Like most people, I was a mouse user for most of my computing career. Then I discovered trackballs, and my life changed forever. I vastly prefer a trackball over a traditional mouse. I want to talk about why.

Accuracy

I’m more accurate with a trackball. I know that this will not be true for everyone, but once I got good with my tracker, I found that I had more control and more accuracy when I used it.

Don’t get me wrong, it took me a lot of practice to get that to be true. It wasn’t done right out of the box. It was almost like I had to build the muscles to get it right.

But once I got there, I actually found it harder to use a mouse because I was no longer accurate using one. Part of it is your entire hand moves around with a mouse, while only your fingers move when you use a trackball. This means your fingers are in control versus your entire wrist. You’re also reliant on the sensor on the bottom of the mouse and the surface of your desk, whereas your tracker relies only on the sensors tracking the ball. It is one less variable.

Control

I have a large desk now, but for the longest time I only had a small pullout for my mouse and keyboard. This meant I often had to retread ground with my mouse to cover long distances. With a tracker, that problem went away, since the chassis doesn’t move, just the ball.

This also meant I had more control over the cursor. I could fling the ball and move the cursor over vast distances much easier than moving the same distance with a traditional mouse.

The Trackball Downsides

Your balls get dirty. So you need to clean it. I don’t find this significantly different from cleaning your mouse, but I have found that I have to clean my Elecom Huge much more often. Because it doesn’t move, it tends to collect debris and dust much more than my old MX Master 3.

The other big downside is that some people just can’t get used to the transition. The use of a mouse is ingrained into their muscle memory, and they can’t shake it. For many people, trackballs can hurt to use. The extra control I mentioned above can actually lead to pain since all of your movement is done with just your fingers. So if your RSI is located in your fingers instead of your wrist, a tracker might not be the right choice for you.

Also, there is gaming to talk about. For a lot of people, in fact most people probably, they find that gaming with a trackball is a horrible experience. For me, it’s fine. I’m very accurate, and I’m also not a good game player in any scenario, so any downside of the trackball isn’t something I care about. But for those true gam3rs out there, trackballs are just not going to cut it.

It’s Personal.

I seriously think everyone should give both a finger trackball (a tracker that uses your index and middle fingers) and a thumb trackball (uses your thumb) a try. I say try both, because some people like one over the other. I, personally, have found much more comfort with a finger tracker than a thumb tracker. But I know people who like thumb trackballs better.

For everyone, though, there is a right choice. For me, I can’t go back to a regular mouse. I’m just not good at using them anymore, and I find them tedious and exhausting to use. But I’m not everyone. If you’re thinking of making the switch, I highly recommend keeping an open mind, because you may find that you just can’t make the switch. Or you may be like me and never look back.