The Ball BT is now $33 at Mac-Pro.com, down from its original $69 price. Quite a bargain if you ask me.
http://www.mac-pro.com/The-Ball-Blue...=2&category=22
or Amazon.com's Marketplace: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...700185-0207112
Here's my mini-review based on my own experience after having the trackball for 2 days. I bought it from Mac-Pro through Amazon.com, which you might prefer to use if you have an account there.
I know a lot of people who use trackballs, and a lot of people who use notebooks. They're kind of the perfect combination... or at least they could be. You could go completely wireless and not need any special mousing surface. Unfortunately almost every wireless trackball out there requires a proprietary USB dongle which can easily get in the way for a notebook user, and the few RF wireless trackballs I've tried have a noticeable lag time, dropped signals, etc.
This is the ONLY Bluetooth trackball on the market. I got mine, not really expecting much from it considering what I'd heard about the design and the build quality, and in some ways it's true that the design could be better, but I was pleasantly surprised after using it for a couple of hours.
It tracks quite well and is very responsive, but only up to a point. If you spin the ball too quickly it can't keep up. I've read another review where they replaced the ball with a similar sized Logitech ball that improved this aspect. Will have to try that. You can always adjust sensitivity/acceleration to reduce the need to spin the ball quickly.
The design and placement of the buttons and scroll wheels is probably my biggest beef with this trackball. The scroll wheel's placement requires you to take your fingers off of the ball. I wish they had gone instead with a Kensington style scroll ring. The buttons take some getting used to as well. You basically rock the whole outer casing left or right to perform left or right clicks. It can be tough at first to click on small icons or buttons because your fingers will want to follow your left or right clicking direction, but after some practice I learned to get over this tendency. Still, I would have preferred conventional buttons, as well as more of them. There are only 2, plus the scroll wheel. The clicking sound is also quite loud, which may or may not be an issue for you. The ergonomics of this trackball leave something to be desired. There is no wrist support unlike my MS Trackball Explorer. As mentioned before the scroll wheel placement doesn't contribute to its ergonomics at all either. The upside of this is that it can be used either left- or right-handed, unlike many trackballs which are made for right-handers only.
There is a USB charging cradle included to recharge the trackball's NiMH batteries (also included). It basically consists of two metal prongs the correspond to metal leads on the underside of the trackball. When you need to charge up you place the trackball on the cradle so that the leads contact the prongs, but there is no locking mechanism to keep it in place, so it can become disconnected from the charging prongs quite easily. The cradle has a blue LED light to tell you when it's connected properly and blinks when charging and steady on when fully charged. Charging seems to be quick, usually between 15-30 minutes for a routine fill-up, I don't know how long it would take to recharge near-dead batteries though.
Lastly the battery life seems to be excellent. If the Bluetooth battery meter is to be believed I only used 7% power in about 2 hours of mouse intensive gaming.
Summary:
Pros: rechargeable, Bluetooth, small, stylish, very responsive (no wireless lag at all), easy to set up (no drivers to install), excellent battery life, great value at $33.
Cons: scroll wheel placement, rocker button design, ergonomics, can't handle extremely rapid movements, charging cradle connection/fit
http://www.mac-pro.com/The-Ball-Blue...=2&category=22
or Amazon.com's Marketplace: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...700185-0207112
Here's my mini-review based on my own experience after having the trackball for 2 days. I bought it from Mac-Pro through Amazon.com, which you might prefer to use if you have an account there.
I know a lot of people who use trackballs, and a lot of people who use notebooks. They're kind of the perfect combination... or at least they could be. You could go completely wireless and not need any special mousing surface. Unfortunately almost every wireless trackball out there requires a proprietary USB dongle which can easily get in the way for a notebook user, and the few RF wireless trackballs I've tried have a noticeable lag time, dropped signals, etc.
This is the ONLY Bluetooth trackball on the market. I got mine, not really expecting much from it considering what I'd heard about the design and the build quality, and in some ways it's true that the design could be better, but I was pleasantly surprised after using it for a couple of hours.
It tracks quite well and is very responsive, but only up to a point. If you spin the ball too quickly it can't keep up. I've read another review where they replaced the ball with a similar sized Logitech ball that improved this aspect. Will have to try that. You can always adjust sensitivity/acceleration to reduce the need to spin the ball quickly.
The design and placement of the buttons and scroll wheels is probably my biggest beef with this trackball. The scroll wheel's placement requires you to take your fingers off of the ball. I wish they had gone instead with a Kensington style scroll ring. The buttons take some getting used to as well. You basically rock the whole outer casing left or right to perform left or right clicks. It can be tough at first to click on small icons or buttons because your fingers will want to follow your left or right clicking direction, but after some practice I learned to get over this tendency. Still, I would have preferred conventional buttons, as well as more of them. There are only 2, plus the scroll wheel. The clicking sound is also quite loud, which may or may not be an issue for you. The ergonomics of this trackball leave something to be desired. There is no wrist support unlike my MS Trackball Explorer. As mentioned before the scroll wheel placement doesn't contribute to its ergonomics at all either. The upside of this is that it can be used either left- or right-handed, unlike many trackballs which are made for right-handers only.
There is a USB charging cradle included to recharge the trackball's NiMH batteries (also included). It basically consists of two metal prongs the correspond to metal leads on the underside of the trackball. When you need to charge up you place the trackball on the cradle so that the leads contact the prongs, but there is no locking mechanism to keep it in place, so it can become disconnected from the charging prongs quite easily. The cradle has a blue LED light to tell you when it's connected properly and blinks when charging and steady on when fully charged. Charging seems to be quick, usually between 15-30 minutes for a routine fill-up, I don't know how long it would take to recharge near-dead batteries though.
Lastly the battery life seems to be excellent. If the Bluetooth battery meter is to be believed I only used 7% power in about 2 hours of mouse intensive gaming.
Summary:
Pros: rechargeable, Bluetooth, small, stylish, very responsive (no wireless lag at all), easy to set up (no drivers to install), excellent battery life, great value at $33.
Cons: scroll wheel placement, rocker button design, ergonomics, can't handle extremely rapid movements, charging cradle connection/fit
