Hello, this is my first review and it's about the Talongames heated Nagisa glass mousepad.
The Talongames Nagisa caught my eye a while ago, but back then I couldn't get it anywhere where I live, so I reached out to Talongames because I wanted to try it. They arranged that I was able to order it through AliExpress but shipping costs were big. I decided to order it anyway although I paid a ridiculous price for it, especially since it's supposed to be budget pad, which I only found out about later. Oh well... :)
Here's my review on this lovely pad!
Unboxing
The box of the heated Nagisa pad is quite large in all dimensions. When opening, the pad reveals itself and the nice image looks at you. Below the pad, there is the cable for the heater, some stickers, a tiny cleaning cloth, and 24 Kumo skates and 24 Iwa skates by Talongames. The pad and the accessories are safely packed between lots of foam.
Dimensions
The pad is 490x420 mm, which is perfect to me, and has an advertised height of 2mm although it's quite a bit taller. Especially with the heating layer between the glass and the base, it's the tallest glasspad I own.
Base
The pad has a honeycomb rubber base like the ones you see more often with glasspads. Although nothing special, I didn't have any problems with it. The pad didn't move with heavy use at all. When pushing against the pad, it will move. This didn't happen during intense gameplay though.
Edges
The edges of the mousepad are very well rounded and polished really smooth. This was one of the first pads I experienced with such great edges, so they really stood out to me. Because this is the heated version and there is a heating layer between the glass and the base, the pad sits higher than usual, so I did notice the otherwise great edges on my wrist or arm a bit while playing. I guess this can't be helped as the pad has to sit higher than usual.
Heater
The built-in heater works excellent. You can set it to 40, 45, 50, and 55 degrees Celsius. Within a minute the set temperature is reached and it does get nice and warm uniformly, except for the corners which are a bit less warm. For me, it's maybe a bit too warm actually. I would've liked lower settings such as 30 or 35 degrees as well. I notice I will disable the heater after some time because I'll get too warm. For people playing in really cold rooms it will be excellent to warm their hands and arms.
Art
The image is the reason I wanted the pad. It's a nice balance of different colours and the apparently sad girl makes you wonder what happened. The image is not that sharp, though. It looks like a low resolution image upscaled, or it's printed a bit blurry. The colours are not very vivid or saturated. I think this is the biggest drawback of this pad.
Surface
This is where the pad shines the most. It's a pad with a nice balanced kind of speed. It's on the smoother side, without a lot of texture, but since it's not that fast I didn't have any problems controlling my mouse. What I really liked is that it has a certain soft feel to it, as if there's a soft cushiony layer on top of it that reminded me of the GLSSWRKS Hana, and this softness provides quite a lot of stopping power. I can track well with this pad and it doesn't hold me back when pushing for speed or flicking fast, but keep in mind that this is not a speed pad. Although it might lack some texture to give me feedback, the noticeable 'softness' makes me able to stop whenever I wanted to and not overshoot the target. It's nice and balanced and I could play long TTK games just as good as Tac FPS. It's actually one of my favorite surfaces so far.
Skin stick
My skin doesn't really stick to pad, but my arm does have quite some drag moving across the glass. If you're bothered by this the use of a sleeve is recommended, although I don't need it myself.
Conclusion
I believe it's a great pad! I really like the surface! The speed profile, the 'softness' and stopping power are excellent. Could use a bit more texture, so if you want texture, this pad is not for you. The edges are great, the pad sticks to the desk just fine. I just don't like that the image is so blurry. That's the pad's biggest drawback. But since I like the surface that much, I'm going to use this pad a lot more! The star of the show is ofcourse its heating function. Now I've heard that this is a budget pad, so if you're suffering from cold hands, I can highly recommend it!
Thank you for reading!