DEFT PRO

Extremely comfortable. It’s my first trackball and if you’re reading people complain about stiction and bearings please give it a shot anyway. Once broken in after about a week, the trackball glides beautifully and the stiction is all but gone. Seriously, you most likely don’t need to worry about replacing bearings or anything unless you are very sensitive or very particular about your trackball experience. I’m not. I just wanted something ergonomic for my desk job, and this exceeded my expectations. Good weight to it and button position is easy to get used to. It sits a bit high so I personally wound up getting a wrist rest. The Gimars (and no doubt all the other brands selling products from the same factory as well) mouse wrist rest found on here works great for it for me.

I am leaving a review of the Elecom Huge and Deft Pro after over a week of intensive "testing" of several trackball mice. Let me begin by stating that I am new to the trackball world so these are my observations from that point of view and I'm leaving these reviews in hopes that it will help someone else who might find themself in a similar situation to what I was in a week ago with no experience with trackballs in a world of opinions.I have mid-sized hands with somewhat thicker "carpenter" fingers and I bought this item to replace a mouse for general and light CAD use. I have a CAD mouse for more intricate work but over the years of design and IT work I'm beginning to develop wrist discomfort. This was the first finger trackball that I tried after testing a Logi M575 that a friend brought over to try for Fusion work. I was hooked on the ball, but I wanted a little more control so I went with the finger style. I found the thumb style to fatigue my thumb joint a little too much.Right out of the box I was impressed by how relaxed my wrist felt on the Huge. I liked the size of the ball and the smoothness of the scroll wheel. It seemed very intuitive to someone new to the trackball realm. The two things I couldn't get over were the stretch of the side buttons with my somewhat shorter fingers and of course, what many of the other reviews talk about, the "stiction" of the ball itself. I did like to overall ergonomics, but decided to defer to the Deft Pro for my next try.I found the Deft Pro to be a better fit for my shorter fingers and the ball a little easier to control for more intricate commands in Fusion while cradling it between my first and middle finger and occasionally passing it off to my right ring finger. I also liked the way that my hand relaxed in a "cradle" position over the Deft Pro while allowing me to rest my wrist lightly on the table. The Huge allowed a straighter relaxed wrist on the device overall, but the Deft Pro felt like it was easier to control for smaller movements. Again though, the bearings on the Deft Pro were too sticky for me and I ordered the bearings to replace them as many have suggested, but decided to return both units before I modified them after finally settling on a combination of a much smoother out-of-the box Slimblade pro for general use and a 3dconnexion CAD and Space mouse combo for design work. The CAD mouse has a really nice form factor for a mouse and I was immediately able to find a comfortable relaxed position on the ambidextrous Slimblade Pro. I didn't have to 'hover' on the Slimblade as many reviews have noted. I realize that this type of setup isn't easy to obtain for a lot of people so I'll leave with this final word based on my spending a week with all three trackballs. Both the Deft Pro and the Huge are great trackballs and a lot of people like them once they are modified to fix the sticky ball issues. As a CAD guy I didn't like the click of the Deft Pro scroll wheel and I though that it felt cheap compared to other scroll wheel mice I've used, but I could have gotten used to that because of the Deft Pro's overall precise control factor if it weren't for the "stiction". Elecom makes track balls feel intuitive, even for new believers like myself, I just couldn't get past the quality issues with the bearings right out of the box. I was either going to spend less for a mouse than the price of Elecoms and deal with the issues they might have caused or spend more and get the performance that I was looking for without having to modify a unit right from the start.These are just my opinions, but I hope this helps someone else who may have been reading reviews for hours, and testing units like I was just to find a suitable replacement.

These reviews seem to cover several models of Elecom trackballs - this review is specifically for the DEFT Pro model M-DPT1MR (middle size, between small blue-ball and the "Huge").I have tried several trackballs from several manufacturers, trying to find a decent replacement for my failing Microsoft Trackball Explorer (MTSE). The M-DPT1MR is the closest substitute I have found yet.Although the basic shape does not fit my hand quite as well as the MTSE, the shape still is close enough to provide much of the same comfortable ergonomic fit. The main difference is the lack of a "landing area" at the wrist end of the trackball. With the M-DPT1MR, your wrist will rest on the table instead of up on the trackball itself. HOWEVER, I have found that using the proper wrist pad makes an acceptable substitute, positioning my wrist/palm in a very similar position as on the MSTE (see my comparison photo). The M-DPT1MR looks smaller in the photo, but with the extension of the wrist pad, the hand position is very similar.From the photo, the M-DPT1MR ball looks much smaller than the ball of the MSTE, but the measured diameters are very similar (44mm vs 46mm, respectively). I do not notice any difference due to ball size during usage. Ball operation is very smooth.The center and right button placement is not quite as comfortable as the MSTE - the buttons are a bit too close to the ball, and a bit smaller than the MSTE's. But, I have been able to adapt after using the M-DPT1MR for a while. Not too hard a transition.As other reviews have noted, the scroll wheel has a noticeable "clicking" or notched feel. I personally do not have an issue with this - I only really notice it when scrolling long pages quickly, but even then it is not too bad. Seems to smooth out over time. The wheel's click operation is a bit stiffer than the MSTE, but again surmountable, at least for me. The main left-click button seems perfectly natural for me.The Elecom Mouse Assistant software seems to provide all the control I need, for speeds, inertial momentum, and button assignments. I could map the buttons just as I had done for the MSTE. I like the extra buttons for custom mapping, but frankly have not used them much so far.I do wish it was easier to find an English version of the user's manual - it does not come in the packaging, nor is there a clue about where to find it. Unfortunately, Amazon does not allow me to try to help by posting the links here.All in all, so far I have been quite satisfied with the M-DPT1MR. For many people, it may certainly be a reasonable alternative for the MS Trackball Explorer.