Introduction

Pads?

Mouse pads. A rather curious topic don't you think? Most of the time, we spend hours trying to squeeze that last drop of performance out of the CPU, or trying to find the best video card for the fastest frame rates. We even pay an unusual amount of attention to input devices, such as mice and keyboards. It's little surprise that we also spend an inordinate (possibly unhealthy?) amount of time discussing mousing surfaces.

To date we have only managed to put together two mouse pad reviews. We were the first to review the Everglide and we also have a review of the Logitech Wingman Mousepad. True, there really hasn't been much happening in the mousepad industry, but some of those squeaky little wheels have been turning and new products are coming to market.

The Old Days

I remember the first mouse pad I used: one of those foam/cloth pads we are all familiar with. The kind of pad that absorbed just about everything known to man, and then managed to somehow stuff it all into the inner workings of the mouse. Years passed, yet mousepad technology remained unchanged -just some slight variations on the same foam-cloth theme. Pretty soon there were pretty pictures on the pads. Then there were revolutionary new pads made from plastic and foam. The industry even made pads with gel wrist-pads for all those wussies who couldn't handle the raw power of the mouse.

Even with all these developments, the desktop remained a favorite mousing surface for most people, including myself. This did not prove to be all that bad; my desk had some decent texture to it. In the last two years, mouse pad technology has taken a turn for the better. It seems that some engineers were actually involved in designing the product. Mental capacities were used for more than choosing what pretty picture would be used for the face of the pad. 3M revolutionized the mouse pad industry with its Precise Mousing Surface. Gamers everywhere flocked to the 3M mousing surface, and a new high-end mouse pad market was born.

Today we're taking a look at a few of the new mouse pads on the market: the Ratpad, the Everglide Large Attack Pad, and the Logitech WingMan 3M PMS.