Review: Trust Mouse Pad with 4 Port USB Hub
Iain Laskey thinks this new mouse pad from Trust is just what his mouse needs!
| Product | Mouse Pad with 4 Port USB Hub |
|---|---|
| Company | Trust |
| Web | www.trust.com |
| Price | £11.99 |
| We like | Effective surface, USB ports |
| We don't like | Redundant PSU connector? |
| Rating | 8/10 |
| Requirements |
Trust produce a broad range of budget priced products. This time round we're looking at their new mouse pad which unusually sports a 4 port USB hub and sells for a mere £12 or so.
The mouse pad area measures 215 x 200mm and is covered in a durable but slightly textured microfibre material that should prove to be a good surface for most mouse types. We tried it with ball as well as optical types and it worked very well with both.
The surface has an attractive image of dew laden lush green grass and the whole pad is slightly angled for comfort.
It's round the back where the surprise is though. The pad sports a 4 port USB 2 hub. The short captive USB cable can be tucked underneath and clipped in place if you don't need to use it but if you do, a supplied extension cable can be added to make sure it can be plugged into one of your existing USB ports with ease.
The back of the mouse pad also sports a power connector but somewhat strangely Trust do not supply a PSU and there's nothing obvious to indicate what sort should be used. We can only assume this is included to give a powered USB hub but as it stands, it's effectively redundant without information on what sort of rating it expects.
Having used the pad for a week or so, we can report it works very well and is comfortable as well as functional. It can't be underestimated how much of a difference a proper mouse mat or pad can make in terms of smoothness of response and accuracy of positioning.
The USB hub, being unpowered is useful for cameras, thumb drives and the like but might be problematic if you tried to run an external hard drive off it.
The black plastic surround looks slightly cheaper than the image might suggest but it seems sturdy enough. Given the price though, the overall build quality is fair enough. It's the mouse surface itself that's important though and we were more than happy with that.
Conclusion
We think that for £12, you can't go too far wrong. It looks striking and works well and as a way to bring the flexibility of additional USB ports within easy reach, it's a winner. It will also work, as you'd expect with all Windows variants without any drivers needing to be installed.
