Rollermouse Free 2
Posted: 27 Jun 2012, 18:13
This review is from my rollermouse free 2 on an iMac with OSX
It will be a review with a few iterations : I need to get to know this thing a little bit better before my final judgement will be known.
Iteration 1 :
It came in the mail bubble wrapped. The original box had bubble wrap around it. Strange way of sending something expensive as this. But okay, the packing did its job, no damage to be found on the packing :
Upon opening the box, this was its contents :
The rollermouse, two stickers with the same markings as on the mouse, 2 small keyboard riser feet and 2 bigger keyboard riser feet.
The rod itself was safely secure with 2 orange foam cylinders. After removing those I could connect the mouse to my iMac.
Wow... This is different. The rollerbar is very very smooth. I was wondering how the end-switches would work on it, but now I know why it is only logical. I had to fumble with the DPI settings a bit in order to get a proper mouse speed. There is a cursor speed button that let's you set the speed in 5 increments. The following buttons are present : copy, paste, left click, right click, double click and of course the scroll wheel.
After installing the mac drivers, the buttons behaved differently -> the copy and paste button let's me switch from mac virtual screen to screen. Very nice. The mouse scroll wheel was set to a very very slow pace, I didn't like it at all and I could not find a way to set it properly in Mac OSX. Until I accidently pressed it and scrolled it : Presto! When pressed and scrolled it is a coarse scroller, without being pressed it's a fine one. At least they thought about it!
The wrist rest is very nice to use. I didn't use one before I got this, but now I will definitely keep using one.
The reason for the keyboard risers I still don't get : The risers are supposedly used to lever the FRONT of the keyboard in order to get a proper typing position. I am using the lowest setting on my filco TKL and am wondering what the tilt angle will bring on the longer term. The hind feet of the Filco are retracted so it has an angle opposite to what I am used to but hey, I am willing to try this for a few weeks and see what it gives.
At the moment I am using it the way I saw I would use it : with my right thumb I would steer the roller ( and keep my fingers on the home row!!!!! ) , with my left thumb I would press the buttons ( on the left side ) . The roller is clickable so either a single or double click is possible with it. You can set the click response of the rollerbar, I have it at a medium setting. I read that some people accidentally press the rollerbar on its lowest( most sensitive ) setting, but I tried this as well and it did not happen to me.
Iteration 2 :
After almost a week of use, I am sorry to say I actually developed RSI related problems.... My right wrist and right elbow started to hurt. Of course I wanted to quit the experiment/test immediately, but after some thought I decided to only remove the wrist rest since that is the only thing that really changed to my position with respect to the keyboard. I noticed that I 'float' my hands over the keyboard and my natural position is to NOT rest my palms on something. Once I do ( like with the rollermouse free 2 wristrest ) I run into problems. Well, at least it looks like this is the case. I am willing to try 1 more week, but this time without the wrist rest.
I am still using my regular apple mouse a lot. Since the rollermouse mousebar isn't really usable for dragging items on my desktop for longer distances ( I keep running into the endpoints ) I prefer using the regular mouse. Also simple tasks like selecting some larger chunks of text is hampered in this way. I also have a lot of issues with the endstops : I keep having the need to recalibrate the thing because I run into those endstops. I could enlarge the sensitivity but then my precision is seriously lowered. I guess I still need to find a way of adjusting to it.
My initial plan of using my right thumb for moving the rollermouse is still in place. It would be perfect if I could use it in that fashion. If I have to remove my whole right hand in order for me to move the mouse, I might as well keep using my regular mouse.
I also found out that the scrollwheel has a dual function. Once it is pressed, you can then use the mouse itself to go up or down. The more up/down you go the higher the scrollspeed becomes. If you press it again, this scroll mode is reset.
Iteration 3:
Wait 1 week!
It will be a review with a few iterations : I need to get to know this thing a little bit better before my final judgement will be known.
Iteration 1 :
It came in the mail bubble wrapped. The original box had bubble wrap around it. Strange way of sending something expensive as this. But okay, the packing did its job, no damage to be found on the packing :
- P1020319.JPG (154.29 KiB) Viewed 9815 times
- P1020320.JPG (154.94 KiB) Viewed 9815 times
- P1020321.JPG (128.71 KiB) Viewed 9815 times
The rod itself was safely secure with 2 orange foam cylinders. After removing those I could connect the mouse to my iMac.
Wow... This is different. The rollerbar is very very smooth. I was wondering how the end-switches would work on it, but now I know why it is only logical. I had to fumble with the DPI settings a bit in order to get a proper mouse speed. There is a cursor speed button that let's you set the speed in 5 increments. The following buttons are present : copy, paste, left click, right click, double click and of course the scroll wheel.
After installing the mac drivers, the buttons behaved differently -> the copy and paste button let's me switch from mac virtual screen to screen. Very nice. The mouse scroll wheel was set to a very very slow pace, I didn't like it at all and I could not find a way to set it properly in Mac OSX. Until I accidently pressed it and scrolled it : Presto! When pressed and scrolled it is a coarse scroller, without being pressed it's a fine one. At least they thought about it!
The wrist rest is very nice to use. I didn't use one before I got this, but now I will definitely keep using one.
The reason for the keyboard risers I still don't get : The risers are supposedly used to lever the FRONT of the keyboard in order to get a proper typing position. I am using the lowest setting on my filco TKL and am wondering what the tilt angle will bring on the longer term. The hind feet of the Filco are retracted so it has an angle opposite to what I am used to but hey, I am willing to try this for a few weeks and see what it gives.
At the moment I am using it the way I saw I would use it : with my right thumb I would steer the roller ( and keep my fingers on the home row!!!!! ) , with my left thumb I would press the buttons ( on the left side ) . The roller is clickable so either a single or double click is possible with it. You can set the click response of the rollerbar, I have it at a medium setting. I read that some people accidentally press the rollerbar on its lowest( most sensitive ) setting, but I tried this as well and it did not happen to me.
Iteration 2 :
After almost a week of use, I am sorry to say I actually developed RSI related problems.... My right wrist and right elbow started to hurt. Of course I wanted to quit the experiment/test immediately, but after some thought I decided to only remove the wrist rest since that is the only thing that really changed to my position with respect to the keyboard. I noticed that I 'float' my hands over the keyboard and my natural position is to NOT rest my palms on something. Once I do ( like with the rollermouse free 2 wristrest ) I run into problems. Well, at least it looks like this is the case. I am willing to try 1 more week, but this time without the wrist rest.
I am still using my regular apple mouse a lot. Since the rollermouse mousebar isn't really usable for dragging items on my desktop for longer distances ( I keep running into the endpoints ) I prefer using the regular mouse. Also simple tasks like selecting some larger chunks of text is hampered in this way. I also have a lot of issues with the endstops : I keep having the need to recalibrate the thing because I run into those endstops. I could enlarge the sensitivity but then my precision is seriously lowered. I guess I still need to find a way of adjusting to it.
My initial plan of using my right thumb for moving the rollermouse is still in place. It would be perfect if I could use it in that fashion. If I have to remove my whole right hand in order for me to move the mouse, I might as well keep using my regular mouse.
I also found out that the scrollwheel has a dual function. Once it is pressed, you can then use the mouse itself to go up or down. The more up/down you go the higher the scrollspeed becomes. If you press it again, this scroll mode is reset.
Iteration 3:
- Iteration 3 setup : No wrist rest and cherry mx Black CMstorm quickfire with non reversed tilt
- CMstorm_setup_rollermouse.jpg (203.79 KiB) Viewed 9468 times
Wait! How comes you've got my 2nd RollerMouse? 
