'm no aiming god without this pad, and I'm certainly not THAT much better with this pad, but it's certainly smoothed it out a little and evened out some of the annoying difficulties I've had with aim in the past. If you currently don't have a mousepad and still use your desk/table, or you are unhappy with your current pad, I'd certainly recommend the QPad CT for any FPS player, particularily those who play with low-sensitivity.
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/2605/img1186lj5.jpg
9/10
masterofpuppets
PS: This is my first attempt at writing a review, so apologies if it sucks, but I wanted to give it a go ;)