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by xkcd-sucks 1755 days ago
Personally, I prefer trackballs (specifically the "thumb" type) because they minimize wrist movement and finger contortions. Using a trackpad or mouse for an extended period of time, my wrist gets quite painful, and clicking on a trackpad likewise makes my finger joints painful. This is probably not fundamental, but trackballs just seem to make ergonomics easier.

Secondarily, with a trackball it's easier to cover a large area "ballistically" i.e. with a mouse or trackpad you might have to do multiple side-to-side traversals in order to go across your screens (or set a very high DPI which also gets tiring after a while)

1 comments

Interestingly the reasons you mention for using trackball over trackpad is the same reason I use trackpad over a mouse. I guess a thumb based trackball does better in those regards,

Do you have suggestions for a decent thumb based trackball?

I’m not the person you responded to, but I’ve owned several thumb trackballs and my favorite is the Logitech MX Ergo Plus.

The “Plus” version is the same as the normal “MX Ergo” but with an optional angled support provided (and only available in the US, I imported mines from Ebay).

Thank you, I saw the pictures that the trackball mouse and I wonder whether they are quite large in order to accommodate the trackball as I have a small palm(dwarfism).

The dimensions[1][2] when compared to standard mouse(e.g. M275)[3] seems to be about an inch higher(height, width), Also the GP comment says Ploopy was a bit large to use; Are the thumb trackball mouse inherently larger?

[1] https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/mx-ergo-wireles...

[2] https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/m575-ergo-wirel...

[3] https://support.logi.com/hc/en-us/articles/360023307234-Logi...