Steelseries QcK Heavy

Introduction:

Steelseries is a well known company among gamers, producing a wide variety of products targeted towards the hardcore gaming market. Today, we have the QcK heavy up on the review block, the heavy is the largest pad from the QcK line of cloth mousepads. Special thanks goes out to Casper Mejlholm with Steelseries for providing us with this product for us to review.

By definition, the QcK is a mousepad, but by size, it’s more like a mouse mansion, the pad is huge measuring 17.7" x 15,7" with a thickness of .23”. It’s soft and smooth too, feeling a lot like a wet suit does before the wet. In fact, when I got the box, I wasn't quite sure what it was at first, I wasn't expecting something this big!

Testing:

To test the QcK heavy, I spent several hours playing Team Fortress 2 and Mass Effect, along with a generous helping of regular desktop usage (Internet, office, the like). When I first opened the box, I thought it might have problems staying in place because the backing isn’t very rough, I was proven wrong, the large surface area more than compensates for this. The surface performs well and didn't give me a single hicup while using it. On top of that, the pad is soft too, so your wrist/forearm gets a comfy place to sit.

For some torture testing, I decided to simulate a gamer’s worst nightmare. Liquid spill. To do this, I dumped some water on the pad, and monitored the results. The pad stood up to the liquid, but had one slight problem, the water stayed, the pads material just sucked up the water and took awhile to dry out. I'm not knocking the pad for this though, as it's something you hopefully wouldn't normally do.

Notice that my camera has some problems picking up the black of the pad.

Conclusion:

Yeah, this has been a short review, because I can't wait to get back to gaming with it!  The QcK is simple and pure, does what it's meant to and does it well, and holds up to the abuse of heavy gaming, without frills and features. The QcK Heavy is a mouse pad, and it does it perfectly. Sure it holds water, and if you roll it up, it tends to keep it's shape for a little while, but other than that it's perfect. Not only is it a great performer, it's also a great bargain, only 24.99 + S/H and you too can have this behemoth sitting on your desk.

Pros:
Huge surface
Superb tracking
Smooth

Cons:
Soaks up water like a sponge, doesn’t dry fast.


Upshot:

The Steelseries QcK Heavy is an awesome mousepad. I’ve been using it for over a week now with my Logitech mx518 and haven’t had a single problem with it, playing games with it is a dream, and I’d definetly recommend this product to anyone looking for a new mousepad. Even though it does have a con, I'm still giving this product a 10 because I honestly love this product, and I don't think that this is a huge detractor from the product. Also, maybe you don’t want a giant mousepad, they make smaller versions too, which if their big brother is any indication, will be awesome performers.