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A Closer Look
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An issue that sometimes gets overlooked with products like this is ease of maintenance. For a mouse pad, this boils down to two questions:
- How easily does it get dirty?
- How hard is it to clean?
Some cloth pads are prone to collecting hand salsa; that mixture of oil and shed skin that ends up making your mouse look nasty over time if not regularly cleaned off. Solid black mouse pads are often particularly bad about this, acquiring a cloudy haze over time as your hand and arm rub against it during play. Whatever material the Goliathus's surface is made out of, it avoids this problem. After almost a month of heavy use, this pad still looks like new. Cleaning is similarly easy; dirt and dust brush off, while more persistent substances (pizza sauce, soda, BBQ sauce, etc.) can be removed with a damp cloth.
Evaluation & Conclusion
All this is fine and good, but what you really want to know is, will this improve my game? To answer that question, I took the Goliathus to several LAN events over the course of a month, and tried it out with a variety of games, from hardcore FPS like Call of Duty 4 and Left 4 Dead, to casual-friendly games like World of Warcraft and (dare I say it) Bejeweled. Once accustomed to the feel of it, I noticed something remarkable: the pad simply disappeared from my awareness. Normally the mouse surface makes itself known from time to time through little irritations, like a bit of grit causing the mouse to grind to a halt, or a too-slick surface causing me to overshoot the mark, or a worn spot causing the mouse to drag. The Goliathus eliminated all these little flea-bite complaints, and let me focus on my game. Rapid, consistent head shots became the norm with sniper weapons, and leading with rockets and grenades ceased to be a chore.
People often ask, is it really worth bothering with a special mouse pad? Isn't the $5 cloth pad I got at Wal-mart enough? If all you're doing is surfing the web and playing Minesweeper, then sure, a cheap cloth pad is enough. If, however, you are into getting the most out of your game then your mouse pad better be up to the task. For a gamer, accuracy is the difference between chump and champ. You can have the most awesome gaming mouse ever to grace a USB port, and still have it all ruined by a poor surface. For $19.99 (MSRP), the Goliathus is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve your game.
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