SteelPad S&S (New Improved Surface)

Introduction

The SteelSeries started off with just the simple SteelPad line of gaming surface products. These were a great success and therefore created a fuzz about SteelSeries as a "Gamer's Brand". A while after the initial success, the SteelSeries product line was expanded to include both mouse mats and headsets optimized for gaming. It has been a while since the SteelPad S&S was released, which really upped the performance of hard plastic mats. Ever since the release of the original S&S, SteelPad hasn't released a single "new" hard plastic mat, but this changed not long ago when they launched a new optimized version of the 3-year-old design. The S&S I will be taking a look at today is the new and improved version of the original S&S.

Specifications from SteelSeries:

• Size: 320 x 270 x 2mm / 12 2/3 x 10 2/3 x 1/12 inch
• Nylon sleeve
• Surface is made of a special responsive plastic compound
• Compatible with all mice
• Highly durable surface

The Package

The SteelPad S&S ships in a little cardboard box wrapped in plastic. Inside the package you find quite a large bundle considering that it's a mouse mat.



This mouse mat comes with padsurfers and a free short term subscription to SteelSecurity which is an online virus and malware scanner made in cooperation with Bullguard Software and SteelSeries. The bundle also features a small brochure of the SteelSeries line of products.



Just like the old version of the SteelPad S&S, the new one ships with "All-around padsurfers" which essentially are pieces of precut high quality Teflon which can be used on almost all of the mice on the market today, except for a few with an odd mouse feet design.



The Teflon is cut in an almost oval shape and is a bit larger than the precut Teflon that Q-PAD ships with their mats.

One of the things that I have always liked about the bundle that the S&S features is the sleeve, which protects the pad when traveling from and to LAN parties.



On the back of the sleeve there is a little pocket where you can store your Teflon or anything you might want to carry with the pad.