A wide desktop mat is a common accessory you would find on my desk surface. I never enjoyed using a mouse directly on a table surface, it would always feel like the mouse was grinding itself along and feel a little uneven. Sometimes, mouse precision wasn’t consistent either, which is important if you’re using the mouse to be creative. I’ve never been a fan of keyboard wrist rests, I prefer to have a surface under my keyboard instead, so a wide desktop mat is my ideal accessory.
The Satechi Eco-Leather Deskmate is a wide desktop mat for your desktop space, but its uses don’t stop in a computer environment. It could also be used for a writing surface or even a mat to eat your dinner off – albeit a pricey one. Made from PU leather material, the mat is stitched around the edges in a matching colour and stamped embossed with the Satechi logo in the bottom right corner. This desktop mat certainly looks the part.
Measuring 23 x 12.2 inches (58.4 x 31 x 0.3 cm), this mat comes in a little short if you are used to using the more ultrawide desktop mats from other makers. Its size may seem ample for writing on or eat off of, but in a computer desktop environment, its width may feel restrictive if you have a wide keyboard with a numeric keypad and you also need a wide area to move your mouse. Matched with an Apple Magic Keyboard or a MacBook, you have plenty of room for it and a mouse alongside it.
The one advantage of a leather mat is that if you have a keyboard with rubber feet underneath, you don’t get the contact marks that you get on fabric covered mats when moving your keyboard around the mat. It’s also easy to wipe clean, should you spill your Cheetos, lunchtime sandwich, coffee or even remove regular dust or sweat from the mat.
The mat comes delivered completely flat, so you don’t have to worry about unrolling the thick leather material and fight to keep it flat on the desktop surface. Underneath the Deskmate mat, you have the same leather material and stitching. Sadly, the decision to not coat the bottom of the mat with rubber material is the Eco-Leather Deskmate’s major downfall.
Being a smaller mat than I was used to, I found that I had to constantly reposition the mat throughout the day because the mat wasn’t big enough to just move my numeric keyboard around on it. Although it was easy to reposition the mat with the leather backing underneath, without an additional rubber backing on the mat I found it would slide around too much and never really stay exactly where I wanted it, requiring constant readjustment.
The Satechi Eco-Leather Deskmate retails for $34.99 from Amazon US, £29.99 from Amazon UK. It’s not the cheapest leather desktop mat you can buy, but being Satechi, the quality and refinement are certainly here. It comes in three colours: Black, Brown and Blue. All three colours look very smart and modern and the mat can really compliment your desk tabletop surface, just as long as you can handle its higher price tag and its slippy smooth surface underneath.