Surface

The pad was tested with laser and optical mice. While some may still use an old fashion mouse ball, it will certainly not be in a gaming environment where mice and mouse pads have become an important asset. The following mice were used to test the Icemat 2nd Edition mouse pad:

• Logitech MX Revolution
• Cyber Snipa Intelliscope
• Logitech MX518

The Logitech MX Revolution is one of the most advanced mice out there, but is not necessarily considered a gaming mouse. The Cyber Snipa Intelliscope, a budget laser mouse, on the other hand is geared toward gamers and offers a variable DPI setting. The Logitech MX518 is one of the most successful optical gaming mice and is still commonly used today as the weapon of choice by many gamers.

We would like to point out, that we can only convey our personal, ovjective views of the results. How a mouse pad feels is, much like mice, heavily dependable on the persons gaming style and what he/she may be used to.


When trying the Icemat 2nd Edition with all three mice, the pad could simply be described as loud. Moving the mice on the slightly textured glass surface created a lot more noise than a traditional plastic or cloth pad. This is where the included glide pads come into play. Without these, the Icemat 2nd Edition was actually usable with both the CyberSnipa and Logitech MX518 mouse. The glide tapes were attached to the MX Recvolution. For this mouse all five needed to be used, so you may be stuck using one specific mouse or going out and buying more glide tapes. While using the MX Revolution did work, you could not use it for gaming and even in Windows it did not perform well. The mouse is very picky about surfaces as it is using a laser sensor. Due to material of the Icemat, the Logitech MX Revolution needed to be moved about 1/4 inch before the sensor picked up the movement and relayed it to the screen, this made small movement between drop down menus or dialog boxes very difficult.

Size

The overall size of the Icemat 2nd Edition is very balanced. Most mid and high sensitivity gamers will find the pad to be large enough, while the low sensitivty players will run out of space fairly quickly. The material used poses the limiting factor once again. Due to the glass, the pad cannot be manufactured any larger, as it would be too fragile and too heavy. Taking this mouse pad to a LAN party is definitely not a good idea.

Thickness

As mentioned before, the pad uses rubber spacers to keep the pad in place, which adds to the thickness. The material is also the problem in this area, as the Icemat 2nd Edition is quite thick, to make it more durable. You will certainly notice the pad while gaming, as you have around 6 mm of height difference to the table. Cloth pads of such height are naturally compressed on the edges during gaming, but this glass mouse surface will not budge at all.