ElecomDEFT PRO Trackball Mouse, Wired, Wireless, Bluetooth 3 Types Connection, Ergonomic Design, 8-Button Function, Red Ball, Windows11, MacOS (M-DPT1MRXBK)

Don’t be put off by the reviews on this page, which at first sight are horrifying news for anyone considering buying the Elecom M-HT1DRBK “HUGE” wireless trackball. A third of the purchasers found it unsatisfactory or barely good enough (up to three stars). There clearly is or was once a quality control problem with the artificial ruby bearings for the trackball. On the other hand, two thirds of the buyers are extremely satisfied or even ecstatic, and there is no problem returning an item to Amazon. Besides, the cure for the bearing problem is known, cheap, safe and quick, a ten minute job with a screwdriver and instructions freely available on YouTube. In addition, the choice of solid large, multifunctional trackball mice is basically this Elecom or its sister, the Elecom EX-G Pro, which is built with the same upmarket components, including the ruby bearings. I decided to take the small risk.My Elecom HUGE is one of the good ones (or later ones, if it was a batch problem, now solved), with a creamy-smooth action on the trackball, feather light switches, one heavier switch just where I want it, and a slight stiction on the scroll-wheel which adds to the precision. You’ll see I gave five stars, so count me among the happy customers. If a finer grading were available, my rating would be 4-3/4 stars because one of the switches is too light for it to be ergonomic in that position — for me. Also, the mostly plain black styling with just the big metallic red trackball (diameter 52mm!) and a smidgin of chrome on the scroll-wheel, while intricate and extravagantly curved, in the eyes of an artist like me should have been further relieved of its blackness. So the quarter-star deduction is for personal ergonomic preferences and to mark an overdose of Japanese “professional” styling, a.k.a. too much bloody matt black, not fundamental faults.Obviously, I consider the Elecom HUGE good value for money; the nearest comparable Kensington costs twice as much and offers less. The HUGE is solidly built and feels like quality in the hand. I wonder, however, whether the self-skinned soft polypad which adds so much to the comfort of operating the HUGE will last the decade or more of hard use the rest of the trackball seems good for. (If the memory foam skin does wear while the trackball survives, I’ll glue on tan leather cut to shape.)The ergonomics are excellent, with large, huge and massive buttons, and would suit a hand of any size, including very large hands. The hand is spread across the big expanse of the aptly-named HUGE, with the thumb operating three of the buttons plus the four-function scroll wheel, including yet another button function, which I instantly allocated to the left click because it is heavier and louder than the other switches, in the instance of the left click a very good thing. An ergonomic error — for me anyway — was making one of the assignable buttons, the piano key under my little finger, as light as the others. The little finger is just not as controllable as the other fingers. In fairness, it must be said that the designer apparently intended the ring finger to operate this button, with the little finger being unallocated. I therefore assigned no function to this button. As a result I control the ball with my two middle fingers, which is another big win in precision, especially since the HUGE offers three resolutions (500, 1000, 1500dpi) selectable on-the-fly with a slider button under the thumb, so that you can make pixel-perfect adjustments on any size of screen, useful in making fine art or graphic design, indispensable in engineering work, and even in typing or editing when the cursor needs to be placed precisely but quickly every few seconds. I’ve also reassigned the default left-click thumb button to the Mac’s COMMAND modifier key (the propeller) because it is too easy to press such a large, responsive switch and get unwanted results if a direct action is assigned to it. This trackball is so customisable and feature-rich, it reminds me of nothing so much as a puppy eager to please.A word about the control assignment software: The earlier software has been rewritten and repackaged, including into English, and is now excellent, regardless of what you may read in the reviews here. It is easy to make the basic button assignments, and you can even use the trackball for gestures, similar to gestures on Apple’s Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad. Counting the scroll-wheel’s click and tilt functions as buttons, there are ten buttons, which with the variations and the gesture programmer give no fewer than 160 possible functions. It is well worth spending some time reading the help files for the function allocation software accessible through the software dialogue box. For those with much more intricate needs (games players, perhaps?) I’ve also tested the HUGE with USB-Overdrive aftermarket peripheral management software (free with advertising, $20 without), which is potentially more powerful than Elecom’s free software, but only if you know what you’re doing. On the whole, I think most buyers of the HUGE will find Elecom’s layman-friendly software serves them well.So who is the Elecom M-HT1DRBK “HUGE” wireless trackball recommended for? I’m a writer, an editor, a typographer, an industrial designer, and a painter both in traditional media and digitally. In each of those avocations by itself Elecom’s HUGE would be worth the money and considerably more to me, so for each of them the trackball adds far more convenience than the trivial cost per job. Music and video editing, which I occasionally do, also uses the same facilities and speedy precision. The question isn’t really whether the HUGE is great value for money, but whether each individual buyer would get on better with the HUGE layout of the trackball on top and the scroll-wheel at the side, or with the reverse layout of the sister EX-G PRO, which has the scroll-wheel on top and the trackball at the side, which when you change over to the trackball is a straight transition from the common Microsoft-style mice with a consequent shorter learning curve. Personally, I think the trackball on top with the scroll-wheel on the side, as in the HUGE, offers the best ergonomics — and the learning curve was anyway pretty short.The Elecom M-HT1DRBK “HUGE” is definitely recommended.

