Have you ever paid serious attention to your mouse pad? No? Then you might be one of those users who works as precisely and quickly as possible. Or perhaps you really should consider getting a more ideal mouse pad for fast-paced 3D games.

Typically, mouse pads come as simple plastics or textile underlays, available in any electronics store, sometimes in basic and often unattractive designs.

But the technology employed for two-dimensional entry devices has strongly changed in recent years. Instead of a rubber-covered, heavy ball with movement sensors, optical mice are the choice of users today. These mice operate on the basis of light reflection and allow for greater precision and higher resolutions.

The problem is this: A mouse operating with a ball will always suffers from some slippage between the mouse's ball and the pad. This means that the mouse movement will not correspond with the movement of the cursor on the display when, say, users are in the middle of an increasingly high-paced 3D game. A beam of light, though, is fast and precise, assuming users have a mouse pad that adequately reflects the light.

Among the members of our editorial staff, six current models have piled up over the past few months. In particular, each differs from traditional mouse pads made of felt and hard rubber. Instead, these are made of glass, metal or innovative plastics. On the following pages, we will describe how these pads performed when put to the test.