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.

Closer Examination

The SteelPad S&S was one of the first hard plastic mats to have a good balance between glide and control. Besides that the S&S is one of the most comfortable hard mats to play with due to the thickness of the pad, measuring only 2 mm or 0.07 inches, this pad is extremely thin.



One of the things that makes the S&S concept unique is that SteelSeries' developers have managed to make not only an extremely well balanced surface but also a mat that is thin and stays in place while gaming. The only real problem area with the old S&S was the rubber that was sprayed on the bottom of the mat to make it grip the desk surface, it was made in such way that it was quite fragile.



The adhesive used to glue the rubber to the back of the pad seems to be a bit better than the stuff used on the old version.

One of the most unique things about the S&S is the surface. It's one of the best compromises between control and glide, this is achieved through a medium grain surface that has a soft and smooth feel to it.



As you can see from the picture above, the surface is quite grainy but the peaks are smooth, this is probably what makes the S&S surface so balanced.