Clones.
They’re in almost every hobby that I’ve been into: the idea of being able to get a top of the line piece of equipment for a fraction of the price seems like such an appealing prospect. Why pay $180 for a G Pro Wireless when you can get one for $40 instead? But in reality, most of the time, people who have used both can tell the difference in quality or performance. Brands like ATK, Attack Shark, or RAWM might come to mind as companies that are closing the gap between the clones and the originals but in my opinion, the first one whose products that are closest to filling that niche are… Meow Gaming Gear.
Also known as their much less silly name, Ultraglide, but we’re gonna call them MEOW GAMING GEAR.
Ultraglide Mouse Skates
The first time I heard about them was because of their mouse skates, which nowadays have become one of the universal recommendations within the community. But back then, Ultraglides were my first exposure to Aliexpress skates, and even after trying a LOT of other ones, there’s not really any that come close to the level of value that you get from these.
You can get 80 skates for about 8 usd. Compared to what I used to get with X-raypad Jades, 40 skates for about $7 usd, if these are even like 80% as good, it could become the new go-to option for most people.
So, Meow Gaming Gear offers about 10 different skates and the skates they’re inspired by seem pretty clear… The speeds are Xraypad Jades, The controls are obsidians, the Ice are Tiger Ices, and so on. So, it seemed like the easiest way to tell how good they are compared to the originals was to do a blind test. I can’t really do it to myself, but I happen to have the most qualified person for the job right next to me. ViscoseOCE, one of the best FPS players in the world; someone who’s tested dozens of mousepads and skates, has very strong opinions and a keen ability to analyze friction and how it affects aim.
So, I busted out two of the same mouse, put some X-Raypad Jades on one, and Ultraglide Speeds on the other. She quickly identified that one of the skates was just a hair faster than the other, but texturally, the two skates were nearly identical. Before I revealed the answer, I asked her which skates she’d prefer to use. She said the faster one. With that, she predicted that would be the Jades, the more expensive skate.
*But it wasn’t. It was the clones.
I think most people could have predicted that they were at least comparable to Jades given the fact that this video exists, but I don’t think either of us expected to actually prefer the clones. I’d guess the reason for them feeling so similar on the pad but exhibiting different friction properties is because of having a very similar hardness and material makeup, but a slightly different rounding. Anyway, with that out of the way, which of their skates are worth using?
I’d say all of them are at least decent for some use case, but the ones that really stand out are the Speeds, Silences, Rennsports, Green, and Purple.
UG Speed
The speeds are what we just talked about: while they are fast compared to stock skates, to me, they are more like a neutral skate. They feel like they just let the friction properties and texture of the mousepad shine through, whether that’s good or bad, and they work pretty well on just about any mousepad.
UG Silence
The silences are, as far as I know, an original design. These feature a layer of foam between the ptfe and adhesive, which is meant to make them a little bit smoother feeling, something we’ve seen with skates like the Jade Airs and Cyclone Pros. But what makes these skates special isn’t that foam layer; it’s the friction properties. In my eyes, these are the skates that get closest to what the Artisan Skates achieve on cloth, but without the price tag or difference in material. Super low static friction but relatively high dynamic. The low static friction makes tracking feel responsive and quick, but when you have to stop on a dime, it can help you with that too. In terms of PTFE, this is the only skate I know of that offers this kind of experience; it’s really impressive and I honestly have what contributes to this effect. They can be good on glass too but it’s way more hit or miss here.
UG Rennsports
The Rennsports, while you might find some people who really like them on cloth, I think are not that good for that. It feels like the flatter design makes starting movements feel a bit stickier and stepped, and becomes more like the Speeds once in motion. But where it shines is Glass. Something about these skates give it the smoothest glide I have ever felt on glass. I used them for a bit on the Skypad 4 when I had to get some gameplay for a Wallhack event, and it was some of the most fun I can remember having in FPS recently: a really good battlefield lobby with an effortless, buttery smooth glide under my mouse. It almost brought me back to glass honestly. And on something a bit smoother like the Kazemi it’s just absurd, it’s hard to put into words just how smooth it feels.
