BenQ ZOWIR G-SR Black

Product Information

A gaming mousepad can be compared to the tires of a race car if you’re asking us. You can have the fastest car on the circuit with the best driver behind the wheel, but if you slap a pair of old and worn out tires underneath the car you won’t be seeing a lot of wins. The mousepad is a piece of kit that’s often ignored by the more casual gaming audience, but that really shouldn’t be the case. There are many different pads out there, all with different specifications and characteristics, so it’s definitely a good idea to find one that matches your preferences and playing style. You’ll not only increase your personal playing comfort but you’ll also increase your performance. When designing this new iteration, ZOWIE also made changes to the durability and humidity resistance. To test this, I made parts of the pad a bit moist with a cloth and found that the glide remained pretty similar. I also did this test with an older G-SR-SE and there I felt like the difference between the moist spots and the dry spots was a lot more pronounced. It’s perhaps not the most scientific of tests, but it should give you an idea. It’s still not perfect at handling humidity, but it does perform better than its predecessors. At first glance, the G-SR-SE Rouge looks just like any other recent G-SR-SE release, but once you place it down on your pad you almost immediately feel the first difference: the foam feels softer. It’s still very uniform across the surface, but it’s quite a lot easier to sink your fingers into the Rouge than into an earlier version. Aside from that, this feels just like your regular ZOWIE G-SR-SE at first glance: same size, same box design, no stitched edges.

ZOWIE’s G-SR-SE mousepad has long been a favorite of professional gamers, but it can’t be denied that the pad had some issues in the past. The durability, for example, wasn’t all that, and the G-SR-SE also suffered from humidity issues, leading to an inconsistent feeling pad at times.The Endgame Gear EM-C is a little bit thinner than the G-SR II, but other than that it’s a very similar mousepad. The EM-C has a bit more static friction than the G-SR II, but less dynamic friction. The differences between the two are extremely small, however, so I see the Endgame Gear EM-C as the most obvious alternative to the ZOWIE G-SR II. As a little side note: the glide of cloth pads can be affected by a number of factors, including how clean the surface is, the humidity in the air, the age of the pad, and your playing style. As such, your experience with a certain mousepad can be drastically different from what someone else is experiencing. This makes the search for a perfect pad a little bit more difficult, but it’s not as if a control pad is suddenly going to turn into a speed pad or anything like that, so hopefully this guide aids you in your choice. It’s finished with high quality stitched edges so it’s going to be plenty durable as well as extremely comfortable due to the quality of the stitching. You’re going to need to wash itquite often, however, since the accumulation of dust, sweat, and so on affect the glide of the pad in a pretty large way. That’s not a big deal, but it is something to take note of.

Zowie has always made a point out of not adding any unnecessary drivel to their products, and although they have released some rather ‘gamer-y’ mousepads in the past the G-SRwould not look out of place in a more formal setting. The pad has stitched edges and is finished with a small stitched on Zowie logo on the side of the pad. That logo does technically interfere with gameplay if you glide your mouse over it, but if it comes to the point that this becomes a problem ingame then you were probably going to get fragged either way, so this is a non-issue really. What’s noticeable to me is the consistency of this mousepad. The foam feels the same all throughout the pad, and even though this new material is a little bit softer (which is something that I like) I never got the idea that some parts had more give to them than others. This, in combination with the top texture feeling very consistent as well, makes for a mouse surface that feels extremely well-designed and crafted. As I type this out, it's 68% humidity on an early afternoon after a night of rain. There's some resistance, but I'm incredibly impressed with how well this pad is doing. Comparing this to the Deep Blue G-SR-SE, the difference is staggering. The Rouge does way better in humidity, and I'm glad! It means that another well-priced option exists for more people living in... suboptimal weather conditions. At 50% humidity or lower, this pad really seems to shine as well. The stitching on my unit shows no errors and isn’t raised above the playing surface in a noticeable way, so there were no comfort issues during my testing period. The surface is on the rougher side (as you’d expect from a control pad) but it feels very consistent, and the same can be said for the foam underneath the playing surface, though more on that later. I play on a rather low sensitivity, so I’m often doing big and fast sweeps and what I found was that the G-SRfelt rather controlling . That is not an issue at all, since the speed of a mousepad is mostly personal preference, but it’s something to note regardless. The G-SRhas a remarkable amount of stopping power, so if you tend to overshoot your targets or want to get a bit more control you should definitely take a look at the G-SR.If you want a very fast and speedy glide this one should probably be a hard pass though.ZOWIE made a number of promises when they first unveiled the G-SR-SE Rouge, and from what I can tell they’ve delivered on all of them. The surface is smoother, the humidity resistance is better, and the foam is a little bit softer. The pad still feels every bit as consistent as it should be, though, and with its controlling medium glide (by this I mean that it’s pretty much a ‘medium’ pad, but it’s on the slower end of that spectrum) this Rouge offers an interesting glide experience for people who play tactical shooters or who just want a touch more control without losing out on gliding speed. All in all, the advantages seem clear to us. If you’re even a bit serious about your gaming it’s a great idea to get yourself a nice pad to really complete your setup. The List

Mousepads are an often overlooked piece of gaming equipment. They’re not necessarily themost important piece of equipment, but a decent pad will definitely improve your gaming experience and performance.

Games

The question is, of course, whether or not the pad lives up to the hype & marketing. Spoiler alert, it definitely does.