I have a CST L-trac trackball for some time now but, to be honest, I don't use it a lot. Mostly because I found myself not being able to achieve the same pointing accuracy as with a mouse. I was still intrigued by trackballs, that's why I've contacted the NL reseller of ITAC trackballs (KimLi Electronics). They were so kind as to send me a Mouse-Trak Professional Desktop and a Mouse-Trak Evolution for review. That gave me the chance of comparing these three models:
- CST L-Trac (USB, CST2545-5XW-RC)
- ITAC Mouse-Trak Professional Desktop (USB, Reference model, B-5XUSB-XROHS)
- ITAC Mouse-Trak Evolution (USB, scrolling-enabled, X-SCROL-XROHS)
Common things first: all three trackballs connect to the computer via USB and they don't need any drivers. They are symmetrically built and therefore suitable for your left or right hand (button remapping might be required). The balls can only be removed by opening the case which is a matter of removing a few screws (no plastic rivets). Another thing they have in common is that they are not exactly cheap (CST: 125 USD, ITAC Professional Desktop: 170 USD and ITAC Evolution: 160 USD).
- Left to right: CST L-Trac CST2545-5XW-RC, ITAC Mouse-Trak Professional Desktop and ITAC Mouse-Trak Evolution.
- trackballskurk-01.jpg (325.91 KiB) Viewed 26564 times
Is it smooth? That's probably the most important property of a trackball.
Unfortunately for the CST, it doesn't score well in that respect. Although it has the largest ball of the three (pool ball size), the movement is rather stiff due to the use of plastic (Delrin) bearings. These are no match for ITAC's models which feature proper ball bearings. The difference is phenomenal. The CST's ball stops moving almost in the instance you lift your fingers after giving it a light flick. The ITACs on the other hand go on rolling for a while. That also translates into accuracy: ITAC >> CST.
There is one drawback of the ball bearings: they make noise. The ITAC Evolution even more so than the Professional Desktop, probably because of the formers larger case. Another thing worth noting is that the ball bearings took some time to break in. Right out of the box, the ITACs felt a bit rough. After a few days, they got smoother.
BTW, I have tried a pool ball in the CST and it didn't change the smoothness or lack thereof.
=Buttons=
This particular CST model has three true buttons (left, right, middle) and a scroll wheel. Furthermore, there are two 3.5 mm jack ports at the cable side of the device which can be used to attach a fourth and fifth mouse button (XButton1 and XButton2). Because the main buttons are large they are always in reach of your fingers. They have a nice tactility, respond right away (no pre-travel) no matter where pressed and the required force is just right. The middle button resides in front of the ball; a bit of middle finger stretching is required to reach it but that's OK. More finger stretching is needed to operate the scroll wheel. I find myself shifting my hand on the trackball in order to reach it. But it least the CST has one!
The ITAC Professional Desktop is a much more basic trackball. Extra buttons? Nope. Scroll wheel? Neither. There are only a left, middle and right button for you. The left and right ones are on either side of the device. Their tactility and required force are excellent (Omron D2F-01F switches). My main critique here is that these buttons should extent further down toward my wrist. I usually press the left button with my thumb which barely rests on the top of the button in my natural tracking position (see picture). The middle button is very wide and requires much more force to depress, maybe a little too much. No accidental activation possible, even if you rest your palm on it. A special feature of the ITAC's Desktop series is the small mode button on the wrist rest. In my review model, the "Reference model", this button serves as a speed toggle and halves the mouse pointer speed. There's also the "Scrolling enabled" model in which this switch toggles the scrolling mode (see below for a description).
ITAC's Evolution trackball is somewhat fancier. It has six buttons that are user-configurable without the need for drivers. A combination of actions allow each of them to be configured as LMB, MMB, RMB, a scroll mode toggle button or a speed toggle button. The LBM, MMB and RMB actions can be single click, double click or click-and-hold. Nice. A button assigned to speed toggle halves the pointer speed as in the Professional Desktop model. Considering the lack of a scroll wheel, the scroll mode is a good idea. It works OK but because it's a toggle button it is more cumbersome than a dedicated scrolling solution. It is recommanded to set the scroll mode in your operating system to 1 or 2 lines per notch - otherwise it's way too fast.
The feeling of the buttons of the Evolution are not as nice as the CST's or the Professional's. There is quite some pre-travel and the required activation force is a tad too high, especially for my little finger. Moreover, I would have preferred wider buttons; they are a bit on the thin side and my thumb sometimes rests on the 2nd, and sometimes on the 3rd one.
- Side by side, balls aligned.
- trackballskurk-side.jpg (229.09 KiB) Viewed 26564 times
CST:
1600 dpi laser sensor. Polling rate: 1000 Hz (according to Enotus mouse test)
Ball diameter: 2.25 inch (57.2 mm)
ITAC Professional:
Ball diameter: 2.0 inch (50.8 mm); axle diameter: 1/8 inch (3.175 mm) => gear ratio = 1:12
Optical encoder wheel with 12 slots on each axle => 192 CPR (counts per revolution of the ball).
Polling rate: 125 Hz (according to Enotus mouse test).
ITAC Evolution:
Ball diameter: not determined.
