Razer Destructor Review

Posted by _nineX in August 11th, 2008

A year or two ago, after being unhappy with Logitech’s then-current offerings for gaming peripherals, I thought I’d try out this interesting-looking mouse, called the “DeathAdder”, by this company named “Razer”. Though I’d really never had any experience with other Razer products at the time, I instantly fell in love with the DA, and still use it on my main computer to this day. Since then, I’ve been completely taken by just about everything Razer has tossed out there. The Lycosa is possibly the best keyboard I’ve ever used. The Lachesis was a great mouse with a very solid tracking engine, but due to personal preference about the design, I prefer the DeathAdder. And though I’ve never dabbled much with their mouse pads, I’m extremely interested in this new hard-surfaced pad they’ve released. Enter the Destructor.

Category	Manufacturer	Product	Price	Surface
Mouse pad	Razer	Destructor	$39.99	Aluminum/Fractal

First of all, when I saw that the pad comes inside this kind of neoprene case, I thought “How dumb, why would I need that?” Actually, it really isn’t a bad idea. Since receiving the pad several weeks ago, I’ve hauled it to a couple places and I’ve been pretty happy with it so far. The case, which I found to be extremely tough and sturdy, has kept that pad in one piece and bend-free. This is a great solution, and one that should be included in more of their products possibly. I wish that I had something like this for my Lycosa. Yes, that was a subtle suggestion to you, Razer (*Wink wink nudge nudge*).

As for The pad itself, it has an unusual but symmetrical shape, similar to their previous hard-pad, the eXactMat. All of the corners are rounded, and the bottom corners are flanged to look a little more stylish. The top right corner has a black Razer snake logo, and the bottom left of the pad has the Razer Destructor logo. The bottom of the pad has an extremely nice rubber grip, and holds onto the desk very firmly. This is actually one of the more endearing properties of the pad, as I’ve used too many mouse surfaces that tend to buckle under extreme mouse movement and then the next thing you know it’s across the desk. Not with Destructor. This bad boy stayed put and didn’t budge, even after hours of intense Quake and COD4 action.

The top of the mouse pad has an interesting texture, featuring the new the “Razer Fractal” textured surface. Claiming to improve the tracking of your mouse, the material is a nice combination of a slightly grainy under-coat with a top layer of light gloss. It’s a very nice finish and results in one of the fastest surfaces I’ve ever used - given, I normally play on cloth pads - but this is insane.

I decided to test this on two of my favorite games; Quakeworld and Call of Duty 4, testing both motion tracking and the feeling of slow and fast movements.

First let’s start off with the intense Quakeworld. Known for its extreme speed and intense action, QW makes mice tremble in the cords. But after some slight adjustment to the DPI and sensitivity, I readied up and thought I’d play a fun match with a friend online, not knowing how I would handle this alien surface. The game started off quite awkwardly, making me concentrate much harder on my strafe-jumping and direction changes than normal. And though it was still very hard to get used to the sensitivity change and the smaller pad size, I did enjoy the surface and how smooth it felt, even with the normal Lachesis mouse feet.

As for Call of Duty 4, I use a fairly low sensitivity and I felt this would be a good way to check Razer’s claim of improving tracking accuracy. Again, I had to adjust my DPI and sensitivity on the Lachesis, but once I was tuned in, it was a blast. Now I didn’t have tools to test this, but it really did feel like it was tracking better than it would with my QCK+. It was odd. At first, I was wondering whether it was just me, but as I played more, I noticed I wasn’t getting the small twitches that I got with my cloth pad.

Now to the two problems that I have with the pad: its size and the edge around it. First, I’m not used to a smaller (13.78” x 11.02”) pad like this, and even though I tuned up the sensitivity, I was never able to really get used to the size. To get a second opinion, I lent it to a friend that uses the smaller-sized pad and he said it was great, and interestingly enough told me that he later bought the pad. My second problem with the pad is the ridiculously sharp edge around it. The pad is slightly raised by the rubber under-matting, and so when my mouse slipped off the pad and I tried to pull it back onto the surface suddenly, my mouse feet were ripped off by the rigid edge. I guess it’s just my unfamiliarity with the size, but it is likely that anyone having to adjust will go through the same growing pains.

Overall though, this pad is extremely quick. I could probably make that last sentence bold faced and all caps, but I don’t know how to emphasize it any more; the mouse glides across this pad ridiculously fast. For fans of speed that don’t mind a smaller pad, this could be the greatest thing ever to happen. And while I don’t have the scientific methods available to test the “improved tracking” claim, it seemed to never miss a beat. I really did enjoy trying something different and if my personal preferences were different, I’m sure I would be completely enthralled with this pad. Istill had a good time with it though.

Pros