Great choice bro - though not much options in the market to begin with.
I've been using trackballs for years and I'll never give up using them. Can't understand how it went out of fashion when it clearly hasn't been marketed in the right manner for better acceptance.
Meanwhile, another casual option to look into is this:-
First Looks: 3M Ergonomic EM550 Mouse - HardwareZone.com.sg
thanks sir!
yes i do agree that trackballs did go out of fashion for awhile... manufacturers just stopped producing them - logitech releases models very sparingly...
my dad used to love trackballs - so using a trackball now in some nerdy kind of way reminds me of him... he passed on a few years back btw and its really him that passed on the DIY bug to me...
interesting link on the stick mouse - haven't tried one of those yet
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anyway back to the mini review
>> my transition just took about a day, please remember that i have used trackman marble a decade ago...
>> my non tech savvy office mates literally cannot use it... they revert to using their index finger to control the ball -- they have never seen a trackball before
>> the m570 has a laser at its heart... they say that it is 1600dpi but it defaults to 800dpi -- i have not found a way to change dpi settings
>> i use a 2000dpi mouse at work and a 5700dpi mouse at home -- speed wise i would say that i'm an 'advanced' user... the m570 feels definitely slower than a 2000dpi mouse but by not much
>> accuracy -- well this is the rub... again i'm used to a 1000hz USB polling rates / the m570 is limited to the standard 125hz USB polling rate. This means that when using the m570 your cursor arrow 'moves' in a less granular level and it makes it 'harder' to target a specific point in the screen.
work wise, just a mild irritant when i have to resize / crop images or target a specific e-mail (i'm using a business ultraportable at work, with a piss poor 1024p screen)
// off topic rant --- do company's realize that IT savvy people have better machines at home and would rather work from their home computer... only large progressive companies have Bring Your Own Computer policies //
>> loss of macros / m570 supports keystroke mapping but not full-on macros -- gaming mice have the ability to record a series of keys and map it to single button... example work related application is like in excel i have a macro mapped to a side button that does 'paste values' which is a 2-3 click affair without the macro
>> but the most important thing of all is that my right (mousing) hand wrist pain has just disappeared!! so this alone makes the purchase worth while...
>> just have to worry about my left hand now... i have a bad habit where it hovers in alt+f4 (to close open e-mails, when i speed read)... the m570 has forward & backward buttons that can be used to move between e-mails (as do gaming mice) but i still have this habit where i speed read e-mails using the keyboard.. right hand on arrow keys & enter and then left hand on the alt+f4
