I’ve reviewed many SteelSeries products and they’ve always been excellent in their quality and very good at doing what they were made to do. They recently sent me two mousepads for review, the one I will be looking at today is the 5l Gaming Mousepad, it’s a hybrid pad that I was actually kind of excited to get for review. It combines hard and soft surfaces to make something that is a bit different and unique, but I found that it’s not perfect, the pad itself is great but the construction is a bit lacking…

So read on to learn what I found in my time with this product…

SteelSeries 5L Mousing Surface Review

Author: Kristofer Brozio

Sponsor: SteelSeries

Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:

SteelSeries 5L Mousing Surface 

SteelSeries 5L highlights:

– Combines the strength of plastic with the softness of cloth

– Suitable for all mouse sensitivities

– Optimized especially for laser mice technologies

– Compatible with optical, laser and ball mice

– 15" x 11" – thickness 0,2"

A unique mouse pad featuring the durability and stability of a hard plastic, as well as the softness and smoothness of a cloth mouse pad. The SteelSeries 5L is composed of five different layers, each layer contributing to the overall precision and feel of the pad.

The first layers consists of plastic coating on a cloth material, utilizing the strength and durability of plastic and the feel of quality cloth. The middle layer is composed of specially designed soft rubber foam to provide the feeling of softness. The bottom layers provide stability, as a highly durable plastic layer guarantees the shape of the pad, followed by small soft rubber elements offering complete non-slip steadiness

Specifications for SteelSeries 5L:

– Material: Combination of cloth, plastic and rubber

– Surface treatment: Thick plastic coating- Dimensions: 15" x 11" – thickness 0,2"

– Size: Large

– Glide: Smooth

– Compatibility: Optical and laser, optimized for laser

Detailed information about the 5 layers in SteelSeries 5L:

1. Plastic coating: Thin plastic coating ensures durability and maintains the texture of the underlying cloth material.

2. Cloth: A highly durable and extremely strong cloth material provides a smooth gliding experience. The texture of the plastic coated cloth surface allows for minimal mouse movements and maximum precision.

3. Soft polyisoprene: Specially treated soft polyisoprene provides softness to the touch. The softness of the rubber foam is very easy on the users’ wrists, even for hardcore gamers and others who use their mouse for extended periods of time.

4. Hard plastic: A hard plastic compound maintains the stability and the shape of the mouse pad, and helps ensure a consistent gliding experience even on uneven surfaces.

5. Rubber elements: Small soft rubber elements ensures complete non-slippery steadiness.

Price: USD: 39.99 + shipping

A Better Look at Things

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The SteelSeries 5l comes in an attractive package, it’s more of a cardboard sleeve covering a thin plastic box. Of course there’s lot of information printed on the front and back to let you know all about the product itself.

The 5l I received for review is essentially all black colored with just a white SteelSeries logo in the bottom left corner.

The backing of the 5l is similar to others I’ve reviewed, it looks to be a sprayed on rubber coating that I’ve found works very well in keeping a mousepad in place.

If you paid attention to the Specs page, you’ll know that the 5l is a layered mousepad, with five layers to it. A close up shot doesn’t look like five layers but it is:

Installation, Testing and Comparison

Here’s a picture with the OCZ Equalizer mouse on the SteelSeries 5l to give you an idea of how big the 5l is in comparison to a mouse:

The 5l is larger than the standard pad, but large pads are becoming more popular as people are realizing that sometimes they just need more space and of course companies are accommodating the needs of the customer. The large size is not a bad thing by no means, I like using a larger pad as to a smaller pad, and this size is just about right for my personal uses.

The OCZ mouse was in the picture for photograph purposes but I use the Logitech G5 Rev2 for my mouse on my main system so that’s what I used with the 5l for the three weeks I was using/testing the 5l pad.

In my time with the 5l I found it to be an excellent mousepad, it tracked flawlessly with the Logitech G5, the G5 never missed it’s mark no matter how fast or slow I moved on the 5l.

Gaming was fine with the 5l as was general everyday usage. The 5l being semi soft is comfortable to use actually, it gives a little under the weight of your wrist and it doesn’t have the cold plastic feel of a hard surface pad.

Overall the SteelSeires 5l is a great pad for whatever you ,want to do, be it gaming or just regular everyday stuff, but in my time with the 5l I ran into two problems that I think might be specific to the one that I received for review.

The first problem is that the edges on the bottom and left side started to fray quite a bit, I’m right handed so the bottom and left side are what is hit most by my wrist and arm while using my mouse and keyboard, but I didn’t expect it to fray so much in only three weeks time. The second problem is that the adhesive that holds the layers together seems to be letting loose and the pad is actually separating along the bottom edge and left corner, the fraying could also be part of the adhesive problem…

Here’s several pictures to show you what I’m talking about:

As you can see it’s not just a little bit of wear and tear… This is something that I would not expect from a SteelSeries product, I can only assume that I received a defective one for review… it happens I guess…

Summary:

Despite the flaws you saw it’s still a great product, as I was about to write this review I did a search for other reviews of the 5l and there are quite a few of them with many awards given to the 5l, from what I saw none of them had the problems that I had with the adhesive coming loose or the fraying edges, so I can only attribute that to receiving a possibly defective product. With that in mind I can’t be too hard on the overall scoring of this product, I looked around and couldn’t find any other instance of this happening to anyone else so it has to be specific to the unit I received for review…

The surface of the pad is great, it tracks perfectly no matter what types of movements I made and being soft makes it comfortable to use. The rubber backing really sticks in place, this pad won’t be moving around no matter how rough your gaming sessions are.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting my review of the SteelSeries SP mousepad, which is a hard surface with a semi-thick rubber backing to it, and it has become my new personal favorite, so be sure to check back to read that review…

DragonSteelMods gives the SteelSeries 5L Mousing Surface a 3.5 out of 5 score.

Pros:

-Smooth surface

-Cloth and plastic combined

-Rubber non-slip backing

-Excellent tracking

-Quiet mousing surface

Cons:

-Edges fraying

-Adhesive coming loose on layers

I would like to thank SteelSeries for the chance to review the 5l Mousing Surface and for their continued support of DSM.

Discuss, Questions HERE and I’d be interested to know if anyone else experienced these same issues that I did with the adhesive and fraying…

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