Reviewing the 5L
I spent extensive time testing this product, as reviewing it gave me the perfect excuse to ‘have’ to game. There is no need to list the numerous games I tested the pad in as they have no real bearing on the performance of the pad. However, rest assured I play a lot of games… a lot. I tried laser, optical, and ball mice on the pad and did not experience any bad tracking or skipping during the entire review process.

Comfort and Size
My initial reaction was that I wasn’t going to use the entire space of this pad. Oh was I wrong. I quickly found myself using the entire width of this mouse pad and loving it. Also, I had used hard pads up until this point and had never really considered a soft pad as a competitive pad. Obviously, these cloth pads have had a revival over the last year and I found myself enjoying the feel of cloth on my wrist rather than cold, hard plastic. So in terms of comfort and size, I would say the 5L ranks high.

The 3 S’s: Smoothness, Speed, and Slippage
The surface of this pad supposedly has this plastic coating on the top to make it extra quick. Well, I was a bit disappointed at first. I found it to be a very slow pad. Now, here in Chicago it is extremely cold and the package arrived while I was out running errands. Naturally, it was freezing when I unpackaged it and my initial reaction was that it was very slow. However, after some warming and some game playing it became quicker. Also, the first mouse I tried on it had smaller feet on the bottom. The mouse with the bigger feet moved smoother and faster across the pad, but after it warmed up all the mice took to it nicely. As far as slippage goes, the mouse pad did not move unless I picked it up and placed it elsewhere.

Abuse
This is something I have yet to do in a review, so I decided to start here. As gamers, we all own a few expensive pieces of equipment and we do our best to take care of it. Let’s be honest though. Many of our peripherals take a heavy beating and the mouse pad is no exception. From LAN parties to accidents, stuff is bound to happen. So I decided to test the durability of this product.

For about 15 minutes I threw it around the room and slammed its edges against stuff and found that it was actually quite the resilient little bugger. No dents formed at all around the edges or anywhere else for that matter. I then tried to bend it. WARNING: DO NOT BEND THIS MOUSE PAD. While I caused no irreversible damage, this mouse pad does have a snapping point. I did not snap this one, but I could tell it was being stressed. On the up side though, it does not seem that I could add a curve to it in either direction. I tried to hold it in one position for some time and it flattened back out immediately when I let go. The cloth seemed pretty snag-free and quick to dry. As far as abuse goes, this baby can handle a lot of pain.

Optimized for Laser Mice
Steel Series makes the claim that this pad is specifically optimized for use with a Laser Mouse. Well I just happen to have a ton of mice and mouse pads for some reviews we have coming up and decided to test this. I used the Razer Copperhead, Logitech G5, Logitech MX1000, and a Saitek laser mouse to test on various types of mouse pads. Indeed, the laser mice acted sporadic and jumpy on some of the hard surfaces or glossier surfaces. I could not find a common denominator though. I tried all 4 of these mice on the Steelpad 5L and found nothing wrong. They all operated as smooth as any optical mouse and without an issue at both slow and fast motion maneuvers.