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 Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Kensington Expert Mouse Optical USB Trackball for PC or Mac 64325
Customer Review: Finally -- no more pain or knocking stuff off my desk because of needing to move my mouse!
Summary: 5 Stars
I had tried using trackballs before but found them too awkward and difficult to get the fine motor skills. However, when I started developing pain in my mousing hand, I didn't want to ignore it... I was only in my early 40s and have to rely on a pointer device to earn a living. Plus, I play cello and knit and play piano so I really didn't want a mouse to destroy my ability to do the the things I really love.
So I search all the ergonomic websites and they all consistently recommended large trackballs because the larger the ball, the less you are relying on very small movements or only one set of muscles to perform your computer task. In addition, you want to use a trackball that is "symmetric" so that you can change how you use it in order to "spread the stress".
The Kensington trackball has the one of the largest trackballs on the market (I think there is one other one that has a slightly larger ball that is marketed towards children). It is balanced and symmetric so that you can move the ball with different fingers or even different parts of your hand. The buttons are programmable (if you can install the software) so you can change where your single and double click buttons are to take advantage of the natural strength of your hand. It is easy to install in its most basic mode... just plug and play. It is also easy to clean -- just lift the ball out and wipe the dust away from the sensors. It also lasts forever -- I've bought a couple over the years but only because my kids keep swiping mine!
There are trackballs that put the trackball where your thumb would go. These are not significantly better than a mouse because you have shifted the repetitive motion to your thumb. Other trackballs put the trackball where your 4th and 5th finger is. Once again, you have moved the are of your hand that you are going to wear out.
My only nitpick is that to take full advantage of the features, you have to install the software drivers. If you are using this on a computer at work where you don't have admin privileges then you won't be able to take advantage of the full functionality. It would be nice if the mouse used a firmware programming mechanism instead of having to install software on the computer.
I really wish that Kensington would make this a wireless device as well. But at this point, I'm just glad I can find this in any form.
Customer Review: Horribly cheap construction
Summary: 3 Stars
My Expert Mouse arrived today with great anticipation. I've been using a Microsoft Trackball Explorer for 3 years now and now it sits at my desk at work. I got the Kensington for home use to replace my Logitech optical mice.
When I took out the product, it screamed "cheap plastic" to me - reminiscent of an electronic product I would find at the Dollar Tree. (A cheap LCD clock with untrimmed plastic edges perhaps?) To sum it up: built-quality wise, it is no where in the same league as the old ADB Kensington Trackball I used to use. Nevertheless, I moved on... I had read about the "Award Winning" (what award? I would like to know) scroll wheel and I immediately started to play with it. It gave out a horribly scratchy sound, as if the wheel has come derailed from its carefully designed rotation track, I seriously thought I had a damaged model, that is until I read about other people's review on Amazon. I'm guessing there must have been an unforeseen manufacturing deficiency in making this wheel component, because no way this poor design would have saw any business sign-off.
Initially using the the trackball, my fingers would slide off the ball because the ball wouldn't budge. However, that cleared up after a few minutes and tracking has been smooth since. The scroll wheel(despite the horrible noise and unrefined movement) works well to scroll web pages. A caveat - the assessment on the scroll wheel only applies to when you are scrolling the page at a fast pace. If you're like me and often scroll while reading the page, a "click" at a time, (using the indents of the wheel as a reference) you will surely be annoyed by the wheel. There are points of friction all along the circumference of the scroll wheel's path and you will often be caught off guard while scrolling when the pressure you applied for the previous indent, will not be enough for the current indent.
Wow what a rant.. anyway, I'm not going the return the product, even though I think it's terribly overpriced. I would gladly pay for a trackball that's $50 more with the built quality from the old ADB days.. Oh did I also mention that the connector plate for the wrist pad is "glued" to the bottom of the rubber pad? I found this out when I removed the wrist pad(no easy feat), and the bottom plate snapped off in the process. Looked like Elmers glue to me.
Customer Review: Trackball Bliss
Summary: 4 Stars
Years ago I tried their first version (in office cubicle tan) while working at the JPL in Pasadena California. Once over the few minute learning curve I was hooked. It never occurred to me that it would need to get "better".
Marvell-more, (marvelous) it glides like a knife through butter. It's very intuitive and programmable to add icing on the cake. The scroll ring works great and its speed can be easily programmed through MouseWorks (Kensington's software).
Even everyday dust and cat fur does not slow this thing down.
I reluctantly gave it a 4 out of 5 for two reasons:
1st - Because while it is programmable and extremely helpful once programmed, the programming process for direct access to web-links itself is very clunky. If one desires to keep the pop-up window of "direct access" web-links in alphabetical order, they need to be entered as such. There is no way to move them up or down on the pop-up list in its final configuration necessitating the data list being reentered if the user desires to work from their list in alphabetical order.
