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unominame
13
Nov 27, 2015
Great mouse pad. I suppose I could write up a little review on my thousands of hours in use, since my purchase from about a year ago.
All Artisan mouse pads are constructed in three layers. The top layer being a cloth tracking surface, middle being the foam padding, and the bottom rubber textured surface. The top layer defines the mouse pad. It can dictate tracking ability, provide a quality surface for your mouse sensor to read, and can allow or restrict a certain amount of speed and control for mouse movement. The middle foam layer is for comfort. It gives a soft or firm place for landing when picking up and moving a mouse while in-game. The bottom layer keeps the mouse pad in one place, provided that the surface beneath is flat, smooth and thoroughly clean.
This pad gives a fair amount of resistance in terms of sliding friction. There is less resistance in the X axis of mouse movement, and noticeably more in the Y axis. Compared to the ever-so-popular Qck heavy, I'd say that there is nearly the same resistance on the Y axis with both the artisan and Qck. On the X axis, I feel that the artisan has less resistance in sideways movement, even if ever so slightly so. Friction may vary between mouse to mouse. The large skates of the Zowie AM (my current mouse) like to slow movement down a tiny amount compared to the smaller, more populated skates on mice like the Logitech MX500.
Tracking ability is a 10/10. I've had no hiccups in tracking, no encounters of stuttering or random mouse movement during my long use. The Hien works universally excellent across the mice I have used in the past year.
Comfort is a solid 9/10. You're more likely to get fatigued in the wrist while moving your mouse from prolonged use, rather than be annoyed from the mouse pad surface. The soft foam of this particular pad is quite comfy. The foam does have a moderate amount of "give" to the firmness.
Durability is a 7/10. Due the the mouse pad surface, it can attract dust fairly easily. Dust likes to get in-between the weave pattern of the mouse pad and make residence in the small pits of the cloth. This is a mostly cosmetic issue, and does not severely impact performance. The mouse pad does pick up a noticeable amount dead skin with prolonged use. This mouse pad MUST NOT be folded or rolled up with the tracking surface on the inside. While taking this mouse pad along to a few LAN parties, I thought it would be fine in the my backpack in a cardboard mailing tube. I made the mistake of rolling it up incorrectly, with the cloth surface on the inside of the container. It has picked up several crease lines where the cloth folded up on its self. The crease lines did not bring up any issues with tracking, unfortunately they did not fade away with time. I recommend that the pad be placed back into the original cardboard envelope when moving or not in use. I've had fraying issues with the Qck heavy mouse pad, both with fraying treads on the edges of the pad, and peeling of the tracking surface on the bottom corners. The top surface of the Artisan mouse pad is singed along the top edges. This both keeps the edges free of fraying and prevents peeling. The only thing that I can say about this practice, is that the singe lines do break and create segments that stick out a bit. Again, not a large issue, but may be of importance to the few who may lack desk space, or use the very bottom of the pad.
To clean, place the mouse pad into a small basin, put in some color-safe clothing detergent and scrub down with a cheap toothbrush. After, allow to dry and you have a mouse pad free of dust and dead skin stains.
Overall I'd give this mouse pad a 9/10. Great stuff, mang. --- A small warning to anyone who bought the wine red pad and owns light, or white colored keycaps, assuming you game substantially, the three fingers that make constant contact with the mouse pad can transfer dye from the red tracking surface onto a keyboard keycap (usually thumb, ring and pinky) . I have light red stains on a nice white PBT set that I got for my OG poker. My spacebar, 9, 0, [, ], r, l, /, =, n, s, -, v, z, Backspace, Lshift and Enter keys are the caps where the stains are noticeable. (assuming you use QWERTY, keys are for reference)