Tibullus's Full Review: Microsoft Explorer (D68-00002) Trackball
When it comes to pointing devices on a computer, I am usually not a picky person at all. I will use whatever happens to be on the particular computer that I am working at (I do however, have a special hatred for touch-pads which are usually found on laptops and inevitably cause me to hit them inadvertently and screw up whatever document I happen to be working on).
I have noticed in the past that I am a bit more fond of trackballs than I am of normal mice, I think this has to do with the fact that they take up less room on the desktop and I have to do less actual motion with my arms (god forbid, if I move it too much it could possibly be construed as exercise).
So, when the person who sits next to me at work got fed up with his trackball and offered it to me, I had to give some actual thought as to whether I wanted to spend any actual time setting it up or not. However, the features of this trackball (mostly the fact that it was optical) combined with the fact that I was using a factory mouse gave me pause, and the fact that it was USB (so all I had to do was just plug it in) sold me completely to give it a try.
Thus, with a quick plug-in and a short amount of time being overly entertained by the fact that I had two mice plugged in at the same time, I actually set about to using the trackball and seeing what it was worth.
First Impression alternate title: how I learned to quit worrying and love the trackball
When I first put my hand on this trackball, I liked it a lot. It fit well into my hand, the roller button was put in a very convenient place (at least for how I placed my hand on the trackball), and the ball itself moved very well and provided just the right amount of resistance to make me think this was a quality product and not some cheap piece of plastic.
Very quickly after this I started to hate this product due to how the buttons on the mouse were mapped. In order to hit certain buttons and get certain functionality I had to move my hands in to contortions and figure out exactly how to hit the right click, which was once so easy to hit and utilize. Without a little intervention this mouse was a very short distance away from a drop kick across the room.
However, this is where the software included comes into play. Actually, to be completely honest, I went out on the internet to Microsoft's website (it actually made me cringe in terror, but that's just because I tend not to like Microsoft products, and this was making me admit that I was willing to put some time into utilizing something they produced at a much higher level than I had before). Anyway, I downloaded their newest drivers (as the disc I was handed by my cubemate didn't contain the drivers for my particular trackball), and then everything was pretty much set up via the default pathways for me.
After this, with a little bit of finesse and exploring of the software, I was able to map all sorts of functionality onto the different buttons of the trackball and provide myself with quite possibly the tightest integrated use of a computer through my and a pointing device that I have ever had. I honestly can't express how much my browsing life was changed by this little device. Between this and a slightly modified Mozilla[1] installation, I have mapped my browsing experience so much to my habits that things are nigh perfect experience for myself.
Thus, if you haven't figured it out yet, I am converted and I love this trackball.
Ergonomics Fits in your hand, not in your mouth
You've already gotten a good portion of my feelings on this matter. The ball itself is nicely placed between your index and middle fingers for proper and quick trackball manipulation. There are four buttons and then the roller thingy (which also has button functionality built into it). Two buttons and the roller thingy are manipulated by the thumb, and then two more which are easily operated by the pinky and ring finger (or alternately, you can use one finger to manipulate the trackball and your middle and ring fingers to manipulate buttons), allowing you to use all of your hand to do your work (very nice feature, I might add).
The overall shape of the device is also quite nice, allowing one to pretty much place their hand in the only place that you can, and have it be ergonomically correct. I must say that I'm very impressed with the amount of design that went into this device, its more than one would expect would be put into a pointing device (but I guess I've been wrong before on that account).
Software You put the right button here, you put the left button here, you put the wheel button there, and you shake them all about
I stated before that this device is very customizable through the software, and I wasn't lying. When you plug the device in, it will work nominally like any other trackball would, with the buttons in a predefined state (and one which I actually don't like all that much).
However, if you get into the software you will note that you can map functionality to each and every button on the trackball (four buttons and the tracking wheel, which has a button on it, for a total of five buttons). This is where the beauty of this mouse lies. Its not unusual to have this sort of functionality in Linux (where you can make it do just about anything), but I've usually not had this sort of luck in Windows, and especially with Microsoft products. Needless to say, I'm quite impressed with what they've done here.
I figure this is also probably the best place to talk about the connection to the computer. The version that I have is USB, so it was really easy to plug in and get going, since USB is quite spanky in that regard. I plugged in, Windows clacked a bit and then the mouse was working. However, I did have to install the special software to do any of the customization on the mouse.
Conclusions
Overall, I have to say that this is a very nice trackball. They cost quite a bit of money, but I have a feeling that has to do with how nice they are. I can honestly see someone spending the money on this and then never really needing to get another pointing device for any computer that they own in their lifetime. I'm sure that eventually this would cease to work properly, but given the fact that my old trackball is nearly 6 years old, and it wasn't all that nice to begin with, I am quite sure that this one will last just as long (even though I'm putting it through quite a bit more stress).
One thing to worry about, however, is the price. You see, this trackball will cost you an arm and a leg, and if you don't choose which ones carefully, you are going to end up with some huge ironic Gift of the Magi situation going on with the mouse. (Har!!! I kill me)
Footnotes
1Mozilla is a free web browser which is currently being developed by Netscape/AOL/TimeWarner and whoever else they have merged with recently), you can find out information about this at http://www.mozilla.org
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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