deskthority

Trackball aficionados: on the quest for your perfect trackball, you might have ended up with a couple unused and/or detested trackballs in a drawer. I'm interested in trying out finger or thumb trackballs, preferably with scroll wheel of some kind. Let me know what you're ready to part with!

I've got a probably at least 5 year old Kensington Expert wireless w/Bluetooth and older Kensington Orbit (the one with the blue ball and scroll ring). I'd just give you the Orbit, if you pay shipping. The Expert? $40 + shipping. If you're interested, PM me. I have to find the dongles. I'd also do trades. I like trades.

I'm in the US. If you're wondering, I use a CST and an Elecom Huge. Not at the same time.

How do you compare the scroll rings on the two Kensingtons? I hear that the Orbit's is smoother than the Expert's.

The CST and Elecom HUGE both look pretty top notch, and seem to fit in entirely different categories. How is it with that scroll wheel way up there on the CST?

derp

Yes, I read that a while back, and now having done my research it carries more weight re-reading it. Thanks for the link. The community seems to have as varied opinions as there are trackballs. Also seems relatively common that people pine for the trackballs that went out of production a long time ago!

BadCommand wrote: 22 Feb 2021, 05:38 How do you compare the scroll rings on the two Kensingtons? I hear that the Orbit's is smoother than the Expert's.

The CST and Elecom HUGE both look pretty top notch, and seem to fit in entirely different categories. How is it with that scroll wheel way up there on the CST?

The blue ball Orbit -- no snickering -- is kinda, well, not precise. It kinda floats a bit. I don't have that problem at all with the Expert. Of course, the Expert also lists for 2.5x the Orbit, so it should be considerably better.

I have large hands. The scroll wheel on the CST/X-Keys is easy for me to reach without a problem. IIRC, I just sat down and started using it. The Elecom has a thumb-operated scroll and I kinda dislike it. However, it's on my #2 computer that I mainly watch videos on, so no big loss.

I have the button that's right over the scroll wheel mapped to left click and all the ones on the right side to right click. The others I do basically zero with. I don't need 50 buttons on my mouse. If I need macros, I'll program them on my iPad macro app.

I'm not a fan of thumb-operated trackballs, but that's more me than anything else. I would like to try a Ploopy, but the CST/X-Keys works as good or better than the Microsoft Trackball Explorers trackballs I've had and that the Ploopy is mostly a copy of. I'm sort of interested in trying the Game Ball, not that I game or anything, because it looks nice, the scroll looks interesting, and I rather like having a more exposed trackball. Hey, I used a Logitech Trackman Marble for a long while. The unfortunate thing is they're also close to $140 US.

I can speak positively for the Adesso T50. It's comfortably sized and smooth, although perhaps not as smooth as the Expert. It also has a normal scroll wheel and sells for about a third less than the Expert.

hellothere wrote: 13 Mar 2021, 02:35 I have large hands. The scroll wheel on the CST/X-Keys is easy for me to reach without a problem. IIRC, I just sat down and started using it. The Elecom has a thumb-operated scroll and I kinda dislike it.

I use an Elecom as well (the DEFT model), and I have to say that the thumb-operated scroll wheel becomes tiring. It feels like an unnatural way to use ones thumb.
Since I like other aspects of the device, I chose to map one of the buttons to "scroll", such that when it is held down, the ball itself acts as a scrolling device. This also has the advantage of allowing for easy horizontal scrolling.