Testing

Methodology

I chose my normal method of testing for a gaming peripheral: a LAN party, where performance matters. Not being at the height of my game means that I won’t be at the height of the leaderboards, but I do my best. To really test out this mouse mats surface I chose to use the CM Storm Sentinel Advance.

Results

Moving from a traditional mat to the exposure provided an amazing quality that I’ve never had before. In any FPS game I could really notice the difference between this and my old pad. The smooth gliding made lining up the next headshot far easier. To really test this out I chose to delve into a number of FPS games, Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2 and Team Fortress 2 being the most drastic in terms of aiming quality.

In-game

The smooth glide turned out to be a disadvantage on games where aiming was a lower priority (TF2, Quake, UT2K4) because these games tend to be more fast-paced and a minor knock of the mouse means I could be running off in the wrong direction or hitting the wrong hitbox.

I couldn’t test this out on purely FPS games though, so I threw down a couple of RTS games to test out the size of this mat appropriately. High DPI can often be a hindrance in RTS games, so I toned it down to 1500. The expansive width of this mouse mat really came out in all its glory here. At 1500 DPI it covers a 1600×1200 screen perfectly with slight room to spare. At slightly higher DPI it would be the perfect size for people with dual-screen.

General Computing

For internet-browsing and general program useage the Exposure doesn’t offer anything that any other mouse mat does. This isn’t much of a surprise though since Ozone’s target audience are gamers.

Stability

I also decided to test out the strength of the rubber grip. Being as rough as I possibly could with the mouse yielded no movement at all. Shifting the table it was on also yielded no movement. Finally I got angry at it and ended up punching it at the edge to see if brute force would work. It moved roughly 5mm and cut my knuckle .

Picking it up off the desk proved slightly tricky since it’s very thin and has a preference for sticking to the desk; exactly what it should do, but changing location with this thing isn’t easy.

Comfort

During the hours I spent on these games, I noticed some minor irritation on my wrist which was from chafing. The top surface isn’t incredibly comfortable on the skin and over long gaming periods this could be annoying. Other than that though it’s almost unnoticeable. The mouse mat is very thin so it feels like it’s just another part of my desk.