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Finally, an active community for trackball enthusiasts!
(discuss.tchncs.de)
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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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I'm definitely more accurate with a mouse than a trackball.
However, there are some neat things that one can do with trackballs that one can't do with mice. I've had a trackball of some sort around for a long time for those cases.
I can lie down on a bed or couch with a trackball, whereas a mouse requires a flat, horizontal, stable, hard surface to work with.
I can squeeze a trackball into a tiny space on a table, where a mouse wouldn't fit.
Depending upon the type of trackball, some permit for flicking the ball and letting it spin freely in a direction with one's fingers up. A lot of software these days, especially on touchscreen-oriented devices, permits "flinging" to scroll and letting virtual inertia let something scroll onscreen to simulate a similar effect, but such trackballs had hardware device-level support for such behavior that worked in any software and worked the same way everywhere.
Not really mice, but relative to trackpads, it used to be that trackpads with physical buttons were widely available. I vastly prefer those to trackpads with "virtual" buttons, but in 2025, there are very few laptop models that provide for physical buttons, especially with a Linux-friendly three physical buttons that don't require chording to get a middle-click. Some Thinkpad models provide Synaptic trackpads that do this, but even those have become a minority of available Thinkpad models. Trackballs, on the other hand, have to provide physical buttons, and are a lot easier to find in 2025 with more than two physical buttons than trackpads.
Also relative to a trackpad, I'm more-accurate with a trackball.
I wouldn't choose a trackball over a mouse for general use at a desk. And the very flat dimensions of a trackpad make it compelling for a lot of built-in laptop use
while a few laptops still are available with internal trackballs, the tight physical constraints force tiny trackballs. If I use a trackball with a laptop, I personally want an external one.
But there are definitely scenarios where a trackball works better for me than either a mouse or trackpad, enough for me to keep them around.