mouse pad : Computer Hardware Buyers’ Glossary

With optical mice, you want as slippery a mouse-pad surface as possible to give you fine control of mouse motion. You also want something with an intricate, variegated, micro pattern (not a solid colour) to give the optics something to notice moving. Game players particularly go in for fancy mouse pads to get every last drop of control. Modern mice are not as picky about the surface pattern.

Why Black Mouse Pads?

I was puzzled why nearly all high performance mouse pads are solid black. You’d think you would want a black and white micro grid or millions of tiny coloured dots to create a tracking pattern. I think I solved the mystery by peeking under my mouse at the way light reflects off my new black mousepad. The surface feels smooth, but it is actually pebbly, with millions of very tiny bumps and grooves. The red LED (Light-Emitting Diode) light reflecting off it forms a fine network of thin spidery bright red lines. The lines form where the angle of the surface is just right to reflect light back. This is just what the sensor needs, an intricate, high contrast pattern to track. The black helps enhance the contrast. On the other hand, my Logitech M310 mouse definitely prefers a light surface, even a plain white surface. On a darker surface the cursor moves very slowly. It does not seem to notice it is moving. Silk-covered (not silk-screened) cloth pads are very slippery and don’t wear the mouse feet off so quickly. Ideally you want to try out a pad with your own mouse before you buy.

Purchasing

Premium Low Friction Mouse Pads
Manufacturer	Model	Size in inches	Metric in mm	Cost CurrCon Applet needs Java 1.5 or later to display prices in your local currency. CurrCon Applet needs Java 1.5 or later to display prices in your local currency.	Price Includes Shipping?	Notes
Deviant Art	Digitally Printed	7.75 x 9	19.05 x 22.86	$10.00 USD		Digitally printed with your choice of artwork from their galleries. This is an ordinary mousepad, not a high performance surface. The dimensions and price depends on the artwork you select.
	3M Precise Mousing Surface	8.71 x 9.21	221 x 233	$17.00 USD		Granddaddy of the high tech mouse pads. Use a microgrooved surface.
	steelseries QcK mini	9.8 x 8.3 x 0.23	250 x 210 x 3	$10.00 USD		Cloth surface. Danish company that makes over a dozen different models.
	Kabuto	11.03 x 7.68 x 0.39	28 x 19.5 x .10	$20.00 USD		black. Micro-fibre.
	Zoom	8.5 x 11	216 x 279	$15.00 USD		Thinner than a credit card. Has a hexagonal honeycomb pattern. Only ship to the USA.
	Aqua2-A2B	11 x 9 x 0.12	280 x 230 x 3	$14.90 USD		Looks like blue ice. Other models look like blue draped cloth or plain black.
	GearHead MPD3000BLU	9.45 x 10.63 x 0.16	24 x 27 x 0.4	$4.00 USD		Sky blue.
	Thunder8	11.44 x 9.3 x 0.17	290.6 x 236.2 x 4.2	$35.90 USD		Black with black, green, blue, orange or yellow border. Cord clip. Double sided. Includes carrying case.
	Surface1030 Original, Hard-Plastic	11.5 x 9.5 x 0.125	292 x 241 x 3	$17.00 USD		Double sided. Includes custom logo and colours.
	XT	11.5 x 9.5 x 0.25	292 x 241 x 6	$25.00 USD		The XT is more durable lasting 5 years of heavy gaming vs 2 for the GS.
	Surface1030 Archetype Soft-Feel, Hard-Plastic	11.5 x 9.5 x 0.125	292 x 241 x 3	$23.00 USD		Double sided. Includes custom logo and colours.
	Surface1030 Archetype MBA	11.5 x 9.5 x 0.125	292 x 241 x 3	$31.00 USD		Double sided. Includes custom logo and colours. MBA (Machine Billet Aluminum) base.
	Vespula	11.8 x 9.45 x 0.16	30 x 24 x 0.4	$35.00 USD		black. Two sided. Gel rest. Designed for gaming.
	Ironclad	12.61 x 10.64 x 0.1	32 x 27 x 2.5	$35.00 USD		White. Made of aluminum. Sandblasted to get stippled surface.
	Scarab	13.79 x 9.85 x 0.12	35.0 x 25.0 x 3,0	$40.00 USD		Grey, so does not show the dirt, but better than black refectivity. Boasts a proprietary “fractal” surface.
	Thunder9	13.7 x 11 x 0.15	350 x 280 x 4	$35.90 USD		Includes a carrying pouch. Beehive bottom surface. Comes in four variations: Thunder 9 Mouse Pad Model Variations Colour Smooth Rough black Bk1 Bk2 black with blue border Bl1 Bl2 After many hours of deliberation preparing this web page, I decided on the Bl1 model, smooth, in black with blue border for my own use. The surface is hard and smooth like a wooden desk, not slightly rubbery as I expected. The mouse glides easily, but it makes a bit more noise than a foam pad, a light scratching sound. With the new Teflon feet and the pad, it makes a huge difference. It is so much easier to control the mouse for fine pixel work or for using the virtual pixel ruler I overlay over any app to read off horizontal or vertical. The Mioplanet people have create a beautiful and easy-to-use one and offered it free.
	F-series large	14 x 11 x 0.0625	356 x 254 x 1.6	$23.00 USD		Single sided. Includes custom logo and colours. Choice of rough or smooth surface. Very thin.
	Aqua3 A315M	15.7 x 11 x 0.06	400 x 280 x 1.5	$18.90 USD		Heavily textured surface. There are thick A330M and thin A315M variants.
	Hammer	17 x 11	444.5 x 280	$19.00 USD		Thinner than a credit card. Has a fine hexagonal honeycomb pattern to improve optical tracking. Only ship to the USA.
	F-series extra large	17 x 11 x 0.0625	444.5 x 280 x 1.6	$24.99 USD		Single sided. Includes custom logo and colours. Choice of rough or smooth surface. Very thin.
	Aqua3 A330L	17.7 x 13.8 x 0.12	450 x 350 x 3	$19.90 USD		Heavily textured surface. There are thick A330L and thin A315L variants.
	Ripper XL	14 x 17.5 x 0.125	356 x 451 3.2	$20.00 USD		Can be rolled up. This is the mat the Xtracs Pad-o-matic computer program recommended I buy. However, I was looking for something more colourful. They only ship to the USA.
	Goliathus: control edition	36.2 x 11.57 x 0.12	92 x 29.4 x .3	$35.00 USD		black. soft surface. Textured woven surface. Rubber base. Comes in three smaller/cheaper sizes as well.
	Ripper XXL	36 x 18	914 x 457	$26.00 USD		Sleeps eight, ridiculously huge. For comparison, my anti static mat is only 60.96 × 58.42 cm (24 × 23 in) and my entire desk surface is1.47 × 0.74 metres (58 × 29 in). It would cover 40% of my desk surface. I think they intend you also rest your keyboard on it. Cloth surface. Only ship to the USA.

