Trackball recommendations?

I prefer trackballs to mice, but lately I’ve been having a lot of trouble finding a decent one. I love my old Kensington trackball (the beige one with the huge ball and two buttons) but it’s getting less reliable, and 2 buttons isn’t optimal for X-windows. The Microsoft Trackball Explorer has a good shape, but the tiny metal rollers that support the ball gum up very easily, and even when they are clean the ball seems to have a lot of sticktion (sp?). The Logitech Marble Mouse is decent, but I prefer a larger ball. For a while I was happy with an IBM keyboard with a built-in TrackPoint but after an hour of web surfing my finger gets sore.

So, any fellow die-hard trackball users found a decent one lately?

I swear by the logitech trackman… this one’s a few years old and has seen a lot of abuse but I could never go back to those huge kensingtons! We played pool with those things in college mumble years ago. With carpal tunnel the small thumb ball limits stresses on my wrist. (It did take a bit of getting used to but so did the split keyboard and again I will never go back :slight_smile:

I started using trackballs with a Logitech Marble Man+, then I used a Microsoft Trackball Explorer for a couple years, now I have this Logitech Optical Trackman.

I like it lots.

That Kensington cue-ball was my favorite “traditional” thing until I got into pens, specifically the Wacom Graphire.

How many buttons do you need? Kensington still makes big trackballs, and some of them appear to have lots of buttons and even scroll wheels.

I use the trackman wheel. Smaller ball, but it’s optical so no rollers to get gummed up.

-lv

My Kensington trackball, which I bought some time around 1997, still works great (provided I clean the rollers from time to time). It has 4 buttons, and I think they even may make one now that has a scroll wheel. I’ve tried many trackballs but never found one I liked anywhere near as much as the Kensington.

Thanks for all the recommendations! I’ll try out the Kensington and the Logitech.