ravenstud's Full Review: Logitech TrackMan® Trackball (904353-0403)
Bread pudding for desert? Or Bread & Water for the prisoner? Most of the reviews I have read about the Logitech Trackman Trackball Mouse have ranged from good to the best thing since sliced bread. Obviously from the number of stars in my review, I count myself among the converts who have come to love the Trackball mouse. However, most people who have had to sit at my computer for any length of time typically take another mouse from one of the other desks just to avoid using my Trackball mouse. If this mouse is so great, why do most people hate it?
What is that alien-looking thing? For starters, let's compare the trackball to the conventional mouse. The Trackball mouse is basically a conventional mouse that has been turned upside down. Whereas most mice use either an LED light or a trackball that is hidden behind the scenes beneath the mouse body, the Trackball is brought to center stage for all to see, touch, and personally interact with.
How does that contraption work anyway? In order to use the Trackball mouse a person has to completely change their way of operating the mouse. For example, if you want to move your cursor from one side of the screen to the opposite, typically you would repeatedly pick up the mouse and use a series of scooting motions until you reach your desired location. What happens if you pick up and scoot the Trackball mouse? Absolutely nothing. In order to perform the same trick with the Trackball mouse you must use your thumb and roll the wheel around until you get where you're going. Virgin initiates to the Trackball are typically all-thumbs when it comes to this action, and not in a good way. At first the Trackball seems to be awkward, imprecise, and altogether contrary to how a mouse is supposed to perform.
So why bother? If you experience pain when using a regular mouse, the Trackball may be just the therapy you need to be on the road to recovery. As I am not a physician I am speaking metaphorically when I say you'll have to think of it just like that: a physical therapy regimen where you'll have to throw out the book on mouse usage and relearn a totally new pointing device. With a little practice, I got the hang of it. Once I got used to it, the action became second nature. Perhaps if you give it a chance and are willing to relearn how to use a mouse you may become a Trackball Mouse convert like me and so many others, and wonder why you waited so long to switch.
What really makes it so different? To fully understand the marked difference of how the Trackball mouse works, let's go back to the example of moving the conventional mouse using little lifts and scooting motions. For me, this repeated micro-action is detrimental, with the pain starting out in the palm of my hand, moving into the wrist and down the outside of my forearm, settling in my elbow before moving up the back of my tricep, into my shoulder, down my shoulder blade between my spine and radiating out into my Latissimus dorsi, then even into my glutes & hamstrings on a really bad day. It is utterly debilitating, and makes it nearly impossible to work. The Trackball mouse works completely differently because it is utterly stationary, meaning that you don't have to lift it, move it, or shake, rattle and roll it. On second thought, you do have to roll the track ball, but that's it. The design of the Trackball mouse is such that it eliminates all other extraneous movement, thus keeping my arm free from pain.
What about thumb numb? I have been using this mouse for over five years, and in my experience I do not encounter any pain or numbness in my thumb from using the mouse. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that it is the overall shape of the mouse that makes its use so comfortable. I read another review by a guy who said he had really big hands and it fit in his palm perfectly. I am just the opposite - I have relatively small hands, but I too find that the Trackball Mouse fits me like a glove. I use it with a small wrist pad which also helps. At times I've noticed that the ball gets a little sticky, but it pops out easily and the gunk wipes off in a snap, making it operate like new again.
The nature of the beast The curve of the mouse fits the natural shape of the hand when the hand is at rest. It is as if the person who designed this mouse let their hand rest in a natural position, and then designed the buttons to fall exactly where the fingers are poised. So the thumb rests on the track ball, the index finger rests on the left click, the middle finger rests on the right click, and the scroll wheel sits in between like a conventional mouse. The scroll wheel enables you to scroll within a document without having to move the cursor to the scroll bar on the side, and it also allows you to zoom in and out on Mapquest or in programs like AutoCAD. To highlight text simply hold the right click button with the index finger, then move the trackball with the thumb in the direction of the highlight. The shape of this mouse is so perfectly in tune with the human hand that once you get used to it, the conventional mouse will seem like the awkward apparatus.
Lefties The Trackball mouse is decidedly chiral, meaning that it can only be used with the right hand. How prejudiced! The only thing I can say is that if you are willing to go to the trouble of retraining yourself to use a mouse, then perhaps you lefties can take the additional step to instigate that training with the right hand as well. Perhaps if there is sufficient demand for this wonderful mouse, Logitech will start to manufacture a leftie version.
That "Other" Trackball Mouse There is another Trackball Mouse made by Logitech that for whatever reason is also called a Trackman, however it is decidedly different. To the untrained eye it appears remarkably similar - same techie gray shell with the red ball, but instead of having the trackball in the thumb position, this ball is operated with the middle finger, leaving the index finger to scroll and the thumb to both left and right click, among other customizable options for advanced web navigation. To me, this mouse is not as intuitive as the "real" one being reviewed here. First of all, the real one continues to use the index and middle finger for clicking and scrolling as in the conventional mouse, but more importantly I find it very easy to move my thumb on the Trackball mouse both from side to side for a left/right motion, as well as front to back for an up/down motion of the cursor. I find the fingers naturally tend to work together in unison, so that the finger-operated track ball triggers all the fingers to try to get in on the action, resulting in a case of "too many cooks spoiling the broth". The Marble Trackball is also similar with the click buttons to either side of the central track button. While my favorite remains the original Trackman, the best thing to do is swing by your local computer or office supply store, and try out the one that feels most comfortable to you.
Cordial The mouse comes in both a corded and cordless version. The cordless version uses a USB interface (or PS2) and radio signal make it work, and also uses a single AA battery housed within the mouse itself. Supposedly the mouse will work up to 2 meters away from the radio signal, but my experience has been that when the battery starts to weaken, the functionally of the mouse suffers. Currently both my home and office mice are the corded version which suits me fine. The corded version is also less expensive. My experience has been that once the mouse is plugged into any USB port, the new pointing device is automatically recognized without having to install any additional software (which is provided).
The icing An added bonus with which no conventional mouse can compete is that this mouse can be used anywhere. So, I have used my laptop while being the passenger in a car, with the mouse sitting either in my lap or pressed against the side of my thigh. I have used my laptop while laying in bed, and the mouse sitting in a jumble of covers. You get the picture - since the mouse does not rely on movement over a flat surface, you can take it anywhere.
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