Thank you Corsair for sending us this glass mouse pad for review!

Mouse pads have been fabric pretty much since the beginning of the mouse. There have always been some who liked using them on glass desks, but that doesn't work with every mouse, and if you prefer a desk made from another material, that might not be an option for you. Whatever the case, glass is one of the smoothest surfaces easily manufactured, and when chasing optimum performance in gaming, is a great option for a mouse pad. The Corsair MM Glass Large is Corsair's first glass mouse pad, and also the first one I've ever used.

While this is the first glass mouse pad I've used, I have used hard mouse pads over the years and loved them. For a while, we used metal mouse pads that we purchased from Best Buy, and loved the super high speed surface. Unfortunately, the surface would scratch easily, and they don't last all that long; all it takes is a few grains of sand to scratch them up badly. While that still can be a concern with glass, it's far less so, as glass has a much higher Mohs scale hardness value.

Because of material hardness properties, the mouse pad is quite resilient to normal plastic mouse feet, like PTFE (aka Teflon). However, do not use glass or ceramic mouse feet, as glass on glass can scratch them both. Most mice come with PTFE feet out of the box, and they all work fine on a glass mouse pad. With that said, don't be surprised if mouse feet need replacing more often, as glass is a bit rougher on mouse feet than cloth is.

Speaking of mouse feet, lots of mice come with replacement feet, or some gamers will even supplement or replace stock feet with something else. What's interesting about glass vs. cloth mouse pads is that what leads to optimum smoothness on each is actually the exact opposite.

You see, with a cloth mouse pad, a large, flat, and smooth surface is often ideal for low-friction mouse movement. That's because most cloth pads depress some, so you get less resistance the larger and smoother the surface. However, if you use such a large pad on glass, instead what you find is that there are a lot of contact points with the glass, causing a whole lot of friction and resistance.

On the other extreme, you can buy tiny dot skates, usually made of PTFE or UHMW-PE. On cloth, tiny dot skates have a lot of resistance, because the points of contact with the edges on the cloth are many, increasing friction. On glass, the only points of contact are those tiny dots, which leads to much less overall friction. This can lead to very smooth mouse movements, with a really smooth glide.

Then it comes to glass mouse skates, UHMW-PE ones are more durable but not as smooth, while PTFE dots are softer but smoother/faster. I had a few spares that came with another mouse, and tried some UHMW-PE skates on my Corsair Sabre V2 Ultralight. Even though these dots aren't supposed to be as smooth as the PTFE dots, they still felt way better than the skates the mouse comes with. Unfortunately, I was lazy and just put them on top of the existing skates, which increased the lift-off distance a bit too much, so sometimes movements would stutter. This went away when I took off those dot skates. Keep that in mind; for the best performance, you'll have to remove the stock skates and install the dots in their place.

I've been using this mouse pad for around a month now, and I have to say that it's absolutely lovely. The surface looks and feels great, the edges are rounded and don't dig into your arm at all, and mouse movements are very light and glide effortlessly. It does make a bit more noise than most cloth mouse pads, but not enough to be a problem. You'll hear my mechanical keyboard long before hearing that subtle scratching. According to Corsair, their glass mouse pad is much quieter than at least some of the competition, and they show a recorded sound sample comparing the two. I can say that the quieter sound matches my experience, though I don't know what the louder model they are comparing it with is. Since this is my first glass mouse pad, I don't have any other frame of reference, so if I am given the opportunity to compare in a future review, I'll let you know my thoughts on that.

Like anything glass, durability is a concern. The shipping container is really neat, and did a fantastic job keeping it safe. In use, it's been quite resilient to scratches and such, though unfortunately I did have one of my screwdriver sets fall off of my shelf and land right on the mouse pad. There is a very small white spot at the impact point if you look really closely; you can't feel it, and it looks like a spec of dust I just can't get rid of. It fell from several feet up, so while you can certainly break it, it's also pretty durable. Thankfully they come with a two year warranty.

Being hard solid glass, this really isn't the type of mouse pad I would bring with you; if it were me, I'd just buy a smaller one for travel if you can't live without glass. The 500mm x 400mm size is quite large and imposing, but not so big that I can't fit it on my desk. I like it a lot. The 3mm thickness is perfect for me; it's 2mm of glass, and 1mm of thick rubber to keep it in place. Even among cloth mouse pads that thickness always seemed just right, and that is the case here as well.

The Corsair MM Glass Large Precision Gaming Mouse Pad is certainly not inexpensive, at $99.99. I was also surprised to only see it for sale on Corsair.com, and not available on Amazon like most of their other products. I imagine they want full control of the shipping; as a large, glass object, it can be broken easily. Whatever the case, it's a fantastic mouse pad, and one I can easily recommend if you are looking for the smoothest and most consistent glide you can get. I can't (yet?) compare it to other glass mouse pads; based on my research, the coatings and methods of each manufacturer can often lead to a very different surface feel. Whatever the case, I am grateful to have finally tested a glass mouse pad, and I love it!