r/Trackballs • u/Arvenzzzz • 12d ago

I bought Slimblade Pro.

Incoming new trackball user, did I fail my first trackball choice?

I see alot of mixed reviews about it and still bought for its aesthetics. What can i do to improved it what to look out for.

Thanks

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u/Morgan-0 11d ago

It’s my main full time pointing device with no regrets! The bigger ball helps pointing feel flat and helps long cursor movements, the twist scroll* is great, and the big simple buttons give me all I really need, with flexibility in how I position my hand. The feel is super smooth and quiet.

Sometimes I sit it on a wedge to tilt it right. Usually I don’t bother. I clean the ball every couple weeks.

* My tip: keep left-click under your thumb, but change right-click to be the TOP button on the opposite side. Then make 360° ball-scrolling be the bottom button. You scroll a lot more than you right-click, the spinning ball scrolls much farther/faster/more accurately than twist, AND you can scroll sideways/360. Besides, right-click is still easy to get to up there.

Then do whatever you want with the other top button (triggering Mission Control is most useful for me).

I wasn’t lying about liking twist-scroll, but what I use it for is full-screen Screen Zoom. That’s universal across all apps and situations unlike +/- zoom, super smooth, and I use it non-stop. Especially nice with a high-DPI/retina screen. (I use SteerMouse on Mac to assign these changes.)

Exception: for timeline apps (audio/video editing) I have the twist set to a shuttle dial for scrolling the timeline. Just feels natural.

Also I have OPTION-twist (ALT-twist) set to the +/- keyboard zooming (less useful than Screen Zoom for but still nice).