It's called the Huge. It probably is huge to an 8 year old, but not for an adult. It would be better named the biggish. I've used trackballs for years as a personal preference over mice. My last two were logitech and were obviously designed with my hand size in mind. My first logitech eventually wore out. My second, the marble was near perfect for me, apart from nor having a scroll wheel and logitechs way of dealing with page scrolling because if that omission simply doesn't work in a lot of things, like cad software for example, I don't know why they see fit to change the way a standard thing works and break it in the process. So a new trackball was needed. I chose the huge because it had the red ball. Not for aesthetics, but because the black ball versions get a lot of reports of issues sue to the device missing ball movements. Its a nice sized finger ball. I prefer finger control to thumb and this is definitely a finger control ball with the left mouse button being under your thumb. That mouse button is one of the failings on the huge. Its fine for clicks and double clicks, but bad when holding it to drag things around in CAD. More often than not, while dragging, the button moves slightly in the enclosure and 'feels' like it just clicked making you pause to check you didn't accidentally let go of the button. Even though you can see it on screen is still moving the thing you grabbed, it still causes you to inwardly pause as sometimes it does un click. In a quiet room you are also aware that there are large voids inside as sometimes you get a 'boing' effect as you release a button. Basically the sound of release is almost spring like in sound. It's unpleasant when you hear it though inconsistent in its appearances. It's a different shape than my last trackball so caused hand and wrist ache for me, but that's a given when changing to a different design, it goes against muscle memory. After a week of use it's becoming more natural. The plethora of buttons is a welcome improvement over the logitechs minimal offerings. The software for the huge is, let's say functional. It works but somehow feels clunky. But it does give a lot of options. The right mouse button has another near identical button alongside. I can't tell you how many times I pressed the wrong one by accident. Again that's user error, but I can't help wishing they had done something different with that buttons shape or force required, something to make it feel different, but it's identical when used by feel alone. The thumbwheel for me is a little too far back and I find I keep moving my hand back to use it. 2 or 3 centimeters forward would be perfect for me, as it is I feel I have to change my hand position to use it better. The thumb wheel has a side to side option that so far I have never found worked in its default settings on any app. The ball feel is OK. By that I mean it's general control aspect, it's a shiny ball so actual tactile feel is like any other. But it does occasionally stick. There are numerous complaints about this issue that is apparently caused by the faux Ruby bearings. I only notice it when trying to do pin-point accuracy things. In general use its fine, but those moments where you need the pointer to move a tiny amount are fraught with potential overshoots as it sticks then suddenly frees. It's not a major stick, just enough to be a problem when it happens. Replacing the bearings is possible and is something I will be looking to do sooner than later. Does all this make it a bad trackball though? No. It doesn't. For a general user it's actually pretty good. I am overly critical of it primarily because it's failings affect me in a couple of my daily interactions with certain software. Without those particular things the sticking ball and mouse click issues would likely never have been spotted. At the price it's a good option and better than many including the logitech it replaced as the gamut of buttons brings functionality the logitech marble didn't have. In the built down to a price aspect though, those bearings suck, the cable is also as cheap as cheap can be, being as thin as it is I wonder how long it will last. All in though, 'for the price' it's an acceptable device. I forgot to mention that it also has an adjustable dpi switch that is useful for switching on the fly depending on current use and easily accessible by your thumb. I wouldn't use this for gaming, maybe command and Conquer zero hour, but definitely not for first person shooters. It is so close to being a great device, but just enough niggles to stop it getting there. I'm not looking for a replacement though so it must be good enough.UPDATE:- After a week I had adapted to the buttons just fine, but that sticking issue was getting tiresome. I bought some Zirconia/ceramic G5 2.5mm bearings and did the bearing swap (lenty of videos on youtube about how to do it and it really is easy). It is 100 percent worth doing this bearing swap with the huge. It is a difference you can feel instantly and not a small difference, it really is game changing. Before doing the swap, try moving the ball left to right then up and down slowly with just one finger for a full rotation. Do that same movement after doing the bearing swap. The difference is there straight away and is smooth as silk. If Elecom had shipped it with these new bearings I would happily recommend it all day long. Those ruby bearings it comes with though? they must be egg shaped to be as bad as they are. If you are planning on getting one of these trackballs, factor in another 5 pounds sterling to get the better bearings to make this a really good trackball.