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Logitech Wheel Mouse & Ratpadz

In order to test the Ratpadz Mousing Surface, I found two different distinct mousepads made of completely different materials and construction. The first was a promotional Intel Celeron mouse pad made of cloth with a plastic mousing surface.The second mouse pad was a ergonomic jelly filled plastic mouse pad called "Handstands", which is manufactured in Taiwan.

Logitech Wheel Mouse & "Handstands" Mousepad

Logitech Wheel Mouse & Standard Mousepad

The Logitech Wheel Mouse used in the testing is a USB version (800 dpi) with the same mouse drivers and setup. There is currently no application software available for accurately testing mousing surfaces. I will be using a neat little utility called Mouse Rate Checker v1.1b by Oliver Tscherwitschke (you can download the program from this location). This little program measures and displays the sample rate of a mouse in Hz and tells you how often (per second) the mouse sends information to your computer.

Ratpadz Results - Click for larger view

"Handstands" Results - Click image for larger view

The Ratpadz Mousing Surface was the first pad tested. I moved the mouse in a circular motion for a duration of 5 minutes was able to log an average score of 87 Hz or higher. The second test was conducted on the "Handstands" ergonomic mousing surface and immediately I noticed that my scores dropped 13 Hz from 86 Hz to 74 Hz on average. Both tracking and mouse positioning also dropped significantly.