Mark luxuriates in silicon and textured fabric combo of the SteelSeries DeX.
In my daily work I use an old SteelSeries mouse pad, one of its older S&S designs. Made from a very durable hard plastic, it adheres to my desk with a soft rubberised coating that stops it moving around.
Unfortunately, being at least seven years old, the rubber coating has started to shed like the tire of an F1 car that's done far too many laps.
With perfect timing, SteelSeries sent me its new DeX pad, and what a wonderful replacement it is. The DeX, as you can see in the images, is made from two distinctively different materials that are heat bonded into a single flexible pad. On the underside is a brightly coloured orange silicon surface that has sufficient tack to maintain zero slippage, however aggressively you move your mouse.
Not having the pad move is important, but so is the upper surface that the mouse should glide over with the minimum of lateral force.
Being soft and not hard like the S&S pad, this surface should offer greater friction to a sliding mouse, but for whatever reason, it actually seems even better.
What's really odd is that the upper surface isn't even totally smooth; instead it's a series of raised hexagon ridges, which reduce the contract points on the mouse to the absolute minimum. It might seem counter-intuitive, but the theory appears to work well in practice.
SteelSeries has also addressed, to a point, the biggest issue of soft mouse pads, which is what you do with them when they get dirty. Washing some pads will destroy them utterly and causes others to separate top from bottom.
The DeX is designed to be both liquid resistant, so a spilt drink will pool on the surface and can be wiped off easily, and it's even washable.
I've noticed that SteelSeries describes the DeX as 'Wash It If Needed', which I'd take as don't throw it in the laundry every week, but when it's really grubby it can take a hand wash.
So where could the DeX be better? The only complaint I've seen about this product is from some gamers who think that the 32 x 27 cm area is too small. Personally, I think those people need to up their mouse sensitivity, because a mouse isn't a Corgi car, is it? For those who disagree with me, SteelSeries also makes the enormous (and pun-tastic!) QcK+ for them to race their mice around.
The only real problem here is the price, which seems like far too much for what is - a mouse pad.
The American's get to pay $40 for the DeX, the Europeans the same number in euros, for no obvious reason. Based on today's sterling exchange rate with the US dollar, it should be around £25, but it's marginally more probably because of VAT.
I really wish this was cheaper, because it's a lovely place to rest your wrist and move your mouse over. Mark Pickavance