PolyGFX Ratpad Skin

And tada! The finished article. Looks pretty nice huh? Believe me, it looks even nicer in person.


Here's a closeup of the surface. There is a slight gap between the edge of the pad and skin, and this extends all round.

So what does it play like? Well, after a gruelling session in Call of Duty, the RatPadz skin performs fantastically. The surface really is extremely close to that of the RatPad, and my Intellimouse Explorer v3 seemed to hug the pad and felt extremely smooth. I would say that it does reduce RatPad performance by a touch, but nothing that is really noticeable unless you are really trying to feel it.

The quality of the printing is excellent, and PolyGFX have many different designs available. It certainly adds a bright finishing touch to your setup! The skin was easy to apply (it needed to be - Macro will tell you how bad I am at doing these things!! --No, he really is! - Macro--) Initial testing seems to show that there's no severe danger of bad wear and tear, as the surface seems pretty durable. The adhesive sticks to the pad well, but appears to peel off without any noticeable residue, meaning you should be able to peel off one and apply another, should you wish to, and the adhesion is such that there doesn't appear to be any chance that grime or sweat will work its way between the surface and pad. I'm not sure how heat will affect the surface, but it probably won't be a good idea to leave the pad in a hot car on the way to a LAN!

My other query is that there seems to be little incentive to mount it on, well, a RatPad. There appears to be nothing to stop you getting a generic piece of plexi, or any surface, and putting the PolyGFX sticker on top. You might not get the sexeh-ness of the RatPad cutaway, but you'll get a heck of a nice mousing surface.

In fact, the only quibble we have with the product is it's price. $20 seems a little expensive for something that requires you to have shelled out $20 for a RatPad beforehand. To have a pad customised, rather than using a stock image, will also cost you a little more. However, if you are looking for a stack of custom pads for your Counter-Strike clan or similar, you won't go wrong plumping for a custom option here.

The PolyGFX RatPadz skin, therefore, gets our highly coveted Highly
Recommended award, for being a damn good product (if you can justify the cost!).