Introduction

SteelSeries has always been known to produce some of the best hard mats in the world. Recently they released a revamped version of the S&S which has been considered one of the best hard mats on the market for many years. A couple of days ago SteelSeries released the long anticipated SteelSeries SX. The SteelSeries SX can be considered as the next evolution of the old SteelSeries 4S, which like the SX was made of polished aluminum.

The all new SX is one of those mats that you just can't help staring at. It not only looks great, but also feels different than any other mat I have ever tried. The SX is aimed at providing a new type of surface for gamers. It's a lot smoother than any other pad on the market and has a different type of grain that I will discuss later in the review.

This new SX is extreme in every aspect right from the some what ridiculous price to the way it is built.

Specifications from SteelSeries homepage:

• Extremely smooth mousepad
• Lifelong durablity thanks to coated aluminum
• Compatible with gaming grade optical and laser mice
• 320 mm x 270 mm (12.6 x 10.6 in) - thickness 2 mm (0.08 in)

First Look

One of the first things you notice when you first receive the SteelSeries SX is that the package is really heavy. The package itself consists of a cardboard box with a plastic case inside that houses the mat. Since the mat is made of aluminum I'm pretty sure that no harm will come to it while it's being shipped from the seller to your door.


When I got the mat out of the package I noticed that SteelSeries ships this mat with a lot of different stuff. Besides the usual commercial adverts they include a lint free cloth and some SteelSeries Glides. The lint free cloth is quite good at cleaning the mat. This is of course necessary because the mat is made of aluminum, so each thumb print is quite easy to see in daylight.


The Gilde MS mouse feet are made of high quality Teflon. The adhesive used on the back is quite strong and should make sure that you can get them to stick on top of the OEM mouse feet without falling off. I installed the mouse feet on top of some Teflon that I got with a NOIDpad and they remained in place throughout the entire review.


Another little design feature is the SteelSeries logo located at the top of the pad. It looks just like a case badge.

Closer Examination

The surface of the mouse mat is made of fiber polished aluminum, which is made of a special blend according to SteelSeries. Whether this is true I cannot comment on, however, the build quality and finish of the surface is immaculate. I spent almost 30 minutes examining the surface for visible faults, but there were none. The finish is in other words perfect, no bumps, no dents, nothing besides a perfectly flat polished surface.

The base of the pad is made of rubber glued to the aluminum top. The base rubber does a really good job at keeping the mat from moving and in conjunction with the relatively heavy piece of aluminum on top this pad isn't going to move unless you pick it off the table.


Besides being made of rubber, the base also has a thread. It grips the desk like a tire grips a road. As you can on the image above the natural rubber base stops approximately 0.5 cm from the edge of the aluminum surface. This means that you can see the rubber element when the mat is laying on a table even if you look at it from an angle.


The surface can only be described as incredibly smooth. The grain is very fine and has a special feel to it. Even though it's extremely fine grained it maintains a lot of good qualities that normally only a medium rough surface can achieve, i.e. low friction, and control while moving the mouse. Overall the surface seems to be the perfect blend between being fine grained while still maintaining decent gliding performance. As you can see on the pictures above the surface's grain really fine. Besides that the finish of the mat is perfect, even the aluminum edges are filed down so that you don't risk injuring your arm like you could when using the old SteelPads.

The only real problem with the surface is that it feels cold. This is because it's made of aluminum and since it dissipates heat it feels cold to the touch because it "distributes" the heat from your hand. This can causes some condensation water on the surface especially if your room is cold like maybe 19°C. Besides that the surface is so fine that even fingerprints are visible on it.


Above you can see how easy it is to spot thumbs prints on this mat. Of course it isn't something that hurts performance it just doesn't look that pretty.


The SteelSeries SX is a bit thicker than its sibling the S&S. I don't feel that the height of the pad is annoying not even while playing for a really long time. Even though it's a bit thicker it doesn't feel like you have to bend your wrist in an awkward way in order to use the pad.