Corepad Mouse Pad

Introduction

There are a lot of "professional" and "gamer" mouse pads out on the market. Each of these is claiming to be the most accurate, fastest, most incredible mousing surface on the face of the Earth. The Corepad mouse pad is one of these. My thanks go out to the fine folks at Com-Tra.de for providing the sample used in this review. If you're one of our European readers, stop by their site and see what they have to offer!

Specifications

The Corepad is made of tempered glass, safety glass, to be more specific. It measures 280mm (length) x 220mm (width) x 5mm (thickness), according to the back of the box. What makes the Corepad unique is the pattern on its surface. This pattern was not etched into the surface after the Corepad was molded. It were actually formed there when the Corepad was made! The Corepad also comes with a strip of Skates you can cut to fit the feet of several mice and a thin, non-skid rubber pad to set the Corepad on while in use.

The pattern itself looks like a series of dots, about 1mm in diameter, that cover almost the entire surface of the Corepad. In actuality, there is a series of lines, just under 1mm wide each, molded into the glass that form a grid and gives the appearance of dots on the glass. The "dots" actually sit ever-so-slightly higher than the grid which forms them.

Testing

I tested the Corepad using my trusty Razer Viper optical mouse while playing Dungeon Lords, Jedi Outcast, Half-Life 2, and Sacred. I also did my regular day-to-day activities using the Corepad, such as forum posting, email, and such. I was ready to stop testing after five minutes, but I pressed on to make sure that I was fully acclimated to the Corepad before forming my opinion of it.

Conclusion

Basically, I do not like the Corepad. I do not like any mouse pad that causes the cursor to move when I am not even touching the mouse! While the idea behind the surface of the Corepad looks good on paper, and probably works quite well with a ball-mouse, my Razer Viper had nothing but trouble, even though the Viper is listed on the Corepad Mouse Compatibility web page. I found my Viper to be far less accurate on the Corepad than on my Razer ExactMat, even when using the Speed side of the ExactMat! For what is charged for the Corepad, you can do a lot better.

There are a lot of product ideas that look and sound really great on paper. That's why there are prototypes and testing before a new product goes into full-scale production. I do not feel as if there was enough testing done with the Corepad before putting it on the market. That is the only way I can see the cursor drift I experienced not being caught before the product design was finalized.