Looking like it would be at home on the bridge of a starship, how does Kensington’s Expert Trackball measure up?  Let’s dive in and find out.

Overall Construction

The Kensington Expert Trackball has solid construction, although most of the weight lies within the hefty trackball itself.  The main casing is made of a hard matte plastic that provides a sturdy base.  While the colors are far from exciting, they do match most monitors out there, so it looks good sitting on a desk.  I was a bit disappointed to find that the ball just falls right out; there isn’t anything to hold it in if you turn the whole shebang upside down (which you will do when attatching/detatching the wrist rest.)  This is getting into nitpicking territory, though…how often are you going to be moving a mouse this big?  The permanently attached USB cable is long enough for nearly any setup and will most likely be too long for the average setup, so make sure you keep the twistytie included in the package.

Trackball

The Trackball itself is roughly the size and weight of a pool ball.  Because of its placement relative to the buttons, and depending on what activity you are engaging in, you can use your fingertips, your whole fingers, or the upper portion of the palm of your hand for control.  This versatility allows you to adjust the speed with which you can move the trackball at any given moment.  In addition, its large size allows you to make slight adjustments easier, adding accuracy to your motions in gaming, graphic design work, video editing, and Internet browsing.  Like most trackballs, it was a bit stiff and hard to move at first, but over the course of a couple of hours of use it loosened up.  The trackball itself is fairly silent, even when moving quickly to get the cursor from one side of the screen to the other.  The slightest bit of background noise will drown it out, though.

Scroll Ring

The scroll ring that surrounds the trackball is decent, but it does have its shortcomings. At first, you will find yourself inadvertently moving the scroll ring; with practice, this will stop happening fairly quickly, but it is a minor annoyance.  The ring itself is also quite noisy, with a rubber-on-rubber scraping noise whenever you move it.  I found myself getting used to this very quickly, and it honestly isn’t any louder than the scroll wheel found on most mice… I was just expecting a mouse whose price approaches $100 to be a bit quieter.  While the ribbed design prevents from sliding issues, I foresee problems with dead skin and dust getting trapped in there.  Keep a can of compressed air handy.  Despite these small issues, the scroll ring does its job quite well, and with just a couple of hours of use you will find yourself flinging it to and fro with no problem.

Buttons

The trackball is surrounded by four buttons.  They are made out of the same matte plastic material that the base is made out of, and have a clicky feel reminiscent of Microsoft’s Optical IntelliMouse.  They are a tad louder than I expected, but luckily having your hand resting over the whole contraption keeps the noise muffled.  They are quite large and have a small ledge on them, making them comfortable to reach for anyone regardless of hand size.  Their uniform layout also has the benefit of working the same, regardless of whether you are a rightie or a leftie.  For myself (a rightie), I have some slight trouble reaching the upper left-hand button due to the way I position my hand on the trackball, but I chalk that up to my own use and not the design or layout of the buttons themselves.

Wrist Rest

The wrist rest is quite large, and nearly doubles the length of the trackball.  It provides a slightly squishy yet solid place to help keep things lined up, and is comfortable after a marathon of usage.  Unfortunately, its major downside is the way it attaches to the base: two small plastic pegs attached to a flimsy plastic sheet attach to the underside of the main trackball housing.  While this isn’t too big of a deal since you aren’t likely to be transporting this thing around very often, it seems that you wouldn’t have to detach and attach the wrist pad too many times before something on it breaks.  It feels quite solid once it is in place though, so just don’t fiddle with it once you have it set up.

Included Software

Unfortunately, out of the box the mouse speed seems to be quite slow, even with the setting in windows spiked to maximum.   However, the included software allows for further tweaking, so you will eventually get it to where you want it to be.  Note that this only applies to XP; in Windows 7, the mouse speed adjustments built into Windows are sufficient.  You can assign any function to any of the buttons that you wish within the software, which can be done quickly and easily.  You can change how far the scroll ring scrolls when using it, although it would be nice if there was one more option between the highest setting and the “page down” setting.  You might have some trouble using the included software with Windows 7, but the mouse itself still performs flawlessly without it (and, as previously mentioned, can still be adjusted using the standard mouse settings in Windows 7.)

Use and Overall Impressions

While it is taking some getting used to, this is a fantastic trackball.  It has some shortcomings, but its positives far outweigh the negatives.  After just a couple of short hours, I was making headshots in Borderlands that I would have certainly missed with my Logitech Marble.  I wouldn’t recommend that someone new to the world of trackballs start with this beast, though…some previous experience with trackballs will greatly reduce the time necessary to get used to this mouse.  The Kensington Expert Trackball generally goes for $85-$100 online.  It makes for a decent gaming mouse, but it is completely unmatched in terms of desktop use.  I am quite happy with the money spent on it, and am considering buying another one for work.