They are fairly sizeable, so you can pretty much click anywhere in that quadrant and you'll get a result. The bottom two are the traditional left and right mouse clicks. The whole surface makes up four individual buttons. The ball is housed in a solid platform that is about the size of a CD case. The scroll wheel is also very easy to get an accurate, single click for moving single lines at a time. The smallest of movements can be picked up, which is great for image editing. One thing you very quickly notice when compared to a mouse, is how accurate you can be.
This works really well with a reassuring click that isn't too obtrusive. Whereas moving the wheel forwards or backwards will move the cursor around, twisting the ball - like you would a volume dial - scrolls up or down. Thankfully, Kensington has thought of this. We'd struggle if we were given a computer without a scroll wheel, or track pad with a scroll zone. Not only visually appealing, this makes for great tracking accuracy. The ball is highly polished, with a red metallic finish. It floats on three very small beads that provide an almost frictionless experience. To start with it uses optical tracking, so you don't have problems with a dirty ball, or sticking, catching, rollers. The SlimBlade TrackBall from Kensington has certainly made some improvements on the original design. Flip the mouse upside down, make the ball larger and you pretty much have a track ball. The old mice run a ball across the surface of the desk and rollers detected movement. The principle is very similar to the old style ball mice, those unreliable things that were welcomed with replacement by modern optical mice. Just like the IBM ThinkPad's nipple style controller, there are a few die hard fans out there that live by trackballs. TrackBalls are almost a thing of the past, making very few appearances on a modern desktop PC and mainly seen in those poorly built internet kiosks at airports. When you make a purchase using links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Readers like you help support Pocket-lint.
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