Some people see mouse mats as unimportant or just a piece of material, and some don’t even used them at all. But as avid PC gamers will tell you a mouse mat is one of the most important peripherals you can have. That being said let us have a look at Logitech’s G440 hard gaming mouse pad.

The packaging for a hard mouse mat is very simplistic, it’s basically a large envelope. The front of the box shows the mouse pad as you’d expect but sitting on it is an x-rayed G700s mouse showing that these products are obviously meant for each other. The rear also shows the G700s mouse in full colour. On the back of the packaging there is an additional piece of material so you can feel it for yourself before buying it.

There are no extras with this product, which is understandable as it’s a mouse mat in an envelope sized packaging so there isn’t much room for anything else. This does make the packaging very sleek and minimalistic.

The first thing you notice when you take out the G440 is that it is black,very black. There is a small outline of the G logo in the bottom right corner of it and the rest of the mat is opaque black. This is due to mouse lasers registering better on a block colour than if a mouse mat is covered in designs and logos.

The plastic top of the pad has a very slick feel to it, rubbing your hand over it is very smooth. The only part that is not smooth are the almost razor-sharp edges of the mouse mat where a quick mouse movement may end up in a nasty graze or even a cut on your wrist. Although this isn’t too much of an issue , the very most the mouse mat will probably do is graze your wrist, but the fact it could injure you comes down to a design flaw. How ever the likelihood of injury is very low.

Being used alongside the G700s mouse you really get a sense of freedom using the G440. The very low friction plastic gives the user a lot of speed when turning in an FPS game, however control could be an issue depending on how high you like you DPI. The mat itself doesn’t move or slide around thanks to the rubber undercoating and because of the low-friction top any mouse will glide over it meaning there is no chance of pushing the mat.

What can you really say about a mouse mat one way or the other? The G440 certainly does its job. It is a smooth surface, has low friction and doesn’t slide around your desk. The sharp edges are a down side but can be coped with easily. However mouse mats are all about personal preference, some gamers wouldn’t like this mat purely because it is hard and not cloth but others will. Although the G440 does its job perfectly a mouse mat is something that you just have to try yourself before buying.