Hands on with Kensington's SlimBlade Trackball

I haven't been a trackball user for many years, but Kensington's new SlimBlade Trackball could make a convert of me once again.

Foremost this is a standard trackball, but it's one with an impressive feel and immaculate design. The ball is large and rides quite high. At the same time, as the name implies, the base is very slim and flat, the result being that your wrist doesn't strain upwards when you use it and your fingers rest very naturally on the top of the ball when you use it. Buttons are big and easy to reach, too. Overall I found the trackball extremely comfortable even for extended computing sessions.

If that was all there was to it, the SlimBlade would be a pretty cool device, but it has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

One problem with most trackballs is the lack of a scroll wheel. Well, Kensington solves that by letting you rotate the ball along the plane parallel to the desk to scroll up and down or left and right, whatever is allowed by the app you're in. Think of it as spinning a dial or knob side to side and you get the idea. No need to take your hand off the device to scroll; you can do it all with a simple twist.

And there's more: There are two additional working modes you can use, the View mode and the Media mode. Click the button above the right-click button and you enter View mode, which lets the trackball perform shortcuts designed for graphics and photo programs. Now, the dial-twist action zooms in and out of your image, a left-click displays the image at 100% size, and the right-click displays it to fit the width of the window. Click the View mode button again and you return to regular browsing. (View mode isn't supported in all apps, but it worked with everything I tried. A list of supported apps is here.)

Media mode is similar. Click the top-left button and the dial action changes volume, left-click pauses, and right-click stops the music. This works with both Windows Media Player and iTunes.

All cool stuff, and I encountered no problems working with any of the modes -- at least once I'd trained myself. Since none of this is labeled on the trackball (all four buttons are text-free), you might want to keep the cheat sheet guide handy for the first two days. (Also, don't forget, none of this will work unless you download the drivers from the above website; software isn't included in the box.)

At about $105 (street price), this isn't a cheap solution to dropping a standard mouse or even a less sophisticated trackball on your desk, but if you spend long hours working in image editing apps or leave your computer to play music all day long, the SlimBlade is an appealing solution... and a very attractive product to boot.