I own these trackballs:
- Kensington Expert
- Elecom HUGE
- Elecom DEFT Pro
- Elecom DEFT
Preface: I have big palms and short wide fingers. People with long spider hands will probably have an easier time finding a trackball that works for them.
So far, I like the Kensington the best, as long as you have the wrist rest to go with it. The ball is huge, rolls smoothly, doesn't seem to get gunked up with finger dirt and dust so quickly, and falls out easily for when you do want to clean off the bearings (I still do it once a day). Some people rag on the scroll wheel for its loudness and scratchy feeling, but it's nicely tactile and I appreciate it. The ridged plastic on the scroll wheel can trap dirt and dust, so keep your hands and your desk clean unless you want to be picking it out with a toothpick. Most people here are probably already quite clean around their precious keyboards, so it's probably not an issue. It's a little hard to reach the button on the top right, and it's hard to reach the button on the top left without moving the mouse pointer a little by brushing the ball. But the overall experience is so damn comfortable that these things don't bother me, and I don't use those buttons that often anyway. The Kensington programming software is easy to use and installed on Windows 7 without difficulty. Make sure you get the palm/wrist rest included with this trackball.
I
want to love the Elecom HUGE but I don't. My hands are too small. The left-click button is too far away, forcing me to stretch my thumb. It reminds me of the Ergodox - full of nice ideas, probably perfect for someone with big hands or long fingers, but not for me. It's reprogrammable, but I've never been able to get the Elecom software to recognize that I have an Elecom mouse plugged in, even though it's obviously plugged in and working. So I'm stuck with the default configuration, and it doesn't work for me. I also need to hold my hand very far up on the ball in order to reach the default right-click button. The scroll wheel is very far back, so when I'm holding my hand up forward the wheel is positioned somewhere in the middle of my thumb. It's too far back on my thumb to be easy for scrolling, so scrolling is actually uncomfortable on my already-stretched thumb. I actually still have very sensitive thumb joints after using an Ergodox for too long and giving myself some kind of mild RSI. I try to avoid thumb keys on keyboards now, and this mouse irritates those joints. The mouse is much more usable if you can prop it up at an angle, but I don't have a good wedge-shaped object for this purpose. Maybe a thin hard book might be stable enough. The ball itself is very smooth and pleasant to roll. However the fit is much tighter than the Kensington and as a result it is
very susceptible to dirt and dust infiltration. Even after a few hours of use, the ball sticks a little and precise movements become impossible. Cleaning often is annoying. The Elecom does have nice features, like a switch on the bottom to control DPI and a toggle between low-power and high-power wireless modes. It also has a large palm rest area and comfortable neoprene-like padding. I got the wireless version and had no connectivity issues using it on low-power mode.
The Elecom DEFT Pro is a more comfortable design. Just about all the other problems with size and hand positioning are solved, in my opinion. The ball-rolling experience is not as smooth as the HUGE or the Kensington Expert, probably just because the ball is smaller and has less heft/mass/inertia. For that reason I'm not about to give up my Expert any time soon. But it's much more portable, and it has almost all the same buttons as the HUGE except for one extra function button. I really appreciate the fact that it's both wired and wireless, especially with the detachable micro-USB cable. The DEFT Pro also has nice accents like a soft, textured surface (not as squishy as the padding on the HUGE), contoured buttons on the right side for your fingers to sit in, and a cool bronze accent color on the scroll wheel. Being much smaller than the HUGE, it won't fully support your palm, and I highly recommend a separate wrist rest to go with it. You can't really "float" over this trackball because of the default button position, unless you reprogram them. The ball fit is very tight like the HUGE, but I haven't noticed quite as much sticking. The Elecom software won't recognize this one either. Also, my unit is defective (it stops responding intermittently) and I need to send it back to Amazon for a refund.
The Elecom DEFT is nice and compact, with some useful Fn buttons right next to the ball. It's very light and portable. The version I got was wired-only, with a fixed cable that I wish was detachable (to make it even more portable). The ball is lighter and smaller, more like something you'd see on a thumb trackball. It's better to use this one with just your index finger. The right side is contoured for your fingers to rest in, but because of the small size it lacks palm support and you pretty much need a wrist rest to use it comfortably, again because the way the buttons are positioned, making "floating" difficult. I use the Handstands bean bag wrist rest
https://www.amazon.com/Handstands-Beaded-Ergonomic-Keyboard-Mouse/dp/B00M3BCPPC. The ball seems less sensitive to dirt than the other Elecom models. I like it, but the DEFT Pro is just a nicer product all around. This one is the lightest and smallest, so if that matters a lot to you go with this one. Otherwise the DEFT Pro is your best bet for traveling.
In conclusion: The Kensington Expert is great, but the scroll ring is polarizing and you might not like it. I personally love it because the ball-rolling experience is just so damn pleasant. Get the Elecom HUGE if you have big hands and/or long fingers, and don't mind cleaning it often. Get the Deft PRO if you don't want a massive ball, or you want something more portable. Get the Deft is you want to save some money and/or you care about your trackball being as small and light as possible without sacrificing features or comfort.
I hope to try a CST eventually so I can add it to this review.