Logitech Trackman Wheel Optical

This is the second Logitech Trackman that I've purchased. Both work perfectly and were installed in less than 3 minutes. The only consideration is: do your hands shake slightly - or more? I have a mild medical condition that causes my fingers to shake slightly when doing intricate work. Occasionally, this causes problems when trying to get the computer's pointer on a small object. Overall, the Logitech Trackman is a terrific product.

I aboslutely love this product. I have been using logitech for years. I have a rat and he chewed through the cord on my old one so I got a new one. I think everyone should get this mouse! Its so easy to use especially if you have a laptop. Also the cord is pretty long. Another thing...that ball in picture is gray but in reality it is red.

It is a great product, i'm very happy with this buy. It has an exellent technician support and no problems with the installations.

I've used Logitech thumb trackballs since about 1999. As the other reviewers have said, it has saved my hand and arm from great pain. I own about 4 of the Trackman Marble Wheels (discontinued) and now one of these. Everything about it is perfect, EXCEPT that the ball pops right out of the top every time you drop it or even if it just gets turned over while moving (in a laptop case for example). I wish Logitech had made the ball just a little more snug or put a ring around it like on the old Trackman.

I see that I'm hardly unique here. Like others who've posted reviews already, I bought my Logitech Trackman Marble back in 1995 or so when I bought my first Windows PC.

So when I went GUI, like many of you, it seemed to me like a totally dumb idea to move a mouse around a desktop. It made much more sense to me to keep your hand on a stationary peripheral.

At the time, the Logitech Trackman Marble was the only game in town if you wanted a trackball. This simple inexpensive little peripheral has outlived countless computers and has served me well for over ten years! Wow!

So I was beside myself when some books on the shelf above my computer slipped and knocked a cup of Pepsi over my keyboard and Trackman last week. The keyboard? Eh! Keyboards are the proverbial dime a dozen these days. Big whoop. But my Trackman! I was frozen in terror. Do they still make trackballs? Or have mice totally won over? Or are they all ambidextrous now with the ball in the middle to appease lefties? I'm so used to using my thumb to roll the ball that I don't think I could get used to an ambidextrous trackball (and contrary to what others have said, I'm so comfortable using this type of trackball that I can frag in Unreal with the best of 'em using my thumb to aim with)!

Amazon.com to the rescue! Much to my relief, Logitech still sells a Trackman trackball. The styling is a little more modern and "swoopy," but the design is essentially unchanged in 10+ years--and that's a GOOD thing! I ordered it from Amazon last week and find it fits me as well as my prior Trackman Marble. The Trackman Wheel is a wee bit smaller than the Marble and the mouse buttons are a little closer together--not enough to see, but my hand feels the difference. But that's no big deal, I got used to it after just a few minutes. Also, it comes with a driver CD, but Windows recognized it out of the box without having to install the CD--even the wheel. That's a good thing too because I don't like installing unnecessary software onto my PC if I don't have to. I can't praise Logitech enough! Highly recommended for anyone addicted to a thumb type trackball!

Incidentally, after my new Trackman arrived and I breathed a sigh of relief that it is essentially the same design, I performed a little "surgery" on my dead Trackman. Removing the four little screws from underneath it, I disassembled it. Before you read on, don't try this on any working device--this was a shot in the dark on a device that I had given up for dead anyway. With the ball out and the screws removed, the shell pops apart easily and the tiny circuit board lifts right out--no prying necessary or risking snapping little prongs off to lift it out. Being careful not to break any of the delicate wire jumpers, I wiped the circuit board down with a damp cloth to get all the Pepsi gunk off. Then after it dried, I wiped it down again with a Q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol to remove any residual moisture. The top and bottom plastic shell, as well as the ball, I ran under the hot water faucet for a few minutes (there's no metal parts). Letting it all dry out overnight (the slightest moisture on any electronic circuit will totally fry it upon giving it power), I reassembled it the next morning. Guess what? I plugged it back into the USB port, and it works perfectly! Better, actually, than it had worked for a long time. Being optical, the Trackman Marble never lost its precision over the years the way ordinary mice do after a year or so, but I was never really able to clean those little metal prongs in the ball socket very well, and the ball sometimes felt "sticky" even after cleaning the ball socket out. Picking the gunk off those little metal prongs in the ball socket with my fingernails never got it as clean as the "overhaul" it just received. So now I have two working Trackmans, both seemingly in brand new condition!

So I'm going to go back to using my old Trackman Marble and put the new Trackman back in its box and save it for when my old one does eventually wear out.