Cloth pads are still alive and kicking!

XtracPads is an American company specializing in enthusiast mouse pads that has been operating since 2002. They offer a wide selection of plastic and cloth pads, seemingly having something for everyone. In fact, they even have a utility called “Pad-o-Matic” on their website that will ask prospective buyers 7 questions and return a list of the top most fitting pads in order.

XtracPads tests all their products with most of today’s top gaming mice. Each product’s main page lists which mice it is 100% compatible with, as well as any issues it may have with other mice. This seemed a little silly to me at first until I started looking through the different products and found a few issues. On the plus side, each of the listed conflicts also showed possible fixes.

The surface being reviewed today is their “Ripper” gaming pad (which incidently came up as the second choice for me as prescribed by the Pad-o-Matic utility). XtracPads claims it be “a top choice for gamers who prefer low to medium sensitivity settings with their mice”. This may be an issue as I play with relatively high mouse settings as I am a so-called “twitch” player. I guess we’ll see soon enough.



When I first got my hands on the XtracPads Ripper mousepad I was a little worried about the packaging. It comes rolled up in a tube and I had visions of a mouse pad that wouldn’t stay flat on my desk. This concern was put to rest the moment I removed the pad from its packaging. It quickly unrolled and sat almost flat immediately. Within the time it took for me to boot my computer and fire up Half-Life2 Ep. 1 the Ripper had flattened out completely- hugging a significant portion of my desk tightly with nary a curl to be found. And when I say “significant portion”, I mean it. This thing measures 280mm x 432mm (that’s 11" x 17" for our American friends).