Introduction:
Today I’ll be taking a look at the Black Icemat 2nd
Edition, another contender aiming to the best professional gaming mouse pad
available.
The Icemat is made out of glass, and as such comes packaged
in a Styrofoam box. At a price of $47.50 US, it is marginally cheaper than the
Steelpad but as I will discuss shortly, every bit as good. It measures 30x25cm
(12x10 inches) which I believe makes it the biggest mousepad available (if
anyone can prove me wrong do let me know).
Update: A viewer has informed me that the Destrukt MegaMat comes in at 17.5x14 inches
The pad also sits 6mm (1/4inch)
high, with the edges rounded off. I would have preferred if the edges were
sloped downwards instead, but this does not cause any major comfort issues.
The Icemat is fairly heavy and contains 6 polyurethane feet
attached on the base of the Icemat, making it almost impossible to lose its
grip on the table during use - much more effective than having the pad slide along
the table with the mouse, which is something I tend to live with at work.
The logo is placed underneath the surface at the corner of
the mouse pad so that it will not affect the mouse movement on the surface. As
an added bonus, it will not be able to come off at all - a previous mouse pad of
mine unfortunately lost its logo after I used the corner of the pad as a coffee
mug coaster.
Included in the package is a 10cm (4inch) strip of
padsurfers, which are Teflon based tapes that decrease friction as well as
reduce noise from movement.
The reason for the black colour, is not only for aesthetics
but for compatibility with optical mice. The pad is actually a glass layer on
top of a black base. Although the website doesn’t state any incompatible mice,
I found that there were tracking issues similar to those I experienced with the
Steelpad 4S when using my old Logitech Mouseman wheel optical mouse. However,
the Logitech MX series mice have been tested and proven, while the glass
surface should also provide excellent traction for ball mice.
The Icemat does tend to pick up dust, which can be
noticeable when the mouse runs over on the smooth, flat surface – a wipe with a cloth or sleeve can fix
this problem, and the product website recommends occasional cleaning using window
cleaning products.
Onto the testing and comparison:
