Feb 23 2011
New Mousepad
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with computer mice for as long as I remember. My favorite mice were of the trackball variety. I loved those. I liked not having to move the mouse all over the desk, just moving my fingers to control the mouse pointer.
After a few of them died after just a short life, I moved back to the more common style of mice, minus the old-school the ball in the mouse. Optical mice have worked well, but the Microsoft Intellimice I bought didn’t last as long as I had hoped. I went through two of them in a year.
Now that I’m on a new round of mice, I elected to get a new mousepad. For some reason, the old pads weren’t tracking very well anymore.
After some searching on NewEgg, I elected for the uber-popular XTRAC PADS Ripper Optical Mouse pad. So far, so good. The mouse pointer moves much better, but I didn’t take into consideration the size of this beast. The mousepad is 11″x17″, 3-4 times the size of my previous one.
I have to tuck one edge of it underneath my keyboard. It’s that friggin’ big!
One nice touch I felt NewEgg could have promoted a little more was the fact the pad was Made in the USA. I can’t remember the last time I bought something for the computer that wasn’t made thousands of miles away in a sweatshop somewhere.
Sounds like you have a graveyard with a bunch of Microsoft tombstones on your desk. 😀
My Logitech mice usually last for years. I only have a couple that have broken so far.
That mousepad looks interesting. Is it as thick as regular mousepads? I have a clownfish mousepad right now, and it works fine, but I’ll need to replace it someday.
Yeah, it’s actually thicker than the one I used to use from Dell. I’d recommend that one I’m using right now if you decide to retire your clownfish one. Just make sure you get one that’s the right size. This isn’t even the largest size and it’s ridiculously oversized for me.
I considered cutting it in half, but I worry about the edges fraying, a problem others have reported on NewEgg.
Yeah, it does seem pretty big, and some of the others are really huge. I wonder what people do that requires a 36″ wide mousepad.
If you do decide to cut it, you would probably need to seal the end with something to keep it together.
I wondered the same thing – 36″ seems like a ridiculous size to me. I can’t imagine anyone needing that kind of real estate.
Cool. Like the mouse pad–but, I was wondering, does it have a felt-type surface or is it smoother? I’ve found over the years the felt ones are better for optical and laser mice, but I guess it wouldn’t matter as long as the mouse pad doesn’t have a sheen to it. I’ve got a Marvin the Martian felt-topped mouse pad right now, but it’s definitely getting old and a little faded–probably time for me to get a new one.
Yeah, it’s got a felt feel to it. The Dell one I was using was a lot smoother.
I’ve had no problems with the new one yet. I would recommend it in a second. Just be sure to get one the right size. 🙂