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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Customers in the UK,
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for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Kensington Expert Mouse Optical USB Trackball for PC or Mac 64325
Customer Review: I've become an Expert Mouse evangelist.
Summary: 5 Stars
My roommate has had this mouse ever since I moved in, and has been trying to convince me of its merits for a long time. However, I was mostly a laptop/trackpad user and so didn't utilize a mouse much. About a year ago I finally got a desktop and almost immediately my wrist began to hurt. At one point I even had to use my left hand because it was so painful to use the mouse with my right hand (I'm right-handed). At this point I knew I needed to either go back to a laptop/trackpad or see if using a trackball mouse would help. At first, I tried the "Kensington Orbit Optical Trackball Mouse 64327" but it pulled on my wrist in a weird way and was difficult to use. Finally, I listened to my roommate and got the Expert Mouse. I was blown away. My wrist pain cleared up very quickly and hasn't returned. Furthermore, the giant ball (which makes a huge difference compared to the trackball mice with a smaller ball) is wonderful to use. The 4-buttons are great, and the scroll wheel is something I don't know how I ever got by without. I've been ranting about this mouse for months now, trying to convince my friends to make the switch. I know this mouse seems expensive, but it is worth much more than it costs. Some of the best money I've ever spent.
* Note for Windows 7 users: I've had trouble finding drivers for Windows 7. The mouse works, but I can't program the extra two buttons however I want. By default they do things like navigate backwards, which is fine, but it'd be nice if I could program them how I want. I haven't tried to find Windows 7 drivers for the mouse for about 6 months, so maybe they are out now...
Customer Review: Kensington Trackball - Great for Home and Work!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a longtime Kensington trackball user at work. I am an IT Professional so I tend to be on my computer well over 8 hours a day most days per week. Over 10 years ago I was having trouble with my wrist, arm, and back. The problems became severe enough to seek medical attention. I was prescribed anti-inflammatory medication and wrist/arm bands. This solution didn't seem to help much. Work was great! They brought in their ergonomic folks. They recommended that I change from a mouse and desktop keyboard holder to a Kensington trackball and articulating keyboard holder. I believed this solution would help, but I was surprised and amazed that my problems actually went away. I've been working from home these days and noticed that my wrist and arm were starting to hurt again, so I added a Kensington trackball at home. My laptop uses a small keypad that requires a lot of small finger/hand movements. This Kensington allows you to do the same work with no strain. I guess I had forgotten about my problems until they reared their ugly head again. Great product...simple solution! I have fairly new computer equipment with Vista and have no problems or issues. The performance is smooth and simple to use. My brother in-law was interested in using the trackball but was concerned since he's left-handed, so I tested it. I was able to easily switch the Kensington trackball for my left-handed use. I have using it for left-handed use and it works great. I didn't have to do anything special to get it to work other than change the mouse settings via the control panel. Check it out...you'll love it.Customer Review: great product
Summary: 5 Stars
I've used Kensington Expert Trackballs for many years, after upgrading from Logitech trackballs. My previous Kensington recently died after 8(?) years of great performance.
On this model, Amazon beat most brick and mortar store prices by about $20+, plus free shipping and no tax. It arrived ontime.
The installation on a Dell desktop running XP took about 2 minutes. I plugged the USB cable into the PC and was immediately recognized. I downloaded current drivers from the Kensington site, adjusted the settings and started using it. I find the feel comparable to my earlier versions, plus it comes with the ergonomic pad. I've read the other reviews and don't really understand the gripes.
One thing to be aware of is that the Mouseworks driver appears to have some incompatibility with the Firefox browser. Not sure which is the culprit. After each Firefox launch I have to reset the pointer acceleration and the snap-to setting. Plus Firefox does not recognize the scroll function; it shows the scroll icon on the screen after chording, but neither the ring nor the ball activate scrolling. I believe the problem is with Firefox since scrolling works in IE and I have no reset problems. Inconvenient, but not sure if this is a Kensington problem per se. I e-mailed them to ask, got a prompt response to install the default driver rather than the newer Beta version, but that didn't work either. (Aside: I wonder if the MS trackball recognizes Firefox?)
Great product, decent price from Amazon versus others. I highly recommend it even with the Firefox issue.
Customer Review: cost reduction reloaded!?
Summary: 2 Stars
Had I read nicho1as's review and taken it seriously, I could have saved myself a trip back to Fry's returns line.I am using the 'old' Kensington expert mouse (i.e. Kensington's classic opto-mechnical, four-button trackball, that is built like a tank) for over 6 years, the non-optical tracking system gets annoying once in a while when is starts losing tracking, and needs some cleaning to get back to working order. After also using traditional optical mouse and learning to appreciate it's merits over old ball mouse I though the optical trackball would be a real improvement over the opto-mechanical trackball circa 1997... - BIG mistake!
It could be, in theory, sure - but Kensignton have tried to save few bucks on their manufacturing costs, and, it's really easy to tell. Gone are the massive, smooth, steel bearings, instead you'll find cheap red miniature plastic balls that support the "diamond eye" trackball. The result is an unpleasant movement feel, perhaps folks using trackball for the first time aren't aware of it, but the older version trackball clearly had a superior feel, and higher quality plastics as well.
I can easily say that this optical trackball, taken out of the box, feels about the same as the mechanical trackball when it gets dirty after months of use, and the old trackball is not such a pain to clean.
Returning it was as easy decision - I did not even have to connect it to the PC to make the decision. I guess I will be using the mechanical trackball for another six years unless Kensington decide to design a professional quality optical trackball before.
Customer Review: Good product if you can cope with a few months of that grinding noise.
Summary: 3 Stars
The features and overall design of the Expert Mouse have the rest of the market beat for now. The device is relatively comfortable and functions as expected with the exception of the weak points detailed below.
The most disappointing aspect of this trackball is the scroll ring. The concept is great, but (as mentioned by others), the motion of the ring has a very rough feel to it (there don't seem to be any bearings) and makes an uncomfortable plastic-on-plastic grinding noise. The disturbance is faint in casual, line-by-line scrolling, but marked when scrolling quickly. For the hefty pricetag of the unit, this seems to be remarkably cheap manufacturing.
EDIT: I had observed that the grinding noise wasn't bothering me as much at home; I wasn't sure if it had faded or if I'd gotten used to it until I got a second one for work. It has definitely faded - the new one is very bad and the older one hardly noticable. I *do* find myself extremely addicted to the scroll ring design; I bought the 2nd for work because I kept reaching for the non-existent scroll ring of another model!
I was initially disappointed, too, with the weight and on-screen 'feel' of the marble, but I was able to compensate for most of the irregularity by tweaking the scroll speed and acceleration settings.
The Expert Mouse is a very good product overall, but certainly these minor flaws could and should be fixed. If you need a trackball right away, this is the one. Otherwise, you may want to hold on to your dollars until Kensington (or somebody else...) works out the kinks.