Corepad Magna review

Mousepads are an essential item for most FPS or RTS games and an useful enhancement for a graphical designer. I mostly use them to enhance my not so good gaming skills, although it's also great for someone who browses the web a lot. Tired of regular mouse pads, I wanted to know how good these new glass based pads are.

The type of pads I owned, for the last 8 years, quickly gathered dirt and that caused the mouse to frequently get stuck or harder to move which is especially anoying when trying to get an headshot right.

I've owned not so bad pads, like the Func 1030 and one Everglide not very different from the current GamingMat. The Everglide was very nice and cheap but did get some dirt here and there; the Func was not so good, it was worse in that respect. So, out to less personal computers of mine they went.

The Corepad came in to replace them:

Nothing spectacular about the box.

The back of the box

Some useful information, dimensions are 315x255x5 mm, the case says 4mm glass, but it's probably 1 mm missing for the printingt. The glass is safety glass, which will still break but it's ten times stronger than regular glass.

There's also some Corepad Skatez inside, which did nothing much for my already slippery A4Tech XL-750F , still, nice of Corepad to add it in.

The rubber to put under the pad.

This rubber ensures that the pad doesn't slip. It does it's job perfectly, the only way for the glass pad to move is if you lift it; it won't move an inch while using a mouse.

A better picturer of the texture.


The pad itself.

The texture of the pad, alterning with opaque and transparent small holes, might not seem to appropriate for laser mice but it worked flawlessly with everything I thrown at it - well, at least optical ones.

Compared with two ordinary mice and a 2.5" HDD

As you can see, the Magna is big enough for most people, although there are bigger pads on the market. For me, it's perfect.

Using it:

After a few weeks of testing, I can certainly say this is one of the best mouse pads I've ever owned and which I won't be getting rid of anytime soon - at most I'll buy more of them.

The mouse just glides through the pad very smoothly, even though it contacts directly with the engraving and not the glass.

Some gamers might find it too smooth but I find it just perfect. Obviously it takes an hour or two to get used to the extra smoothness but it just feels natural after. You might need to adjust the mouse sensitivity to compensate for the extra glide, but that's about the most work you'll have.

Due to the rubber and the glass, it all starts to get a little more thick than some pads but I found it not being a problem, it stays well below what I consider too much.

Conclusion

There are some alluminium based alternatives to the Magna (from Steelpad), which might also be interesting, but this is as good as it gets. I only see it worse in regards to the thickness of the pad itself.

For about 26eur, this is a mouse pad for life - it's durable, yet not too expensive. When I looked for glass pads, this was also the cheapest one available, although it didn't compromise a bit. Also remember: this is still cheaper than some cloth based pads available - it's a very recommended buy, for any power user.