I've been gaming with Razer's new wireless charging mouse pad and I'm glad there's finally serious competition for Logitech

Mouse pads that charge your gaming mouse never quite took off in the way I expected them to. They made a grand entrance, then they lingered for a little while, and then seemed to fade away. Now, hot on the heels of Logitech's recent Mk.2 release, Razer has just launched its new HyperFlux V2 Wireless Charging System.

The charging pad, Razer explains, delivers "continuous wireless charging directly through the mouse mat, eliminating the need for charging cables or docks entirely." This, of course, means you won't have to do anything to charge your mouse at all, provided you keep it on the HyperFlux pad.

Not just any mouse, though—it has to be one that can fit Razer's charging puck into the bottom. It's the same charging puck slot that some Razer mice can use with the Cobra Pro, and Naga V2 Pro.

I've been using the HyperFlux V2 with a Basilisk V3 Pro 35K for the past few days and have been really enjoying my time with it. I've got the hard pad version (there's a cloth one, too), and the first thing that jumps out to me is actually nothing to do with the wireless charging.

It's just how much I've missed using a hard pad because boy is this thing smooth. I sent a quick video to my colleagues of me gently nudging my mouse across it and the general consensus was that it's a little like a puck on an air hockey table. If that slipperiness isn't your jam, of course you can go for the cloth version.

Razer HyperFlux V2 vs Logitech G PowerPlay 2

I also spent a lot of time with the new Logitech G PowerPlay 2 charging mouse pad and scored that one a low 40% primarily because it's expensive, has just a flimsy cloth pad on top of the charging station, and most importantly doesn't include a wireless receiver (you have to plug in a separate dongle to connect your mouse to your PC).

I'm happy to say that the Razer HyperFlux V2 does have a wireless receiver built-in, so you won't need to plug in the mouse pad and the mouse, just the pad which the mouse connects to. Razer claims "seamless auto-pairing" for the HyperFlux V2, and this seemed to bear out. I just slotted the puck into the mouse and slapped it on top of the pad and it connected and worked.

This Razer pad also looks and feels in a way the new Logitech one doesn't. It's solid, has a nice bezel to the edges, is practically immovable when placed, and its receiver station zone at the top (whatever you want to call it) is in that iPhone camera island cut-out kind of style which looks rather nice, as does its LED which hints towards low/medium/high battery life.

Just like the PowerPlay 2, though, it might not be big enough for low sensitivity players. And unlike the PowerPlay 2, the mouse pad is attached, which presumably means no replacements. Although I don't see anywhere to actually get a replacement PowerPlay 2 cloth pad, either.

I'm excited that we have some actual competition in this charging mouse pad space. What doesn't make me quite so excited is the price tag. We're looking at $120 for this thing, which is more than the PowerPlay 2. One of my main criticisms of the PowerPlay V2 was its price, and although that was in part in comparison to its predecessor, the fact is that even in a vacuum $120 is still a lot for a mouse pad, charging or no charging.

I've yet to figure out exactly what I think of that irksome price tag, but I'll be mulling things over as I formulate my full review of the HyperFlux V2.

Razer has done a charging mouse pad before, but that was in the form of a Mamba HyperFlux combo, with both mouse and mouse pad. That tended to go for about $200-$250, and given the Mamba mouse alone went for close to $100, the price for this charging station doesn't seem to have shifted much.

Still, as I said, you are getting a very mouse pad here in of both looks and feel. And you're getting a built-in wireless receiver so you only have to plug in the mouse pad and not a dongle for the mouse, too. From a subjective perspective, I know that I get excited each morning when I I'll soon be using this Razer HyperFlux, and I didn't feel anything like that towards the PowerPlay 2.

For that experience, though, you're spending $20 on top of what you'd spend on the PowerPlay 2 that I reckon costs too much. And you're limited to just a few Razer mice, and not its best ones, at that. It's certainly new competition, but not the ideal competition I'd hoped for. Mixed feelings, here.