Redemption: QcK+ Review

In response to community demand, we are happy to present our review of the oversized cloth mousepad known as the SteelPad QcK+.

You eat your words a lot in the hardware business. Largely the result of forward-looking and inferential statements about products that don’t yet exist or don’t seem that promising, regularly regretting something you said last week or even yesterday is just a natural risk you have to take. Fortunately for us hardware enthusiasts though, rarely do these slip-ups ever cost you anything - in fact they usually go unnoticed. Unfortunately for GotFrag Hardware, we made one of those big boo-boos in one of our more opinionated articles. Embarassment, anger, regret, and a certain amount of controversy - all caused by a mousepad.

When looking at the comments of our Mousepad Roundup article, it doesn’t take long to come across the first mention of SteelPad’s QcK and why it was not included in the review. Over and over again people asked “wheres the qck?”. From the shear amount of people commenting about this mousepad, it must have been good. Only recently have we found out just how right you all were. With features worthy of the top tier of mousepads, leaving out the $12 QcK was nothing less than a big mistake.

While we technically couldn’t get our hands on the QcK, SteelSeries was nice enough to provide us with a QcK+, which for 3 dollars more adds a significant amount of surface area.

QcK+
Manufacturer: SteelSeries
Type of pad: Soft, single surface
Material: Cloth
Size: 17.7″ x 15.7″
Price: $15.00

Obviously the first thing to note about the QcK+ is its size. It is about 30 square inches larger than Razer’s Mantis mousepads. Theoretically, the bigger the mousepad the better. The more room a gamer has to move his or her mouse around, the more comfortable that gamer will probably be.

Well, being big is a good virtue for a mousepad to have, but being too big can sometimes be a problem. As you can see in the picture, the QcK+ takes up a good amount of my desk, almost exactly as much as my computer, monitor, and keyboard combined. What this basically means is that I have to use the mousepad as a surface not only to use my mouse on, but to put normal desk-going items on as well. For some people this might not be a problem, but to me it means that the pad will get dirty more easily, which is a bad thing when you have an all-black mousepad. However, the big question with our mousepad roundup article was about the QcK, not the QcK+. I can imagine that the size of the QcK would be more desirable for gamers like me, who would like a little more desk with their mousepad.

Surface wise, this is a really top quality mousepad. The fabric of the actual mousing surface seems superior in many ways to the Fibretek surface on the Razer Mantis Speed. The only thing I would really consider better about the Fibretek surface is it’s extreme durability, it is a really well made surface. While gaming, the surface on the QcK+ lets the mouse glide better than any other cloth mousepad in our mousepad roundup. One distinct benefit of the large QcK+ is that you can rest pretty much your entire forearm on the pad and still have enough room to maneuver the mouse. I found that during long periods of gaming, this allowed me to not have to constantly adjust my arm due to either irritation from the edge of my desk or fatique. The thing about cloth pads that I admire as a gamer is the control that you get from them. Sure, the Func F-series F30.R or SteelPad S&S will let the mouse glide almost effortlessly across the surface, but hard pads can’t hold a candle to the type of control you get on most cloth pads. Aesthetically this mousepad is quite sound, as are all SteelPad surfaces. An entirely black pad with the sharp and abstract SteelPad logo in the bottom left.
{mospagebreak heading=Introduction&title=Features}
If you have read the Mousepad Roundup, you might be thinking at this point that the QcK+ is quite similar to the X-raypad Aqua3. The surfaces of the two pads are admittedly similar in texture and quality, and both are very thin (2mm), but the similarities end there. The first and most distinct difference between the two pads is the QcK+’s ability to grip the desk. If you recall from the Mousepad Roundup, the one big time flaw witht he Aqua3 was that it simply would not grip the desk used to test it on, or any other desk for that matter. When we reviewed the Aqua3, we couldn’t help but notice how glossy the surface was. Depending on your taste in mousepads, this could be good or it could be bad.

The surface of the QcK+ is not nearly as glossy as the Aqua3, but is still very smooth to the touch. The Logitech MX310 used to test this mousepad slid accross the surface nicely while creating enough friction to keep my movements confined and, more importantly, my shots on target. Tracking on the QcK+ was, in a word, superb. I tried with all my might to make the cursor stop moving while using the mouse, to no avail. I did this using my makeshift method of turning down the sensitivity and moving the mouse very fast and rigourously across the mousepad. Not once did I notice any skipping or pausing whatsoever. This same test was also completed with the Logitech G5 laser mouse, with the same results. With all the rumors going around about the performance of laser mice on certain surfaces, we can tell you with not a shred of uncertainty that the Logitech G5 mouse tracks flawlessly on the SteelPad QcK+.

Conclusions
After testing this mousepad it is quite clear: the QcK+ (QcK) is one of the best cloth mousepads on the market today. The smooth surface, thin package, and minimalistic design are definately worthy of the top flite of mousepads. In comparison to the mousepads included in our Mousepad Roundup, the QcK+ is either better or just as good as all of them.

The most important quality of the QcK, as discussed above, is the tracking. While all the mousepads in our Mousepad Roundup allowed ball, optical, and laser tracking with no problems, the laser tracking in particular on the QcK+ just seemed to be on a whole different level. If I so much as tap the top of the mouse, the resulting movement is registered and displayed as a tiny cursor shift on my screen. All in all, the QcK+ is an excellent mousepad worthy of any recommendations it recieves.

If costly slip-ups in hardware journalism are a rare occurence, then redemption from these slip-ups is even more rare. As a hardware site primarily targeted at the gaming community, our credibility hinges on whether or not we can supply product reviews and opinions that are in line with what gamers themselves think. With this review of the QcK+, that is exactly what we intended to do. This article is the product of community response to our Mousepad Roundup - just to show that we’re always listening.

Pros:
+Size
+Thin
+Simple design
+Excellent tracking
+Well crafted smooth surface
+Grips desk well
+I got more frags with it!

Cons:
-Size

Score:
9.5/10

This mousepad would be absolutely perfect if it were not so huge. A smaller mousepad like the QcK is probably suited a bit better for normal computer desk use than the QcK+ is. Nevertheless, it was our pleasure to test and review this mousepad for the GotFrag Hardware community.

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