F-Series F30.R
Manufacturer: Func Industries
Type of pad: Soft
Material: Malleable plastic, rubber base
Size: 14”x11” (also available at 17”x11”)
Price: $19.99

After the big success of Func's original sUrface 1030 dual surface mousepad, they slipped out of the mousepad limelight until 2005 when they made their comeback with the F-Series. Designed specifically for gamers who demand more real estate on their mousepads, the F-Series have carefully engineered surfaces that offer great performance for a reasonable price.

The packaging of the F-Series is just your basic molded plastic enclosure that does a good job of protecting the surface and even offers a little hole to “feel the texture”. In the package is just the pad, no special carrying case or anything. The pad itself is very thin, about 1.5 millimeters. I call it a soft pad because it is floppy and will pick up imperfections in your desk and what not else, but it is actually a semi-hard surface, basically a sheet of flat rubber coated with plastic. The package also includes a mouse clip cord. Mouse clip cords are arguably the greatest invention of this decade. Kidding, but they are so amazingly useful that it makes you wonder why not all mousepads come with them.

Playing games on this surface was amazing. The pad provides just the right amount of friction, while the rough surface provides the mechanical feedback that is desirable for a lot of gamers these days. You move your mouse a certain distance, it goes that distance, and you feel it. This surface also seems to be totally optimized for optical mice. The responsiveness of my MX310 when using this surface was totally unparalleled (except on the rough surface of the sUrface 1030 Archetype, which is identical to the F30.R). I tried with all my might to move my mouse without the mousepad picking it up, to no avail. I also tried to make this mousepad shift around on my desk during use. The coefficient of static friction between the gripping surface of this mousepad and my desk is far and away the highest out of all soft test pads. That basically means that it is really hard to make the pad start to move, however once it is moving it is pretty easy to manipulate. It is so incredibly easy to move the mouse around on this surface that it is probably the best out of all the tested pads for gamers who use a low sensitivity. Another thing I would like to note about this surface, while playing Counter-Strike, it was as though I was somehow transformed, magically, into an amazing player.

The construction of this pad is also very solid. The materials used in the pad make it very durable, and the only way that I can imagine permanently damage the pad is to physically fold over and crease the mousing surface, as this would probably result in a stretched out line on the surface and a crack in the solid rubber backing. This is definitely the hardest soft pad tested, and as such it does not totally share all of the desirable characteristics of a soft/cloth pad when it comes to LAN events, where you might have to manipulate the surface to fit a certain area. The design of the pad is very simple, and it looks pretty cool too with the retro style logo.

Pros:
+Great size
+Best tracking
+Nearly frictionless
+Grips desk well
+Mouse cord clip

Cons:
-Not totally soft, but not totally hard

Score:
9/10