I have finally found a satisfactory replacement for the Microsoft Trackball Explorer and it is the Elecom Deft Pro

So I have been a trackball user all of my life, I have always liked clacky keyboards and trackballs. Mice never made sense to me, and I must specify that I am a finger trackball user, I can’t use thumb trackballs at all.

My trackball of choice for many many years was the Microsoft Trackball Explorer. It has awesome ergonomics and was just a great trackball, but microsoft stopped making them years ago, and the 3 I previously owned just stopped working.

For I while I moved the Kensington Expert Mouse Wired Trackball. I have owned a few and still use one that I carry to work with me. It is a great product, and I actually had of the red plastic beads the ball sits on break and contacted Kensington and they sent me a whole new trackball to replace it. Really great company, but it just doesn’t have the ergonomics of the Trackball Explorer.

A couple of years back I was looking at replacements and found the Japanese company Elecom made finger (and thumb) trackballs and I picked on up, the wired Elecom Deft (I never understood needing a wireless trackball). It had ergonomics much like the trackball explorers and was a decent pointing device, and I replaced my at home Kensigton with it. It is a very good trackball, but not as good as the Trackball Explorer. And it had some faults with Mac, it needs a paid 3rd party driver to really take advantage of it’s features.

Now this never bothered me since Microsoft had stopped it’s trackball explorer drivers long ago and I had moved the the Japanese company Plentycom’s awesome SteerMouse years back.

SteerMouse lets you use all your buttons and program as you want, and has acceleration based cursor control. it is amazing. I own 2 licenses so I can bring it to work with me with my Deft.

The Deft was good, but felt a bit cheap, but then I found the Elecom Deft Pro! And I got the top of the line model, which has wired (it is USB micro, wireless with an adapter that lives inside of it unless needed and bluetooth) which is how I use it. It has 8 buttons and a wheel that scrolls and goes up and down. And it has changeable DPI settings (though since I don’t use it for gaming I have never changed them).

The Deft Pro is amazing, and it is the only trackball I will use form now on! It is awesome! I could not recommend this trackball any more! It is a must!