My new mat is a Sweex Laser Mouse Pad. The Sweex pad has a more conventional design than the Fellows circular disk. It has two layers: a rubberised high friction bottom layer which grips the desk like glue and a plastic top surface. I suspect the top surface is made from PTFE (Teflon) because my mouse literally glides over the surface under its own momentum. It is coloured a neutral grey and has a fine surface pattern that seems to be just right for my laser mouse.
After using the Sweex for a couple of days I noticed that occasionally my mouse would behave erratically, sometimes sticking in place and sometimes moving of its own accord. I was on the point of abandoning it when a niggling doubt prompted me to try moving the mouse from an old PS/2 input port to a USB2 port on the back of my computer. Bingo. All erratic behaviour stopped. I don't fully understand what happened but it seems as if the PS2 port could not handle the high data rate from a precision laser mouse.
I then tried the mouse on the wooden table surface and found that with a USB2 connection it gave much smoother less jerky movement than with the PS/2 port. I still don't like the friction of the desk surface though so I am now using my new mouse mat. It gives silky smooth movement and precision mouse positioning. All in all a bargain for less than €6.
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