April 01, 2003
TurboBall ain't no TurboRing
I had a Kensington TurboRing and LOVED it. The TurboBall is their current warranty replacement as the TurboRing is no longer available. What I got as a replacement is the TurboBall. I don't like it, in fact, I hate it.
Using a trackball with the fingers is, for me, much more comfortable than using one operated with the thumb. I get a pain similar to old Atari joystick thumb cramps when using thumb-movement trackballs. The finger movement on the TurboBall is quite smooth and very precise.
The scroll wheel on the TurboBall is in a USELESS location. There's no way to use the wheel without moving the entire hand off the unit or contorting one's thumb into an extremely uncomfortable angle. This makes the wheel all but UNUSABLE for any frequent use.
That and the roller mechanism used here is essentially the same thing as the TurboRing. Which means frequent cleaning and possible loss of the little red bearings. The bearing races do appear more sturdy than those used on the TurboRing (which is what broke on mine). But the rollers are still the same and probably just as likely to gum up. Mine tended to gum up once a week with daily (8+ hours) of use.
It's really a shame, the best feature of the TurboRing, and what sold me on it, was the ScrollRing. Kensington has seriously missed the mark with design of the TurboBall. It'd have been OK if the scroll wheel wasn't in such a horrible location.
Oh, but only if they'd put a ScrollRing around the ball of their Expert series trackball! I'd buy it in a heartbeat. It too suffers from a poorly placed scroll wheel. It's less-worse as it doesn't involve thumb contortions but at a hundred dollars I'd want it perfect so I'm not buying one.
Kensington warranty support is excellent but getting this as a replacement for my TurboRing just doesn't cut it.
So it looks like I'm off to buy a Microsoft Trackball Explorer.
