Performance
First let’s take a look at the WarPAD’s construction. The pad itself is a whopping 6mm’s thick and just under 17x14 inches in size. Make no mistakes this is a very large mouse pad. The pad itself it made out of two layers of Styrene Butadiene Rubber to get the thickness needed. The top uses a Smooth Synthetic APF featuring microfiber. When looking at the pad these materials feel JUST like traditional mouse pads, not really like what we have come to expect from some of the other manufactures. The padding is very flexible, unlike some of the pressed pads we have reviewed recently. In the top right corner WarPAD by XFX is screen printed in white. The bottom of the pad has a “T” shape design stamped into it for added grip. Honestly the pad itself doesn’t feel any different than any other cheap mouse pad, I feel like XFX should take a look at a few of the soft pads from their competitors. Where it does stand out is the “edgeless support system”. A plastic clamp built into the end of the pad secures it to your desk and gives the pad a smooth arch to rest on with no sharp edges to hurt your wrist and arm.
Before judging the performance of the WarPAD we had to get it installed and ready to go. Here in the office we have become a big fan of 6 foot white plastic fold up tables. They allow for us to change our configuration around when needed and give lots of space for our test benches, photography, and building PC’s. One of the downsides to the tables is their thickness. When the WarPAD came in I was a little concerned that it might not fit our tables considering there added thickness compared to a normal desk. To my surprise the WarPAD clamped right onto it without any issues. The WarPAD supports tables up to two inches thick, very impressive!
With everything setup and secured I went on to run through all of our standard tests using a few different mice including a Razer Deathadder, Steel Series Sensei, and a Razer Imperator to check to see how well this mouse works with the popular Phillips Twin Eye sensor. Our tests consist of working in Photoshop for detail testing and in game testing.
The first thing I noticed with the WarPAD was that the pad didn’t actually have the weight to hold down the top corners when I first sat it down. Being a thick pad I thought this was a little odd, but I think with the built-in clip XFX was avoiding the use of heavier rubbers to prevent it from weighing too much overall. Playing around in Photoshop and then in-game I found the pad to track great and was smooth like you would expect from a soft mouse pad. I normally prefer a hard mouse pad because of the quickness but I could get used to the WarPAD. The only issue I experienced with the WarPAD as far as tracking was with the Phillips Twin Eye. As expected the softness of the WarPAD accented the Z-Axis tracking issues. When you push down to click the mouse would move slickly because of the softness of the pad. This has nothing to do with the WarPAD itself; it’s just an issue with all Twin Eye mice on soft mouse pads. Beyond that issue I had no issues. The size of the pad was more than large enough for my gameplay style. I wouldn’t mind hanging a pad that is smaller in fact.
The edgeless design was a relief from the second I started using the WarPAD all the way though all of our testing. My normal mouse pad puts a red line right across my arm over and over as I game causing a little discomfort. Although our tables have rounded edges, some desks do not. The WarPAD will prevent both mouse pads and desks from causing that discomfort. This is one of those situations where you may have even become so accustomed to it that you don’t notice that its uncomfortable until you have the WarPAD on your desk. Once you feel what it should feel like, it’s hard to go back.