Try it out, some people really like trackballs

I use them exclusively at both work and home - although I don't do a lot of fps gaming. I find that my wrist doesn't get aches and pains from the constant shuffling around that you do when using a mouse in a gui environment.

Gaming wise, I couldn't say if they're better or worse. Possibly more accurate, but I would imagine slower.

I am immensely fond of my Logitech Marble Mouse, despite its odd name.

It seems to me wirelessness would be quite superfluous, though, since unlike a mouse you're not moving a cord around every time you move the cursor.

Jorpho wrote:

I am immensely fond of my Logitech Marble Mouse, despite its odd name.

It seems to me wirelessness would be quite superfluous, though, since unlike a mouse you're not moving a cord around every time you move the cursor.

Wireless mice has worse response time than wired ones. I don't know how big the difference is, but wire is always faster than wireless.

The biggest problem with wireless mice is the weight of the batteries. But it's not that big of a deal. I use a wireless mouse for a lot of gaming on my TVPC.

Trackballs give you very precise pointer control. They used to be what almost all notebooks used, before touchpads took off. Whether they are better depends on personal preference in most cases though.

One problem with trackballs is that they get dirty like ball mice. I don't really miss having to scrape sludge off of mouse rollers.

Yes, cleanliness was also a huge problem with those old notebook trackballs. But Logitech's trackballs are all optical now (and have been for quite some time), so cleanliness isn't really an issue. There are some bearings that can accumulate grime, but it takes a really long time before it makes a noticeable impact on the ball's movement since the bearings have nothing to do with the optical tracking. Since they're metal spheres, it's also completely trivial to scratch the stuff off (very much unlike mouse rollers).

Good discussion. I always wondered how the trackball will function when compared to the mouse. (My friends and I used to call these "cat" when they were abundant those days, especially those keyboard built-ins.)

I didn't get one till now, since I don't know how these will function in everyday use and didn' want to spoil my experience by getting a bad one.

The trackpad is another reason I have delayed (or even bypassed) buying one. But I still prefer an ordinary mouse over the trackpad.

Perhaps I'll get one of those Logitech "marble" trackman?

My favorite ball mouse of ALL TIME 😁 was the Razer Boomslang 1000 DPI. USB, long mouse cord and I actually preferred it over optical mice until my boomslang started getting problems I couldn't fix anymore due to old age.
I used it until it was basically used up and even then I still got that boomslang laying around somewhere 🤣

If it's a thumb trackball it will basically suck for anything but standard UI stuff. If it's a finger trackball it will be better than any ball mouse and most optical mice. I used to use a Logitech Trackman Marble for everything, and once I got used to it it was like having a Razer mouse before they even existed. Nobody stood a chance back in 1998-2000 or so.. xD

Aaaaargh....why do you guys keep tempting me to get another hardware? 😁

*Malik religiously went back to ebay hunting for a Trackman Marble! Malik also sees bunch of cash with flapping wings flying away from him!) 🤣

Last I checked they still sold the Trackman Marble on the Logitech site and others, because it's so good. They have added some unnecessary buttons, however, since I got mine.

I used a trackball for a bit back in the 486/early Pentium days, and for the most part I liked it. My old Toshiba 486SX laptop also came with one too (although not quite as flexible in usage as with a desktop version). Never seemed to give me as much hand cramps as my normal mouse today (although age could have something to do with that). Definitely prefer one over my current laptop's touchpad though. 😀