Kensington Expert Mouse Optical USB Trackball for PC or Mac 64325
by Kensington
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List Price: Our Price: $68.53 You Save: $59.42 (46%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $35.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Kensington Expert Mouse Optical USB Trackball for PC or Mac 64325
Customer Review: Fixed my scroll wheel ... but OW!
Summary: 2 Stars
[...] this trackball is very "thick on the work-top" I also had severe hand and shoulder pains after just a few days. As Amazon don't ship this item directly to South Africa, I had to have it posted to some one in the UK who then sent it (at greater expense) to me. The Ball action is fantastic. The Scroll ring was not, as others have noted, it was very "Scratchy" ... was ... I fixed mine! Having nothing to lose guarantee-wise (I wasn't going to waste more money sending it back!) ... and being a qualified electronics mecanition ... I stripped it down to have a look. The screws are under the rubber feet. There are two more holding the "cup" which then just slips out. The scroll ring is permanently lubricated (ie can't open it) and attached to the cup. Holding the ring on my left palm and the base of the "cup" an my right palm. I rocked it back and fro applying pressure for about 5 minutes ... it helped ... the action is now a lot better.
There was one other thing I did not like the look of though ... the bottom of the black painted metal "optical skirt" hanging down from the scroll wheel is SO close to the tracks on the circuit board that its hard to see a gap!! SO DON'T TRY PRESSING DOWN HARD ON THE SCROLL WHEEL WHILE ITS STILL IN THE UNIT or you may end up with cut tracks or a short circuit.
Strangely, having looked inside it seemed to me that this unit could have been made slimmer ... reducing the angle a bit ... it is currently too thick at the back and too thin at the front ... it helps your wrist if you put something under the front so that it sits "level" ... but then you need to raise your chair to keep your shoulder level! Maybe you could rout a hole in the work-top for it to sit in. (yeah right!) I wrote this review with my battered old, worn-out Logitek Track Man. The brand new Kensington has been relegated to my old computer. Nuff Said
Alan Day
Cape Town
Customer Review: Solved uneasiness in my fingers and forehand
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this expert mouse after testing two other products. First one being Logitech Marble Mouse, which was quite small for my hand. My hand felt squeezed using it. Because of how the buttons are arranged, it just shifted the pain to a different area. I liked the way it functioned, though
Second one is the Kensington Orbit mouse. The buttons on this mouse are laid out wider than on the Logitech mouse, but for me they felt little too wide and the buttons are a little bit tighter than the this expert mouse or the Logitech marble mouse. The same thing happened with this, pain has found a new home. The other thing I didn't like about this is the lack of separate scroll button. The Kensington MouseWare software tries to supplement it, but isn't sufficient. It just didn't work for me.
Then I upgraded to this Expert mouse. I should say, the pain is completely gone. The buttons are not very tight. The scroll ring is very nice(except for the scratchy noise and feel). The 4 buttons can be customized to do a variety of things. The wrist rest supplied is quite good. The wrist rest can be hooked up to the mouse so that it moves along with the mouse. The ball rolls quite smoothly. The precision is not very much different from a normal mouse. The ball hold points need to be cleaned once or twice a week else the ball movement feels jumpy/sticky. All in all it is a great mouse. It might take a little bit of getting used to(May be a couple of days).
I do recommend this mouse to anyone experiencing pain in the fingers or fore hand. But, I would suggest to try out couple different options. Depending on the size and shape of the hand, you may need a different mouse. Also how you sit in the chair plays a role in choosing the right product for you.
Do I still miss my regular mouse? Yes, I do. I just like the feel of a regular mouse.
Customer Review: Vista drivers NOW PLEASE!
Summary: 3 Stars
Mechanically, this product works well. The new optical system is a vast improvement in accuracy, resolution and precision over the older sensor-touch system. The included "wrist-ramp" is quite effective and it attaches easily to the base of the trackball. Their "award-winning" scroll-wheel needs about 30 more minutes in the design oven, but whatever. The problem "ain't" really the scroll-wheel.
The problems lie elsewhere, in the software and/or firmware.
