Don't lose your marble! (Logitech Trackman Marble Wheel)

Member Name: richard_richard

Product:	Logitech Trackman Marble Wheel
Date:	19/04/04 (320 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very accurate, Sleek design

Disadvantages: Control not as instinctive as a mouse

I recently came across this trackball buried away in a box in our IT department. It was obviously a peripheral that had been purchased with good intentions to begin with and then later discarded!

In a quiet moment in the office I decided to connect it up and see if I preferred the way it worked to a normal mouse.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with how a trackball works, they are a little bit different to the way you use a mouse. Instead of moving the whole unit to move the cursor, you just move the ball itself. Anyway I will put this into more detail later in the review.

After some enquiries I found out that this trackball had been purchased for our Surveyors department about a year ago for £25.99.


Specs
The unit itself is slightly larger than a standard mouse. This is because it has to accommodate a trackball and provide a sturdy base for the user?s hand to rest on. The trackball sits on top of the unit at the far end. On either side of the trackball sit the left and right hand selection buttons, just like on a standard mouse.

You rest the palm of your hand on the unit and this brings the trackball into reach of your fingers. The buttons are also within easy reach.

The trackball is connected to the computer by a reasonably long cord which has a USB connection at the end. Also provided is an adapter that plugs into the USB connector on the end of the cord, and this allows you to run the trackball through the PS/2 mouse connection on the computer.

The unit is dark grey in colour with the trackball a see-through red colour. It feels pretty sturdy and robust so shouldn?t fall apart in the hand!


In Use
The trackball can be plugged straight into the computer and should start working immediately without the need for any drivers being loaded onto the PC. I had this unit working with both Windows NT and Windows 2000, so I can?t imagine you would have many problems running it
on the other recent Windows operating systems.

As stated above, this trackball works in a different manner to a normal mouse. It is very tempting to try to push the unit around the desk at first! Then you realise that this is not going to move the cursor on the screen as you need to move the trackball. This feels slightly strange to begin with as you push and spin the trackball backwards and forwards to move the cursor. When moving the trackball I have to say that it put me in mind of my misspent youth in the arcades, playing trackball controlled games like Missile Command! Ah happy days!

I did find when using this trackball that the buttons are slightly hard to press than on a normal mouse. For me it does not feel as instinctive as the buttons are further away and you have to take your fingers off the trackball to press them. I suppose after a bit of use you would find this action a little easier to do, but I found that I much preferred the way the buttons are under your fingers at all times on an ordinary mouse!

After spending the day using this trackball to control my computer, I was not convinced that it offered any advantages over a standard mouse. I was quite glad to end the experiment and return to my faithful optical mouse!

Reliability wise, the trackball certainly felt sturdy and should be able to take a certain amount of punishment. It was not used for long by the person who ordered it and has sat in a box in our IT department for a good while, so I can?t really comment on how reliability or long it should last!


Conclusion
I have concluded that these trackballs are a bit of an acquired taste! After spending a short while using one I can say that it is definitely not for me. I can understand that for certain work requiring great accuracy, such as Computer Aided Design (CAD) work, or photo editing, these trackballs would be very useful. However for standard computer use I think most people would be much
better off with a normal mouse.

I would recommend this trackball for those who need highly accurate mouse control, but I think that most of us are probably better off with our normal mouse!

Thanks for reading!

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