I was wrong, the Logitech G PowerPlay 2 charging mouse pad isn’t smaller than the first one, it’s just the official dimensions were listed incorrectly since 2021
Last week (a week ago today, in fact), I wrote about the upcoming Logitech G PowerPlay charging mousepad and how I was a little disappointed because while it’s a little cheaper, it also looked like it was going to be a little smaller. And I say “looked like” because, well, that’s what the specifications on the Logi-provided sheet told me when compared to the official specs box for the original charging pad.
Alas, I didn’t account for those official specs being listed incorrectly. As it turns out, the original Logitech G PowerPlay charging system seems to have had the incorrect dimensions listed for the last few years.
According to a WayBackMachine snapshot, the PowerPlay has been listed as measuring in at 344 x 321 mm since at least 20 April, 2021. It’s only in the last week, since the second version was announced and I complained about the size reduction, that the original PowerPlay’s listed measurements were corrected to 284 x 344 mm.
I discovered this when I actually got my hands on the new version today. After unboxing it, I said to PC Gamer hardware group chat: “Imagine if it’s the same size”—assuming, of course, that there is no way, but it would be hilarious if I’d made such a blunder and kicked up such a fuss over the size being reduced. Then I lay it on top of my original PowerPlay and my stomach dropped. They aligned perfectly, edge to edge, corner to crisp corner.
Where was my journalistic integrity? Did I really misread the dimensions before writing my assessment of the PowerPlay 2 announcement?
Nope. It turns out someone else got them wrong, approximately four years ago. And presumably they weren’t checked ever since. Thus ends the tale.
So how does this change things? Well, my original judgment was (and I quote): “This version costs about 16.6% less (about $20 less) than the original did at MSRP, sure, but it’s also 11.5% smaller—not quite the reduction we might initially think.”
Now that I know that’s not true and there’s no size reduction, I reckon the PowerPlay 2 is a better proposition. It’s a $20 cut on the MSRP for a thinner product (thanks to a thinner mat on top of the pad) with a wider charging area.
Just how much of a better proposition will depend on the pad’s going price, because we saw the original going for cheaper than $100 last year. Oh, and how it is to use it, of course, which I’ll be discovering over the coming days.