Kensington needs to understand that default-assigning (firmware) the two bottom click buttons is a mistake. That is NOT the way the human hand falls naturally onto the product. To test this out, however, they DO need to open one of their trackball packages, physically pull out the trackball and actually place one of their hands on it.
What will suddenly yet immediately occur to them, is that the "8 o'clock" and "2 o'clock" buttons are far more natural for default, firmware-only, no-driver use.
I say "no-driver use" because Kensington has yet to provide a Vista-based driver for this device, despite most (if not all) new systems coming off their assembly lines with Microsoft's next bug-infested excuse of an OS, Vista.
If they resist implementing this necessary correction to their firmware defaults, then Kensington needs to respond far more quickly and provide a Vista-compatible driver for this product, which would allow button re-assignments and other customization not yet available to any Vista users as of this review.
This also might curtail some of the inevitable Win32 errors that come up when the WinXP driver is attempted in Vista. By the way, thanks, Microsoft - we needed that problem in Vista as well all the others.
If they did this, then perhaps the other two stars might be appropriate.
Customer Review: Great trackball that needs Vista Support!
Summary: 3 Stars
I've been an avid Kensington trackball user for over a decade. Being a lefty and a graphic artist, the trackballs Kensington has offered over the years have been nothing short of stellar.
Reading some of the problems users have encountered here reminds me that the Expert Mouse is akin to a riding a bike; once you've learned it, it becomes a joy to use. The scroll ring is gritty at first, but after time it becomes smooth and a very effective way to scroll. The optics on this trackball is very accurate. Be sure to remove the ball and clean the optics about once a week. I also clean the ball itself with electronics cleaner like Pledge or Endust (for electronics). I have experienced the chattering, skipping and unsmooth motion of the trackball but here's a tip: once you clean the ball, massage it for a minute or so in the palms of your hands. This gets your skin oils on it and the ball really glides after that. So, like I said, once you learn the trackball, it truly is a fantastic input device to use.
With all that praise, now comes the negative. Vista drivers. There are none. Kensington says they will NOT be developing any. So, what this does is takes away most of the functionality of the Expert Mouse that I have come to rely on. I cannot reverse the scrolling action of the scroll ring (imperative since I'm a lefty). You really can't do all the things that make this mouse great. This is totally unacceptable and shame on Kensington for dropping the ball on this one. As a result, I will refuse to purchase another trackball until this is remedied.
In conclusion, if XP is your game, then this is a great trackball. If you ever think you'll use Vista, then steer far away from this product until Kensington gets their act together and develops a Vista compliant driver/app.
Customer Review: Heads up for Windows Vista Users (possible fix for you)
Summary: 5 Stars
I just purchased this trackball despite all of the warnings about the Kensington MouseWorks software not being compatible on the Windows Vista platform. While that's true from an "official" standpoint, it's not true from an "unofficial" standpoint.
I can't guarantee this will work for everyone, but from an architectural standpoint, it should for any user on the Windows Vista 32-bit platform. The first thing I did was plug in the Kensington Expert 7.0 Trackball and once it was detected by Windows, I then downloaded the latest release of the MouseWorks software(v6.22) from Kensington's site and modified the properties of the 'setup.exe' to run in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode and then ran that 'setup.exe'.
Once the installation is complete, when you look in the 'Device Manager', it should show up as 'Kensington USB Expert Mouse'. Now if you don't reboot after the installation, when you open up the MouseWorks software, it will show that no Kensington devices are detected, however, after the reboot, the MouseWorks software should detect the device fine assuming you installed the software package in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode.
I am able to use all of the programmable functions within the MouseWorks software for the Kensington Expert Mouse 7.0 release with zero issues on the Windows Vista 32-bit platform. 64-bit users are more than likely out of luck, but that problem is probably at the driver level.
If you don't see Kensington USB Expert Mouse in the 'Device Manager', you may want to find which human interface device is representing the Kensington trackball and then change the driver for it to point to the Kensington INF and manually select the Kensington trackball.
I can't guarantee it will work for everyone, but it really should. Good luck.