Karen G
Logitech used to make some pretty good trackballs with some pretty good designs but not any more. Ive been using mouse alternatives for 25 years so I am quite familiar with my options. Pros: The ball is light weight and combined with their software gives you a pointer that can travel across your screen an incredible distance using very little hand effort. As opposed to Kensingtons ball which feels like it is made out of lead and will cause you hand pain after only a few hours of use. The buttons are easy to use and located well. I found that Kensingtons upper buttons were quite awkward. Cons: Scrolling is a complete fail on this. Do you see a scroll wheel? They have a universal scroll feature you can assign to a button. This soft scroll feature only works in my Firefox browser and Microsoft applications. However I dont use my personal computer for just boring office work. Zooming in and zooming out is a standard use of your non-existent scroll wheel in other applications but Logitechs scroll feature does not send the expected key codes to those applications so it will not work. I have had to code up my own zoom-in and zoom-out and assign it to keys so I can zoom in any direction in any application. Sounds like Logitech needs to hire better people. Kensington, the folks with the lead ball, have a scroll ring that works beautifully, where I dont have to write my own code to use their product. From my view point until Logitech can offer the better designed trackballs of old it looks like there are two choices. Either you get a Kensington with the lead ball which will work for some folks depending on what their hand problem is. Or you get the Logitech with a much better moving ball and just code up your own zooming processes. Why cant we have our cake and eat it too?