So, if you want a quick, smooth skate for glass, I honestly cannot think of a better one than this. For some textured pads like the Phantom it’s not my favorite, but for smooth glass pads, this is my go-to.
UG Green
The Greens are a clone of the Xraypad Jade Air, which is another pretty popular all rounder skate. Compared to the original Jades, they also have that layer of foam that we talked about with the silences, and it maintains that kinda all-rounder speed profile that works on any surface with slightly better smoothness. In my testing, the greens were a pretty faithful clone. Felt like I got a comparable experience on both glass and cloth.
UG Purples
And the Purples are a clone of the Obsidians Airs. These are the only “controlled” skate that I thought was pretty decent: they still feel pretty balanced, but are noticeably slower than jades. The original ones use hardened PTFE and meant to be a very smooth, durable skate on glass. And in my experience, after a bit of break in, the clones do that pretty well too.
Other thoughts on UG Skates
Their other skates: I think the Ices are pretty solid but generally prefer the speeds, the Brakes seem similar to Obsidian Pros which I hate, the Controls… They’re okay but I never liked the original Obsidians very much. Regardless, them being so cheap means that if you don’t know what you like, you can just buy their sampler pack or a few 20 packs and test a bunch out.
They also solved a long standing problem I had with skates, where my favorite ones on glass were the ones that weren’t very durable, and being able to buy so many of them without spending an absurd amount of money on mouse skates, meant that I could use those less durable skates, and swap them out once they started feeling bad.
Before we end the skate section I feel like I should name other modern options I really like: if you’re looking for the fastest possible skates, I think the TBTL PTFEs are neutral in a similar way to the UG speeds but a touch faster, the TALONGAMES Kumo are the fastest PTFE skate I’ve tried, and the ARTISAN MIZUGOMO FUTAE P8 are probably still the best skates I’ve ever used on cloth. They really closed the gap between cloth and glass for me, and I feel like I get most of the benefits of both because of them. And lastly, if you like fullsize skates, I think the UNUSUALWAY Magic Ice and Silver Fox are both decent. I’ll link a cool resource by afinelady who’s tried every Aliexpress skate and was what got me into the niche in the first place.
What else does Meow Gaming Gear have?
Back on the topic of Meow Gaming Gear as a whole: I was so impressed with their skates that I started writing up a whole video dedicated completely to them. I didn’t quite finish it because the tariff situation made me a little bit wary about recommending them, so it sat in the projects folder for a few months.
In the meantime, I started writing a video about mousepads similar to the Artisan Raiden, looking for the fastest, smoothest cloth mousepad on the market. But the deeper I got into it, the more the project was starting to feel a little hopeless. Every pad I tried fell short in some way: the Neptune Pro was okay but barely a speed pad, the QCK Speed was solid, but not really like the Raiden and not much cheaper, and the Matrova Breeze is just one of my least favorite mousepads for aiming I had ever used. It felt like the search for a pad that was better than the Raiden in some way was going to end in defeat.
Until I stumbled upon a reddit post listing every pad that’s similar to the Raiden: while most of the pads were not particularly good or similar to the Raiden at all, one name stood out to me. The Meow Gaming Gear Ultraneon. It felt like if any brand on this list was going to make a competent speed pad, it was gonna be them. And like their skates, the value here would be insane. Under $30.
The MGG Ultraneon
So, how good is it? Of all the pads that I tested for that video, only two were faster than the Ultraneon. The Raiden and the Infinitymice speed, which I think are the two best cloth speed pads on the market. In my whole collection of 100+ pads, this is the third fastest. That’s pretty good.
And in terms of friction, nothing really stands out as being a problem. With fullsize skates it feels like it has an even bigger gap between relative dynamic and static friction than the Raiden, and with dot skates, it’s just really fast. I think the only reason I wouldn’t recommend this as an endgame kind of option is because it’s a bit excessively plush. I haven’t used too many xsoft pads before but I think this one is even thicker than those at 4.5 millimeters. Even though the Kibu sleeve worked well with it, as somebody who puts a lot of their arm on the pad, this is kind of a problem; it created some pretty rough discontinuity when I’d switch between arm and other types of aim. But I do think I push down on the pad with my arm more than most, so you may not experience this issue at all.
