After the narrowest of beatings the Everglide walks away with second place. The slightly bumpy surface lends itself to surprisingly smooth mouse action almost as good as that of the 3M. The pad itself is made of rigid plastic, meaning it’s particularly durable. Coffee stains and other marks can be quickly wiped away with a wet cloth unlike the 3M which requires a bit more time to clean properly. We’ve even heard of people throwing it in a dishwasher to clean it out. One thing to note is that the white Everglide is useless with a Microsoft Intellieye mouse. However, it appears as if Everglide have quickly responded to this by showing only black pads on their front page, which the Intellieye mechanism is perfectly happy with. In addition, while the Everglide we tested was not much larger than the 3M Precise Mousing Surface, they now offer a series of pads called the Giganta for gamers after a monster mouse pad.

As it beat only the standard mouse mat you might dismiss the Ratpad as pretty damn inferior to the others, but you’d be making a mistake. The main advantage of the Ratpad is size - it’s just huge. And although the Everglide Giganta offers a similar surface area it lacks the large and very comfortable gradual curve at the bottom. With regards to the low-test score, we suspect that it is more the fault of the Razer Boomslang we used than the pad itself. The Boomslang has quite a low design which didn’t work that well on the slightly rougher surface of the Ratpad. However a quick spin with an Intellieye confirmed that the Ratpad/Intellieye combo worked very well indeed.