Why CES 2019 Gave Me a Serious Case of Mouse Pad Envy

I’m sort of regretting one of my Christmas presents to myself this year. My old mouse pad was fraying at the edges, which meant every time I needed to make large movements with my mouse, it got caught on the rolled up, fraying fabric. Not cool.

So I bought myself a larger mouse pad that extends from under my keyboard all the way to my mouse. You likely know the ones if you game. So far it’s been a great investment, but when I stopped at the Arozzi and Clutch booths at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, I realized I made a mistake.

Both booths featured standing desks built for gaming swaddled in a full-size mouse pad that covered the entire desktop from end to end. Yup, I had some major mouse pad envy.

Arozzi’s fully steel and “rage resistant” Arena Gaming Desk comes topped with its full-size Arena Mouse Pad. I was impressed by the thick padding and heavy-stitched seam—and the mouse pad included perforations at the top for cable management and cord organization.

Best of all, it was machine washable. So if you have nosy cats (like I do) who enjoy sitting on top of your mouse hand while you game and shed all over, you can clean your mouse pad whenever you need to.

At the Clutch booth, I also fell in love with the ergonomic 66-inch gaming desk that includes an electronic control to raise or lower it to your preferred height. The desk was topped with Clutch’s mouse pad topper that cloaked the entire desktop in padded glory.

Again, Clutch’s mouse pad featured perforations for cord management, but where Arozzi’s mouse pad focused on high-quality simplicity, Clutch aimed to add some fun. The border of the mouse pad featured LED lighting, and there was a wireless charger built into the left side. So there you go, you can game while you charge your cellphone. Now that’s a win-win.

If a full-sized mouse pad is out of your price range, you, of course, can settle for one that at least gives you padded working space under your keyboard, mouse, and monitor, like this Amazon Basics one, SteelSeries XXL mat, or HyperX Fury S gaming mouse pad.

As they say, bigger is pretty much always better—especially when mouse pads are concerned.