Introduction

First of all I would like to thank IndiWEB for supplying me with the QPAD EC-R. IndiWEB is an official European distributor of QPAD products among other things. The company's about page reads as follows:

"WE SUPPORT YOUR SKILL" - this slogan describes our goal. We offer specialized equipment for gamers and professional users to support their pc-skills at best. Many years of experience in this area enable us to focus on the high individual requirements of users. We have a wide range of specialized products in stock in order to fulfill these demands.

QPAD is known to produce some of the best cloth based hybrid mats on the market. I remember when I first got my QPAD LowSense mouse mat. I was amazed with the precision and control of the mat. That mat has been the benchmark of cloth mats ever since. The mat became a huge success. A while ago I reviewed the QPAD XT-R, which is the big brother of the new QPAD EC-R. The EC-R features the same carbytek surface as the XT-R and has the same shape, besides that they have very little in common.

This mat is clearly aimed at the no-nonsense gamer who's only criteria for a mat is performance, I find the concept quite appealing because the surface only has one color therefore eliminating false tracking with older optical mice.

Since the XT-R was a bit too thick and expensive for most gamers they have now introduced the EC-R, which is thinner, more robust and costs less. The design is simple and effective, reminding me of the SteelPad S&S in its minimalistic approach to design. Now let's see just how this new QPAD performs.

Closer Examination

Just like with the XT-R the EC-R comes in a very neat aluminum box, this makes it easy and safe to transport. The inside of the box is covered with foam making sure that the mat doesn't get scratched during transportation.



As you can see from the pictures above, the aluminum case will well protect the mat. A hard case like that is really nice if you travel to a lot of LANs. There ain't anything worse than coming to a LAN only to find out that your favorite pad is ruined, trust me I've been there.

The EC-R comes with some precut QPAD Glidz Teflon, this is actually pretty annoying because it makes it hard to apply them on your mouse if you have one with an odd mousefeet design. I'd much prefer if they just supplied one strip of their famous Glidz Teflon allowing the use to custom fit it to their mouse.



As with the XT-R the EC-R comes with two case badges.