I’ll admit right away, I love this mouse pad. I’ve tried several of the plastic variety and have found most of them to be fairly similar in terms of feel. The Icemat is a completely different animal, the glass is as smooth as well…glass. I noticed major differences immediately after switching from the OCZ Slickpad I was using previously. My aiming speed and accuracy in Unreal Tournament 2003 went WAY up, it felt as if I had turned the sensitivity up a notch, even though I had not.
After quitting Unreal Tournament and just using the pad regularly for awhile, I noticed another nice feature – no wrist pain. I’ve always hated pads with the giant wrist hump because it impedes movement and eats half of the pads surface area, and thus have suffered with plastic. No more. I find after months of use that the Icemat is extremely comfortable to use as an everyday pad.
I’m not much of a photo-jockey, so I gave the pad to my girlfriend, who does a lot of work with Illustrator and Photoshop. She also had very positive comments about the pad, noting that the almost zero resistance allows her much more precise movements than her Ratpad.
One issue Ben had with the Icemat in his original review was noise. Depending on the condition of your mouse feet, the glass can make a bit more noise than a plastic pad. Personally it doesn’t bother me at all, but Icemat’s now come with Teflon “pad surfers” that cover the mouse feet and quell any sort of noise problems.
