Home > Consumer Reviews > Logitech Optical Marble Mouse (USB/PS2)

The Logitech Marble Mouse Trackball is possibly THE most intelligently designed pointing device for PCs and Macintosh personal computers. First of all, in spite of its name, it's a trackball, the superior successor to the computer mouse. Unlike a mouse, it sits in one place and your fingers guide the pointer. You click on menu selections, icons and such with your thumb. It takes mere minutes to get used to this method of moving around the screen but after you do, using a mouse will seem cumbersome and quaint (which it is).

Beneath that black-dotted burgundy ball lies the secret of the Marble Mouse's responsiveness, longevity and reliability. An infrared emitter and optical pickup track the movement of the ball, not mechanical rollers which quickly become gunked up with skin oils and dust. You'd have to let a really thick layer of crud accumulate on the ball before you'll see an impact on the Marble Mouse's performance. Small enough to tuck into your notebook, laptop or PowerBook's carrying case, the Marble Mouse is pure computing bliss compared to jittery trackpads, wobbly finger sticks and erratic rollerballs.

PC users running Windows XP and earlier can simply install the PS/2 adapter and plug the Marble Mouse into the PS/2 mouse port without installing any software. With Windows 98 and later, you can pop off the PS/2 adapter and plug the Marble Mouse into a USB port. Macintosh owners running Mac OS 8.6 or higher will need to install MouseWare from the included CD-ROM and disable the Macintosh Mouse control panel in the Mac OS Extension Manager.

Unlike its more expensive TrackMan siblings, the Marble Mouse is fully ambidextrous, with equal-sized buttons on both sides. The included Logitech MouseWare (also downloadable at www.logitech.com) makes the Marble Mouse behave like a 3-button mouse on PCs (you press BOTH buttons together to access the functions of a third button) while giving Macintosh users one-finger, one-click access to content menus (shades of Windows, eh? :) ). Windows users also benefit from the new page up/page down buttons located just above the main buttons.

Finally, though the price might seem steep compared to a $5 mouse you could pick up at Best Buy or CompUSA, recall how many of those cheap little rodents you've owned and thrown away in the course of a single year.

I have long been a fan of Logitech products, and once again they have raised the bar! I don't know why anyone still uses a mouse. I prefer using a trackball because it fits in a small space on the desktop and it does not cause the fatigue that you get using a traditional mouse. I use this device extensively for fine graphics work, as well as major surf time.
I used to use a Kensington Trackball, because at the time, it was the only one designed to be manipulated with your fingers, instead of your thumb. The optical marble mouse does the Kensington one better. The "optical" part of the title says it all. There are no rollers or little crevices for hair and gunk to get caught up in under the ball. I spent more time cleaning my previous mice and trackballs than anything else! Whenever that cursor starting jumping around the screen and skipping over the places I wanted it to go--I knew it was time to ditch the mouse and get a new one. This optical marble mouse has no rollers. It is very easy to keep clean--and so far (8months) I have had none of the problems of my previous mice. The accompanying software for this trackball also has some nice shortcut features. I have one button programmed to instantly "minimize all open windows." A really nifty trick if you have to blank your monitor quickly.....like when the boss is coming around :)

I have been using this product for about two years and finally got one for my home computer as well. If you are like me, and find yourself chasing the regular mouse all over your desk, give this a try. After two years of very busy use in a very dusty library (where I work), it has never needed a single cleaning and works like the first day I got it. The buttons are set up beautifully so that it feels very natural in the hand. It is extremely responsive, and the scroll feature works great. The cursor movement is smooth as glass. No more mouse pad taking up a nice chunk of my desk! No more bouncing, jerky cursor due to a slight bit of gunk. No more popping off the bottom the mouse and cleaning the wheels with a pen knife! I highly recommend this product. --Mykal Banta

I bought this product because I needed something more ergonomic - I was having pain in my mouse hand. This mouse changed all that. I work with computers, and I insist on using one of these at work. It has the following benefits:

1. Because it's a trackball, you don't have to move your wrist as much as you would with a mouse.
2. The buttons are placed so that you can click with your thumb, which after all, is stronger (less likely to get injured) than your index finger.
3. It's symmetrical, so you can switch back and forth from using it with your right hand or left hand - that gives your mouse hand a rest.

I echo the comments of others that the optical trackball works great, and almost never needs cleaning. Also, I agree that it stays put nicely on the desk. Yes, this mouse was very different when I first started using it, but very very much worth getting used to it.

I am at a computer almost all day long and about 4 years ago, I decided to try out the Logitech Optical Marble Mouse, because my arm and wrist were getting too tired from the old mouse.
It took about 1 week to get used to it, but after that learning curve was through, I was so convinced, that I haven't used a mouse extensively since. In fact, when I started a new job, the first thing I did, was buy another Marble Mouse, so that I wouldn't have to struggle with a regular mouse at my workplace.

Except in extreme situations, hand fatigue is a thing of the past for me and the marble mouse I bought four years ago is still working perfectly.

One trick is to set it up so that the right button is the main button and the left button is the context button. In use, I press the right button with any combination of my pinkie, ring finger or middle finger. By distributing the clicking duties between three fingers, the muscle usage is more evenly distributed and repetative motion problems are not a problem.

In fact the beauty of this design is that it is so simple that one is able to use it however you want to. Other trackballs that are overly molded to fit your hand end up causing problems because they force your hand to be in a particular position all day long.

It is also easy to switch between left and right hand use -- though I almost always use right hand.

I do have to clean it during the day, but this is extremely easy. Basically I just pick the ball out of its socket and flick away any dirt that has built up. It takes about 15 seconds and no special cleaning solutions or anything.

If I was running a company, I would make everyone try one of these out for a week. They are amazing computing tools and would be standard issue for all computers if I ran the world.