@robflop I've got that too and used it for a bit. I went back to the Logitech M570 though, more comfortable to me. Hope this suits you better than it did me!
@trinsec@qoto.org This is my first trackball, personally - been curious and wanted to try one for many months so I finally bit the bullet thanks to christmas money now. I'm honestly surprised that it's actually not a super weird feeling to use this one, was expecting that to be a lot more pronounced. Reminds me a lot of a laptop trackpad - so much that I keep wanting to press the ball to click. I was thinking I'd use this one as a test for whether I like / can get used to trackballs, and exchange it for a Kensington Expert if so, since I'd like to have more than 2 buttons, coming from a Logitech MX Master mouse.
Are there any tips you could give regarding trackballs in general, maybe?
@robflop Well, this one you have got now is a bit 'generic' to the feel. It's not shaped particularly to your hand since it's universally left or right handed.
That's what kinda put me off eventually, since the M570 is better shaped for my hand. The Kensington Expert doesn't look appealing to me either. The orb ring was initially a nice touch (no pun intended) but it's too smooth, I kept overscrolling in the hotbars in games so that wasn't very practical in the end, alas. I don't know what the Expert is like.
The M570 itself has still a fair enough price point. I'd eventually want to try out the Logitech MX ERGO, but it's way too expensive now.
If you want to experiment more after initial tests are likable, and you've got access to this brand, maybe you could take a peek at the ELECOM trackballs. I wouldn't know where to get that brand in my country, but they look appealing and cheap and varied (thumb or index finger balls). And definitely multiple buttons, that's a must for me as well.
If you like trackballs after this one, you can indeed try that Kensington Expert if you like the ambidextrous potential of that trackball. Or if you want one shaped to your (right) hand, the M570 (or maybe even ELECOMs).
You'll have to decide for yourself if you want the balls to be finger operated or thumb operated. The advantage of the latter is that the rest of your fingers are immediately on the buttons, that maybe matters a bit if you do action gaming.
Do /not/ get the Speedlink Aptico though. I've tested that out as well, and it seems to be made for a very misshapen hand. If I kept using it my hand would end up all wonky. :P It was cheap but totally unusable.
Hope this was informative and that I didn't end up rambling too much. ;)
@trinsec@qoto.org Thank you very much! It's definitely all useful information. When I was researching before I did indeed see the Logitech ones around (such as the MX Ergo), but was put off by the high price just to test if I like it or not. I did recently find the M570 as well, and I think they actually just released a successor to it, called the M575 for around 50 bucks?
What I like about the ambidextrous ones is similar to a perk laptop trackpads have - that you can operate it with either finger, since the ball is centered (or in the case of laptops, the entire field tracks), rather than it being set on your thumb like with thumb-controlled ones.
Will definitely look into ELECOM as well, thank you for the recommendation!
So far, selecting text via left click and drag seems to be incredibly difficult for me, though considering i've used this trackball for maybe 30 minutes now, I'm sure that will get better over time, haha.
@robflop Oh jeez, there's the M575 now? Haha, well last year I bought a nice deal of 4 M570s so I don't need to look for a new trackball anytime soon. :D
It seems to look similar to the M570 so you could indeed go for the M575 for probably the same experience. At most 50 euro, so around 50 bucks, sounds about right.
And what you experience with the Orbit is also my experience; It's not easy to control the ball and press the buttons at the same time like for dragging. I suspect it is because the push direction is a bit wrong for this. I often need to call in the help of my other hand to perform that stunt.
As a gamer, the Orbit quickly fell out of favor with me. It is also why I'm apprehensive of trying out the Expert, because it's more expensive than the MX Ergo (100 vs 90 euro), and it's probably got the same issue with the button push direction.
If you really want to get the Expert, I'd suggest buying it off a store with a 2-week return policy or similar. Then you could try it out. But those kind of trackballs are definitely different from the Logitech ones.
Oh I remember something. If you really want to keep it ambidextrous, maybe take a peek at the Logitech Marble Trackball, if that's still available. Doesn't seem to have a scroll wheel from what I can see, so that might be a huge drawback. But the push direction there seems to make more sense than the Kensingtons. There might be other brands with a similar setup, but I don't know them off top of my head.
My favorite trackball ever was the Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan. It was finger operated (so not thumb controlled), had plenty of buttons, was made for the right hand (so not ambidextrous) and... isn't made anymore. I don't know why Logitech axed that line. :(
@robflop Ah right, EU law for the win. :D Hi neighbour! ;)
Lemme know if you manage to get an ELECOM one from a viable source. It seemed to me back then that it needs importing. After a quick looking around, https://www.trackballmouse.org seems to be an useful site for this. Looks like Amazon also has more options available as well. It was real hard to find (non-Japanese) info about this brand a few years back. ELECOM has so many options available, I wish there was an European shop selling them.
My favorite trackball, that Cordless Optical Trackman, was finger-controlled and was my gaming trackball until it broke and I couldn't buy new ones anymore. The main mouse button was pressed with the thumb there, so that wasn't so bad in my memory. It was also the first button to break though... :P I assume that's what you meant with a more traditional mouse shape?
@trinsec@qoto.org Yea, that's what I meant. Very interesting to hear, thank you.
Definitely keeping my eyes out for ELECOM, and doing a bit of research on that I think.
@trinsec@qoto.org I'm from germany so thankfully all online store orders have a reason-free 14-day return period mandated by law. That's why "exchanging" the Orbit for the Expert is viable for me in the first place, yea.
I'm curious about the Logitech ones, but based on my short experience with the Orbit I don't imagine I would like a thumb-controlled trackball, so maybe I will give the ELECOMs a closer look, if available here.
Do you know if it's easier to drag-select text with a finger-controlled trackball that's got more of a traditional mouse-shape?