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Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman (USB/PS/2)

Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman (USB/PS/2)

List Price: $59.99
Your Price: $47.89
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very comfortable after a few days
Review: This device is very comfortable to use after a few days adapting. Movement is very precise, BUT probably not suitable for 3D gaming. (except sniping :^) Adjustment is possible, but result is either too sensitive for useful gaming, or far too much movement needed. (IE, roll ball 3 times to turn 90 degrees) Luckily for gamers, under Windows it is very happy being plugged in USB at the same time as a PS2 or USB mouse, both work simultaneously.

Vertical/horizontal orientation is VERY far off out-of-box, (about 30 degrees, but feels like more at first) but can be adjusted under WINDOWS ONLY. (If you are a Linux user, you should probably pass, Linux mouse drivers don't currently offer orientation adjustments or extra [>3] button assignments) [Maybe some consumer pressure can convince Logitech to spare a few programmer-hours to add this support to the Open-Source driver? :^) Worth a few emails a week...]

Take placement warnings seriously:
The receiver is VERY sensitive to nearby metal. As an example, I placed the receiver on top of my steel computer housing, only 8 inches from the trackball, (right underneath it!!) and it was unreliable. I placed the receiver on my wooden desk, but on top of a few CDs, and it was unreliable at 12 inches. I turned the receiver UPSIDE-DOWN in either of those locations and I get 3-4 foot range! Obviously the antenna is located in the bottom of the receiver, which is IMHO a design flaw, but easy to overcome. When placed on wooden desk with no metal within 4 inches, I get up to 8 foot range before movement starts to stutter from transmission errors. Quite acceptable. Ability to mount on a vertical desk side would have been a very handy addition, however.

The rollers inside are VERY susceptible to dirt accumulation, and I find myself cleaning them AT LEAST once a day, but this is a very simple process. (push the ball up from the bottom, rub the three micro-ball-bearings with a fingertip, blow loosened crud out, drop the ball back in - about 7 seconds total)

All in all, apart from desktop wobble and a sticking button (...) and limited Linux configurability, I'm quite pleased with this trackball.

I would recommend it to anyone with limited desk space for a mouse, wanting/needing precise cursor control, and/or just wanting to try a trackball. There IS a 'learning curve' since you use fingertips to control motion, thumb for 'left-mouse' and two other buttons, but RMB is located to the right of the ball (not clear in pictures) and you can remap functions of all eight (that's right, 8) buttons in whatever way suits you.

j

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: What a ball!
Review: This is a great track ball, once you get used to the awkward button configurations. Especially useful on a small or crowded desk when space is scarce. I've had mine for several months now and never a problem.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Best thing available at time of purchase
Review: This is a quality product and Logitech make excellent trackballs. The only reason I bought this technology was because I could not find a bluetooth trackball. I have a bluetooth keyboard and it is much more responsive and you don't have to worry about roving too far from your computer or where the signal receiver is. Having said all that, this is a great option for a desktop computer. For a laptop its kind of a hassle.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Trackball I Have Ever Used
Review: This is an extremely comfortable and accurate trackball. It is very well designed and I like having the left mouse button on the side.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Ball is too small
Review: This looked good in the store so I bought one to replace my Logitech Marble FX which had a broken button switch. Nuts. I ended up with a Microsoft TrackBall Explorer. The ball is still not comfortably large like the FX, but the FX can't be fixed, so....

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Love my trackball
Review: When my first optical cordless trackball quit working after I dumped soda pop on it, I loved it so much that I bought from Amazon.com when none of the local stores had it. I even bought my mother-in-law one and she loves hers too.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A previous MS Intellimouse trackball user review
Review: When my old mouse died I tried to find something similar. Like the intellimouse this mouse can be controlled by your index finger but it is a lot more sensitive. Two fingers work better unless you slow down the response setting.

I love that I can left click with the thumb still but it will take a bit getting used to doing a right click with the pinky. Still, when I want to do that it reacts easily without strain on the hand.

The best feature of this mouse is being able to 'advance to' or 'retreat from' viewed files without having to search for a back button on my browser. Not only is it faster, but it leaves your cursor just where you expect it to be when you get there. When you are in a database this simplifies the movement back and forth to the same navigation location. It has a couple of other nice features the intelli didn't as well such as 'quick lock and scroll' copying which gives you more control where to stop and start.

Ergonomically the mouse feels good but I wouldn't rank it as high as the Intellimouse for my own small hand. I find the ball bigger than is really necessary and the scroll wheel feels a bit farther away from where my index finger wants to be but that is the only reason for a less than a perfect 5 stars.

No wires makes it a dream as I no longer have to extract my mouse from my telephone cord to take a call.
Software loaded without problems on my ME machine (after I ignored ME concerns about missing drivers that were on the disk still to be loaded) and the install instructions could be followed by a 3 year old, though a two step install (basic mouse first then the trackball)was kinda strange.

All in all, a good mouse that I will be happy with...hopefully as long as my intelli lasted. The real bonus is that visiting relatives take one look at it and say "do you have another computer I can use?"

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: It should work for this kind of money!
Review: Wow, I have a logitech optical mouse and it works flawlessly. I bought this and quickly noticed that the scroll wheel doesn't always work. Sometimes if you scroll down, even at VERY close range, nothing happens. Then if you scroll back up it'll go down, or if you scroll down again it'll go down twice as far.
I sent it back and Amazon's great service sent me a new one. It has the same problem. I count eight buttons on this thing, the software is good, but not great. One unreliable feature ruins it for me though. I'd keep it but the scroll wheel just keeps making me mad; work darnit! No scrollwheel would be better than one that works sometimes or in the opposite direction that you're trying to scroll.


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