One needs, as a result of this glitch, to keep a separate record of their web-link collection to the "direct access" addresses if one ever needs to add a new web-link (and thus break the order).
2nd - Later discovered (added 03/11) because the 4 elliptical anti-slip rubber pads located at the corners haven't prevented its slipping while positioned on my slightly-tilted keyboard/trackball use surface. I suspect that the designer had more of the non-marring property in mind. I haven't liked to constantly readjust its position while using it.
Update: 06/2010 - Kensington's new TrackballWorks software does not address the programming issue. They've gone-off in other directions.
Update: 03/2011 - As Kensington didn't provide replacement anti-slip rubber pads for a lost one that fell off when the trackball slid off my desk's tilted keyboard tray the last time, I found a solution (mentioned at one of my other reviews) that works very well for this over-looked design flaw in their product. I hope that readers observe, having said that, that I valve this excellent product enough to repair it rather than simply buying a replacement for it (mend don't spend).
Customer Review: Decided to take a chance... it's going back to Amazon
Summary: 3 Stars
I got a new computer for work and it came with a lousy 2 button mouse, so I decided to go shopping. I've been using standard mice exclusively for the past few years, but the last time I used a trackball that didn't use your thumb, I was pleased, so I figured I'd give this one a shot.
That turned out to be a mistake for me. I'm an engineer and spend most of my day in either Excel or FEA software.
Pros:
- Trackball was nice and big. Give it a little while to break in and it's
very smooth.
- Probably one of the best trackball's I've ever used. Seemed to be very accurate and didn't take a lot of effort to use
Neutral:
- Not really the fault of the trackball, but as it turns out I've gotten very used to mice that have the side scrolling ability. Not having it on this is kind of a drag
Cons:
- Awful, awful, awful scroll wheel. It feels like there's sand in the bearings and it skips a lot. "Award winning"? Must have been a worst-of award. I depend on the scrolling function to zoom in and out of models, and this is unacceptable to me. If you're planning on depending on the scrolling function at all, stay away
- Drivers didn't work in Windows XP 64. Not sure why, but I never got anything other than the standard Windows mouse driver to work. Couldn't find anything on their website either
- Default center-click button is the upper right. If you can't use the drivers and are right-handed, you have to move your hand off the ball. This also means that it's very difficult or darn near impossible to do something like hold down center click and move the ball
- The wrist rest didn't seem to be designed for this device. It fits very sloppily
Conclusion:
Quite honestly, for my needs, I probably would have ranked it a 2*, however I think the *trackball* portion of it is pretty decent (4* decent), so that's how I get to 3*'s. If you're in the market for a trackball and trackball only and don't care about the scrolling functions, than even desptie my experience, I would still recommend this. If you want to use the scroll ring any appreciable amount, or if you're running XP64, you're better off with something else.
Customer Review: CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! Aaarrggh!!
Summary: 2 Stars
After reading so many positive reviews for the Expert Mouse before I bought it, it I'm a bit hesitant to write my own because it's the total opposite from most of the praise you'll read here.
I really tried to like this thing. But I can't - here's why:
As a professional video and photo editor I've known about these types of devices for a long time and it always sounded a good idea to use one in principle. Sadly, I'm one of those who just cannot work properly with it.
First off, if you do anything that requires very small and precise movements, forget about it. I don't know how so many folks can work with the Expert Mouse. I have large hands but even for me the trackball is simply way too large. No matter how subtly I move my fingers, the trackball jerks the pointer all over my 24 inch screens.
Now - and think about it - when you have your hand over the trackball, and you try to move your fingers to touch one of the buttons, you're bound to move the cursor again without wanting to.
Trying to make precise cuts on a video timeline has so far been incredibly frustrating. You can adjust the sensitivity but even that didn't solve this problem for me.
If you click a lot and do it fast, forget about it too. You'll have to have your fingers in such an awkward position over that gigantic trackball that clicking a button requires even weirder movements with your fingers. Again, in principle you'd think the layout and size would be awesome but it's just not.
Finally - that clicking noise. OMG! Are you kidding me? This is by far the loudest, most annoying clicking noise of any input device I have ever had - and I've had 30 or more over the years. I'm used to a quiet work environment and the noise coming from the buttons is absolutely not acceptable.
Yes, the build quality and all that stuff is fine. It does work on Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. But considering how terrible it is to use I'm really quite baffled of why this thing is so popular; maybe I'm a uncoordinated clutz. Whatever the case - after about an hour of trying to fight through a simple edit I disconnected it and went back to my trusty old two-button mouse. Ahhhh yes, much MUCH faster again.
Hope this helps.