this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
8 points (90.0% liked)

Mechanical Keyboards

261 readers
11 users here now

A community for news, discussion, and showing off your mechanical keyboards

founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
8
Do you prefer trackballs, trackpads or vertical mice? (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/mechanical_keyboards
42 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] rutrum 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I tried and wanted to like a trackball. I tried a $100 logitch trackball mouse and it just felt really cheap, and the ball rattled in the socket. I have since gone with the mx master 3s, which isn't all that vertical, but its good build quality.

If anyone knows a good trackball to try let me know.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I have one of these, and it's nice. The quality is good.

However, trackballs just aren't my thing. I've been using this for about a year now, and I still haven't come to love it; I still have either accuracy issues, or if I switch it to higher res mode, it is frustratingly slow. It's only a click to switch between modes, but it's another thing I have to do... I just don't love it. But that's not a problem with the product; I think I just can't love trackballs.

The Gameball has some pros and cons:

    • high quality
    • the ball just lifts out for cleaning; you don't have to unscrew some cover plate, like in other trackballs.
    • it has a lot of buttons, and I really like the touch-sensitive scroll areas in either side of the ball
    • as I mentioned, the ball just lifts out, yet it's solid and doesn't wiggle, and there's enough restraint that it won't fall out if you turned it over. It's quite a remarkable feat of design and engineering
  • it has an LED logo, and you can cycle through the colors. If you can turn it off, I haven't found that yet, but the logo doesn't distract me so I haven't looked.
    • it's not very grabby on the desktop, and slides around. This is easily fixable, so it's a minor inconvenience
    • it needs cleaning alarmingly frequently. I think because the sensors are tiny - I mean pin-head tiny

I use it because my desk has a keyboard drawer, and like most of these things, there's not a lot of room for mousing.

The Gameball is a solid, well-built product, and if you're looking for a track ball, I think it's worth the price.