> If this works better for you than a Logitech or Kensington trackball, sweet, use it. But so far all the reviews are like "I've never used a trackball, but this looks cool".
Most people never saw a trackball, let alone used it.
Mainly because either your PC comes with a mouse, or you use a laptop which comes with a touchpad.
Your regular ~$50 sucks because it follows the form factor of a mouse even though you don't have to move it around. If you grew used to one then you don't notice the poor form factor, but it's awkward and still forces to move your hand away of a keyboard.
The Charybdis, Dactyl, and CCK-ball kind of address the problem by making it reachable by a thumb, but they don't eliminate it completely because it still forces you to follow an awkward user flow.
This product feels like a trackball that lets you place it where it makes sense. I think it's an improvement.
I have faith that keyboards with embedded touchpad such as the Kinesis Form fix this issue, but I'm not willing to shelf ~$300 for an experiment. I'd rather try out a split keyboard and have a boring touchpad where it feels right. Multi-finger touch gestures kind of eliminate any other flow. Hopefully keychron will consider that too.
> Your regular ~$50 sucks because it follows the form factor of a mouse even though you don't have to move it around.
I don't understand - between the Kensington Orbit, Kensington TB550, Elecom HUGE, Nulea M505, M511 & M514 and the Micropack V05M - what ergonomic form factors are we missing?
Only the Kensington Orbit is a different form factor. Every single one of the remaining examples follow the mouse form factor, which forces the user to move a hand away from the keyboard to operate a device to the side. Some of your example products even double as a mouse. What exactly don't you understand?
Ah, then I see what you mean. I was thinking of the different form factors in terms of which fingers are moving the ball, how your wrists are oriented, etc.
Most people never saw a trackball, let alone used it.
Mainly because either your PC comes with a mouse, or you use a laptop which comes with a touchpad.
Your regular ~$50 sucks because it follows the form factor of a mouse even though you don't have to move it around. If you grew used to one then you don't notice the poor form factor, but it's awkward and still forces to move your hand away of a keyboard.
The Charybdis, Dactyl, and CCK-ball kind of address the problem by making it reachable by a thumb, but they don't eliminate it completely because it still forces you to follow an awkward user flow.
This product feels like a trackball that lets you place it where it makes sense. I think it's an improvement.
I have faith that keyboards with embedded touchpad such as the Kinesis Form fix this issue, but I'm not willing to shelf ~$300 for an experiment. I'd rather try out a split keyboard and have a boring touchpad where it feels right. Multi-finger touch gestures kind of eliminate any other flow. Hopefully keychron will consider that too.