That, and not having a square size are sorta dealbreakers for me, but otherwise it’s a shockingly good speed pad at this price point. I think anybody curious about what a truly fast pad feels like and isn’t getting screwed by tariffs or import fees could consider the Ultraneon.
So, after the success of the Ultraneon I decided to try some of their other pads. They have a pretty massive, confusing lineup. Like what the heck is an ULTRAFUMULUS. I asked rhapso, whose reviews I often agree with, which pads he thought were worth my time. While he thinks most of their lineup is passable, the only one that really stood out to him was the Ultradash, but also knew nothing about their newest release, the Ultrahorizon. I bought both, hoping that they would be just like the Ultraneon in terms of price to performance.
The MGG Ultrahorizon
The Ultrahorizon… sucks. It reminded me a bit of ATK’s type 99 clone, where their idea of a control pad is making it feel like you’re dragging your mouse through mud. It’s at least just slow across the board, unlike the ATK one which only feels slow when you’re starting movements, but personally I would hate to use a pad this sluggish and thick.
The MGG Ultradash
The Ultradash… In my heart of hearts, I was really hoping it would be like my Artisan Zero. A balanced mousepad that works with sleeves. It is like a Zero, in the sense that none of my sleeves work with it. But aside from that… It’s okay. It reminds me more of the Neptune Pro, where it’s in a similar speed tier to the Zero and somewhat balanced, but not nearly as well balanced as the Zero. I still think it’s good and if I had to recommend one pad under $30, it would be in the conversation, but I do think it’s less special than the Ultraneon because cheap, decent Balanced pads are so much more common than Speed.
For everything else in their lineup, your mileage may vary. I haven’t tried anything else and because all of their XL pads have this thickness, I don’t really intend to.
Grip Tape
If this was all they were offering, I’d already been really impressed. Two crowns in the hotly contested budget space is very impressive. But they have one more product in a space that I’m also quite invested in: Grip tape. As a user of fingertip mice by a company notorious for having mice with zero grippiness, I like to keep my eyes open for any potential competitors in this space. For a few years now, the Xraypad Cicada Wings have been far and away the best option. They’re durable, tacky, rubbery and extraordinarily thin.
Every time a new grip comes on the scene they mention how thin they are, because thinner grips means that the original shape and width of the mouse is maintained as much as possible. Pulsar and Mizu Works came along boasting a 0.5 millimeter thickness. But the Cicada Wings… are 0.2. They’re amazing, it’s all Viscose uses now since I cut some out for her OP1 and it’s all I’ve used since they came out. Meow Gaming Gear’s Grips though. Are 0.1 millimeters thick. If these grips have the same level of durability and grippiness as the Cicada Wings, they would be far and away the best grips on the market.
So I got some. And they really are noticeably thinner than the Cicada Wings. Just as grippy too, I can do this with these grips for some reason. Holy shit. Meow Gaming Gear has done it again. Three separate niche enthusiasts peripheral spaces and they’re nailing all three. Naturally, the logical thing to do is to buy 10 sheets of it and then tell the Raw Input discord that the new goated grips just dropped.
But… every time I would use the mouse, it felt like I had to apply more and more tension to keep it steady in my hands. Any time my hands were a little bit oily or sweaty it felt like it would just stay on the mouse forever. Within a week’s time, the grip tape was nearly useless.
Though, while I think there’s basically no reason to ever buy something like the Pulsar Supergrips anymore, this grip tape at least has one use case: If you don’t use fingertip grip and you’re looking for the thinnest and cheapest possible grip tape, even if that means losing out on a bit of grippiness, this is still good enough to be functional. That said, I don’t really recommend getting the DIY sheets unless aesthetics really matter to you. It actually took like 30 minutes to cut them properly and release them from the plastic.
I’ve also heard since releasing this video that their thicker grip tapes are much more like the Cicada Wings in terms of material and grippiness. But I don’t have any personal experience to speak on that.
But yeah! If I’m honest I don’t fully understand how OEM companies work or how much creative input MGG has in products, but at least as a consumer and reviewer, I’m really impressed and I love to be able to recommend something so cheap.