Miscellaneous Notes

• If mice pads were something everyone bought, these fancy toys would be available for under $2.00 USD at the dollar store. They are not that impressive to look at, though the ads suggest buying one will turn you into a superhero and come with keys to you very own bat cave.
• I removed all links to Everglide. They seem to have gone belly up.
• Be careful to check shipping cost. It is often greater than the cost of the mouse pad.
• There is a lot of hype in the ad copy for mouse pads. The copy seems to be directed at teenage game players. Fortunately, even the poorest computer user can afford to buy the top of the line mouse pad and even if he paid way too much, he won’t be seriously out of pocket. I suspect most of these pads actually cost less than a dollar to manufacture. They would be much cheaper sold as desk protectors or placemats. However, compared with other computer expenditures this is a minor expense.
• Most of these companies also sell high performance replacement mouse feet called mouse skates or mouse skatez.
• The Xtracs people have a tool they call Pad-o-matic that asks you seven questions then rates their products in order to how well they meet your criteria. I wish every site had such a beast to help sort out all the models. I would add another question: What colours are acceptable? So many models come only in basic black. It suggested the Ripper XL for me.
• It is hard to buy a mouse pad over the Internet. You want to run a mouse over it to test the feel.
• Clean the mouse pad with pure isopropanol (aka rubbing alcohol) which you can get at the drugstore. You want the 99% pure kind without any added oils. Unlike nearly everything else in computers, pretty well any cleaner will do to clean a mouse pad, so long as it does’t leave a residue.

My Ideal Mouse Pad

• It would be easy to clean. Spilling coffee on it should not hurt it in the least.
• It should be30.48 × 38.10 cm (12 × 15 in), taller than it is wide.
• It should not have any corporate logos on it or pictures of naked warriors or space aliens.
• It should be yellow or orange. Alternatively frogs or tropical plants or fish would be ok.
• It should have a surface that lets me move the move the mouse very slowly and precisely, such as for working in Paint Shop Pro — the place I most notice mouse stickiness and lurchiness. I don’t know what that surface looks like, whether it is rough or smooth, whether it would be glass, plastic, cloth or metal, but I would know it when I felt it.
• The bottom of the mat should stick firmly to the fake wood surface of my desk.
• The colours should not fade, even if exposed to sunlight.
• The colours should not wear off with use. I want them embedded, not painted on.
• I want it to be extremely durable. I want this mouse pad to last me the rest of my life. I get attached to objects I use all the time and it distresses me when they die.
• I would like to be assured the patterns on the pad are especially good for optical tracking, and that these patterns will not disappear with use. I am puzzled why nearly all pads are solid black. This strikes me as the worst possible pattern. I am obviously wrong in my aversion to solid black, and I would like to know why.

I have discovered your choice of mousepad or mousing surface makes a huge difference in how smoothly your cursor moves. With a bad surface, the mouse does not notice it is moving, and the cursor lurches. Further if the surface has too much friction you cannot finely control the mouse. It sticks and releases in tiny jerks. So in theory the ideal mousepad would have the following characteristics:

• Mousepad surface has micro stippling so the mouse can “see” a difference as it moves. Whatever the stippling/microgrove technology used, it must create a high contrast stippling.
• The mousepad surface should be a light colour, i.e. reflect lots of light of the frequency used by the mouse, usually blue, infrared or red.
• The mousepad surface to be slick, offering no resistance to the Teflon mouse feet. Oddly, sometimes surfaces that feel rougher to the touch can offer less resistance. Generally, the harder the surface, the less resistance though it may not be as comfortable.

Unfortunately, you can’t take mousepads for test drive before purchase. Before you buy, google the model, and see what people who bought it thought. Also I have not even seen a mousepad for sale that lays claims to these ideals. The mousepad I received as a gift disappeared. I do a fair bit of single pixel work drawing and editing where I have to insert the text cursor between two small characters. Both require excellent mouse control. That requires the best possible mouse pad.

Mouse Pad Cleaning

You can make a powerful yet environmentally friendly glass cleaner. Here is a recipe for a bit over two sprayers full:

The blue food colouring is optional; it helps identify the sprayer contents as window cleaner. Use a microfibre cloth.