Resolution: 160 CPR according to the data sheet.
Polling rate: not determined.
At identical OS settings, the CST covers approximately eight times the distance as the ITAC Professional (determined by dragging a tape-measure across the balls and comparing the distances on the screen; OS dynamic resolution switched off); the Evolution model was not compared. Note that I could work perfectly well with the ITACs on my 1920x1200 screen; I just needed to adapt the pointer speed in my OS.
Here are pictures of the innards of the CST and the ITAC Professional trackballs. The ITAC Evolution was not mine so I did not open it.
- The insides of the CST L-Trac CST2545-5XW.
- CST_inside.jpg (321.15 KiB) Viewed 26337 times
- The innards of the ITAC Mouse-Trak Professional Desktop (B-5XUSB-XROHS).
- ITAC_Prof_inside.jpg (309.41 KiB) Viewed 26337 times
=Software=
There is no configuration software for the ITAC trackballs. For changing buttons I can recommand "X-Mouse Button Control".
For the CST there is the "Superior-X Button Control" software that allows you to remap buttons, record macros and change the resolution. I have not tried it.
=Ergonomics=
I usually operate trackballs with my the tips of my fingers, mostly with both my index and middle fingers along with a little support of my ring finger.
For my preferred hand position, the wrist wrest of the CST is unfortunately too short and too steep: my wrist almost rests on the table. The design of the ITACs on the other hand allows my wrist to rest comfortably on the soft plastic pads. Taking into account the hapticity of the buttons, my personal order of comfort is ITAC Professional Desktop > ITAC Evolution = CST L-Trac. See pictures.
- Hand positions on the trackballs.
Top to bottom: CST L-Trac, ITAC Professional Desktop and ITAC Evolution. - trackballskurk-handpositions.jpg (218.52 KiB) Viewed 26564 times
Solid, all of them. However, there was a flaw with the CST when it came out of the box: the scroll wheel got stuck in a certain position. This was due to an ugly sprue mark on the shutter wheel. I fixed that with a carpet knife.
=Summary=
CST L-Trac CST2545-5XW-RC:
++Scroll wheel and fourth and fifth button present
++Large LMB and RMB buttons with a good "click feeling"
+Possibility to connect two more buttons via 3.5 mm jacks -> moddability
+Modern, high resolution laser sensor (optical rotary encoder on the scroll wheel)
---Relatively stiff ball movement
-Wrest rest not optimal for fingertip operation
ITAC Professional Desktop:
++Smooth ball movement
+Nice and direct "button feelings" for LMB and RMB
+Good wrist rest for fingertip operation
+Speed toggle present (on the tested "Reference model")
--Only three buttons, no scroll wheel/ring
-Slightly noisy (less so than the Evolution)
-Smallish LMB and RMB; especially notable for LMB
-MMB requires a bit too much force
-Low resolution shutter wheel technology
ITAC Evolution:
++Smooth ball movement
++All buttons configurable without the need for drivers
+Good wrist rest for fingertip operation
--Buttons have pre-travel and require too much force. They should also be wider in my opinion.
-Noisy (noisiest of the three)
-No fourth and fifth mouse button function (no XButton1 and XButton2), no dedicated scroll wheel/ring
-Low resolution shutter wheel technology
=Verdict=
None of the three trackballs is perfect. The CST L-Trac is the most modern one and has a true scroll wheel as well as the possibility to connect two more buttons. Unfortunately, the ball movement isn't as smooth as it should be and the wrist rest is too short for my taste. Both ITAC models miss out in the scroll wheel and extra button department but tracking is very smooth. The Professional model is very basic but it has buttons that operate nicely. The ITAC Evolution features driver-less configurability which makes it possible to assign click-and-hold, double click, speed- and scroll-toggle to any of its six buttons. It's major inconvenience is the subpar button feeling.
All in all, I enjoyed using the ITAC Professional Desktop the most. As a matter of fact, I have bought one.
It's a draw between the other two trackballs, depending on which features you value the most.
=No scroll wheel? What now?=
I used a slightly modified AutoHotKey script (see links section) which transforms the ball into a scroll wheel as long as the RMB is pressed down. Pressing and releasing the RMB without ball movement results in a right click. It works very well with the ITAC Professional. With the ITAC Evolution, I made use of the scroll toggle button although it requires going in and out of scroll mode everytime.
=Links=
Specification data sheets:
CST model chart: http://clearlysuperiortech.com/modelchart.html
ITAC Professional Desktop: http://www.itacsystems.com/assets/spec_ ... e-trak.pdf
ITAC Evolution: http://www.itacsystems.com/assets/spec_ ... e-trak.pdf
AutoHotKey script for wheel button emulation, originally by Erik Elmore. Appears to have been edited a few times. I took the version posted by "yetanotherjosh" and adapted it be used with the right button: http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/4 ... on-script/
Earlier CST L-Trac-X review by lootbag on DT: http://deskthority.net/news-reviews-f4/ ... -t173.html
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edit: added pictures of the insides, added prices, corrected information on the optical shutter wheel of the ITAC Prof. Desktop
is 192CPR= DPI? I usually uses mouse with 500dpi,i interested Marble looks like ITAC Evolution but button in addition
