|
…several days of C&C: RA2 and Quake
3 later, I can officially say that the 4D is somewhat
better than my bare desktop and a little bit better
than my black notebook, it is however, far better
than a tile floor or the side of my beer glass. The
surface is just rough enough to provide a little drag,
yet smooth enough to let the mouse glide easily. One
huge difference between the aluminium 4S and the plastic
4D is the sound produced while mousing. The aluminum
4S has a raspy hollow sound because it is metallic
and sits on a ring of little feet effectively making
it a drum, the plastic 4D however, is soft PVC and
sits on a foam pad so noise is a non-issue. Mousing
is comfortable and accurate while using the pad, but
I am not convinced that my mousing experience is a
whole $20 better.
Another high point is that the thickness (or ermm..
thinness) is very nice. Even with the "Super
non-slip base" underneath, the 4D is barely 1/8"
thick so there is no edge to bother the forearm or
wrist of your preferred mousing hand (they forgot
to mention that the 4D works on either side of the
keyboard for you lefties out there). And the "Super
non-slip base" is just what it claims to be.
As you can tell from the photo it is a custom cut
piece of the black tacky foam mesh stuff that is used
for lining tool chest drawers and putting under futons
so that they don't slide off their bases. This particular
application is very fitting because it really keeps
the 4D in place, even in a heated battle. I have yet
to use the excuse of "But my mousepad was slipping
all over the place" when getting slaughtered
in C&C: RA2.
The downside is that the base is independent of the
4D itself so moving the 4D means a two step process.
This may not bother some people, but right now there
are two people using this desk with our respective
laptops and I have to move the 4D around quite a bit
more than usual so I notice these things. It may also
add one more thing to that already full LAN party
gear bag.
Just to be the first one to put a graph in a mouse
pad review, I downloaded a program called mouserate.
It measures the frequency of your mouses refresh rate
as you cruise around. The chart above represents me
trying the mouse on all sorts of surfaces, however,
it really doesn't say too much about the 4D since
refresh rate isn't affected by the surface, nor is
there a timeline feature in mouserate to show erratic
performance. I just though that we here at 3D Velocity
could pioneer yet another aspect of reviewing and
put a graph in a mouse pad review.
Conclusion:::...
All in all, I think that the 4D is a decent mousing
surface. It looks cool and is very low profile, however,
I couldn't justify spending $20 on one when performance
gains are so minimal. Sure it's better than my bare
desktop, but then again it's on par with the foam
rubber thing that came with my iFeel mouse for free
in terms of performance. The 4S was a thing of beauty,
well crafted of high quality materials and even at
$50 seemed worth the price in workmanship alone. The
4D just falls short of spectacular for $20 and I would
save up for the 4S or spend the $20 on something a
little more worthwhile.
PROs:::...
· Nice surface, mouse responds well
· Very quiet mousing experience
· Two sides for different mouse types
· Non-slip pad is really non-slip
CONs:::...
· - Two pieses could be cumbersome
· - Not quite $20 worth of mouse pad
| 
