USB Trackball from Evergreen: Little BlackBerry Trackball for your PC
I have to admit, when I first saw the BlackBerry appear with a little trackball on the front, I was amused. It seemed like such a silly little way to control the phone, but once I tried one it became clear how useful these things are. The success of the trackball on the BlackBerry is no doubt why HTC decided to put one on the G1. These little things just work and work well on phones.
The question is how well a tiny trackball will work on a Windows PC? We don’t have to wait any longer for the answer. Evergreen in Japan has announced the Micro USB Mouse for Windows that is a portable little USB gadget with a retractable cable. In spite of the name, the “Mouse” is really a little trackball with buttons and while it looks goofy, this is a gadget that might actually be useful for those who like trackballs. No word on pricing or if this will make it to the U.S. but you sure could fit a lot of these little things on those empty ships that used to bring a lot of Toyotas to the U.S.
(via Akihabara News)
heh, im tempted to get me a logitech ball for the desktop, as i no longer play any twitch games, and it would save up on deskspace.
never really liked those trackpads, as one cant really operate them with one hand…
You’re right. Despite one hand sales pitch/design, and tiny size, I always end up using both hands. Though its now abandon in a cupboard with a myriad of short usb and useless modem cables.
I too thought this was crazy and cool. I bought this about a year ago (in the UK), its no longer stocked, but from maplins.co.uk). It was an unfortunate upgrade for an also unfortunate mini ring track ball, it too is obsolete and once needed both hands to wield effectively.
The blackberry mini finger trackball has a elastic fabric ring on the underside (not shown in your picture) – it is essentially for the index or middle finger. The thumb controls the ball and buttons. Unlike the blackberry phone, OSes uses dragging and dropping that means you need two thumbs! Cleverly the button on the right of the ball is to un/lock the left click (directly below ball).
However more than a minute of use, turns really nasty because of the ridiculously small size of this device, my hand turns into a hideously painful claw. Whilst the other hand tries in to rip the cursed thing off.
Yep! Yah need two hands to use this!!!