OCZ Slick Pad

Manufacturer: OCZ Technology
Supplied by: OCZ Technology
Price: $6.99

by Dean Barker  (12/21/2001)

Introduction

Well, I was beginning to think that the hot and heavy hard mousing surface wars were over.  Not that there were that many players but Everglide was the only real contender to attack the thrown held by the Ratpad.  Now OCZ Technology has gotten in on the action with their own hard surfaced mouse pad called the Slick Pad.  For of you who are gamers and have not thrown away that cloth mouse pad, you are really missing out.  The hard surface mouse pads REALLY are that much better.  Thanks to The Overclockerz Store for sending their new pad over.

In my mind there are only two big issues with a mouse pad; size and comfort.  (Of course comfort is the culmination of a variety of issues.)  The Ratpad was the one who originally brought the oversized pad issue to light and that was what one of the big things made it so popular.  The OCZ pad is little over a 1 ½ inch deeper than the Ratpad with the top edges tapering in.  Its dimensions are 9 ½” by 11 ¼”.  The bottom of the OCZ pad is beveled in to give you a consistent feel on your wrist as you move the mouse side to side, pivoting at the elbow.  The top of the pad is also beveled up providing more surface area.  This is great because even with the biggest of pads, it seems that every so often (usually when Serious Sam bragging rights are involved) this comes into play.  After twenty minutes of mousing around in a game, your mouse and hand end up off the center of the pad and you don’t notice until you run out of pad which can lead to you getting gibbed but some wanna be newbie.  Let me stress that this happens every once in a while with me (the running out of space and the being gibbed) and may not be an issue with you or your mousing habits.  Let's look at some pics of what we have here.

The pad is constructed of a hard plastic that makes cleaning a breeze.  Wipe it off, throw it in the dishwasher, whatever, and its clean.  I don’t have an exact measurement on its thickness but it is not as thick as the Ratpad.  There is a minimal amount of flex within the pad because of its thickness; but it does come into play with a few other variables we will get to shortly.

Now the Slick Pad is just that; slick.  The pad's surface is smooth unlike others that have a texture to them.  I did an informal poll with seven people today and found that 5 actually liked a or any texture better than the smooth. 

The underside of the pad showed us only six feet.  One on each corner and one centered at the top and bottom of the pad.  The pad felt fairly stationary but in some panic gaming situations, it did slip around a bit.  What is missing is another three or four feet.  This is easily enough addressed by hitting up your local craft shop.  Another issue with the feet is that they are just too damned tall.  I know that sounds trivial but with the pad being thinner and having more surface area while coupled with fewer feet make it want to flex a bit with little downward pressure from your hand.  I found this to be very irritating.  Again, the fix is simple, get shorter feet from a craft shop and swap em'.

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