Mad Catz GLIDE 7 Gaming Surface Review

Mad Catz G.L.I.D.E. 7 Gaming Surface Review

Mad Catz have long been producing gaming peripherals and accessories but more often than not they are under various sub brands. Tritton and of course Cyborg are two that many will be familiar with but recently products under the latter began transitioning to the main Mad Catz brand. For some items such as the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 keyboard that we reviewed recently this means a simple rebrand, in other cases we will see completely new products and for other items it is a mix.

One item which gets a significant refresh in Mad Catz move away from the Cyborg sub brand to the main is the G.L.I.D.E. 7 gaming surface. Today we have the refreshed product and will find out what it is all about.

The G.L.I.D.E. 7 arrives in some high quality packaging with a sleeve giving us plenty of product information and a thick black cardboard box protecting the pad (rolled up) inside. This box can of course be used to transport the pad to LAN events, or anywhere really.

The Mad Catz branding is very prominent on this surface with a white version of it set diagonally across the pad. Then there is the more traditional red logo in the corner. In terms of materials used, as we have come to expect from Mad Catz they have gone for a different approach to the norm (hard/cloth) and this is a silicone gaming surface.

They note that it is optimised for laser sensors but also suitable for optical and that it increases tracking performance by up to 1000% over some alternatives. This is the case because the pad colours and materials are designed to maximise diffuse reflection and therefore "signal" strength back to the mouse sensor.

While the top of the G.L.I.D.E 7 features a slightly textured surface the base is completely smooth and due to being silicone also offers an almost sticky feel which holds it on our desk. The measurements of this surface are 15.74×11.81×0.03 inches which is 400x300x1mm.

User Experience
It is always nice when a product arrives packaged well and that was certainly the case with the G.L.I.D.E. 7 and its travel box. Inside we then found a surface which has a completely different feel to the cloth and hard pads which are usually associated with gaming.

Overall the silicone approach taken by Mad Catz is one which we like. The pad doesn’t quite give the same padded comfort as a cloth/foam based model but it does offer slightly more give than hard surfaces while still being rather rigid on the desk thanks to the ultra-tacky silicone base.

In terms of performance we found our mice to track very well at a wide range of DPI settings. There were no issues with optical sensors and the larger surface is always appreciated. So that brings us to value where a RRP of £35/$40/€40 puts this pad right in with some of the high end gaming surfaces which given the good level of quality seems appropriate.

GameShark.net – £34.99