BenQ ZOWIR G-SR Black

Product Information

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. A logical alternative to this pad would be the original ZOWIE G-SR, which I feel is just a bit slower than this one but offers around the same glide experience overall. Other contenders are the recently released Endgame Gear EM-C and the Lethal Gaming Gear Saturn Pro. ZOWIE G-SR II vs Saturn Pro 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. I live in an area of the US with VERY inconsistent weather, and I can confirm: Zowie delivers on the humidity improvements. Of course, really bad humidity still debilitates this pad, but to that, I say two things. One, it's a cloth pad, so some level of humidity debilitation will always exist. Two, Zowie claimed the humidity resistance would get better, not go away.

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. The Zowie G-SRis a premium large sized pad which offers a very smooth, though very controlled glide with plenty of stopping power. 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 Increased humidity resistance when compared to earlier versions, though it’s still not flawless at handling oils and sweatZOWIE 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. Do note that here seems to be a bit of a break-in period with the G-SR II. When I first got it, it seemed to be faster than what it is now. The ‘slowdown’ appeared after a couple of heavy gaming sessions, and it hasn’t slowed down any further after weeks of usage beyond that, so I’m inclined to say that ZOWIE’s claims about the improved durability ring true. Definitely do give it a couple of ‘breaking-in sessions’ though.

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.As mentioned, there have been a few changes to the surface of this new G-SR-SE. If you’re wondering how this feels in comparison to earlier versions, I can be short: it’s a touch faster. Not by a lot, but you do notice it. Don’t get me wrong, though: this is a very consistent control surface, and there’s pretty much no speed to it at all. There’s always going to be resistance when using the G-SR II, both when swiping as well as when you’re doing very small micro-level mouse movements. 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.

There isn't stitched edging. In the 3 weeks or so I've been using the pad, I've noticed that there seems to be some very light fraying, but the pad itself does not seem to be coming apart; I did try to pull on it a bit and the string that was already fraying did start to unwrap, but it seems that if you don't intentionally try to mess with the edges, you'll have no issues. Just something I have to point out nonetheless. Definitely one of the more reliable unstitched pads. I’ve washed my G-SR a couple of times already and it’s still fine. If you want to know how to wash a pad we’ve got a guide right here:It's been a little over 2 years now since BenQ Zowie released the G-SR-SE deep blue, and while the pad was excellent, it did leave a lot to be desired in regards to its longevity (by way of the surface glide becoming inconsistent after some time) & humidity resistance. While humidity is something that all cloth pads are impacted by to some degree, it seemed like the Zowie pads in particular always had issues with it. To me, it feels like there’s a bit less static friction, which could make sense given the fact that the surface is now smoother. You can definitely also feel this when you’re just gliding your hand across the mousepad, but it’s still not the smoothest material out there. I know that some people had complaints about the G-SR-SE’s surface irritating their skin after some time, and while I of course can’t speak for everyone I do believe that this change is going to make the pad feel a lot more tolerable to a lot of people out there. Lastly there’s also the fact that a gaming mousepad is generally better for the long term health of your mouse. If you’ve got yourself a shiny new gaming mouseyou don’t want to be sanding down the feet of your mouse by sliding it around on a wooden desk or a plastic cutting board you’ve found in the kitchen, for example. Mousepads come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and it’s mainly up to you to figure out which one is going to be right for you. All of the pads in this article are going to be doing exactly what they need to do when it comes to sensor performance and what not so it’s mainly a job of figuring out what suits you. If you’re completely unsure we would recommend you to go for a nice middle-of-the-road cloth pad to start out with.

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. Hard pads are a niche category of an already pretty niche market, so there aren’t a whole lot of options for people who want an affordable hard mousepad. The Logitech G440 is a great option if you’re one of those aforementioned people, though. The Razer original Razer Gigantus was pretty much a control pad, but with the V2 Razer tried to make it more like the G-SR-SEs of this world. That pad started getting really popular at a certain point and this is Razer’s own take on that type of glide. What you get is a medium speed mousepad with a decent amount of static friction and a lower amount of dynamic friction to allow for easier gliding. With an impressive consistency and all the features of an extremely decent gaming mousepad, this one is a logical inclusion in the top 5 of the most used mousepads. 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.

Pretty much the main reasons for making a new G-SR version were the durability and humidity resistance concerns that plagued the original. Sadly I can’t really say a lot of useful things about the durability in this G-SR II review due to the simple fact that I don’t spend months or even years with the products that I review. I did spend a number of weeks with the G-SR II during a particularly warm and humid summer though, and aside from the aforementioned slowdown that occurred after a couple of days, I didn’t notice any big changes to the overall glide and characteristics.