Kensington
Turboball review
Posted
by Adam
Klein on April 14, 2000 - Page 2/4
Company: Kensington
Product: Turboball
trackball
More
Impressions
For the rest
of the trackball, it is shaped so that it fits around your
palm. With your middle and index fingers moving the ball, your
thumb on the first and third button and the pinky and ring
finger for the second and fourth buttons. It may seem
overwhelming to have five buttons on one trackball, but with
the way Kensington has layed it out, it's easy to control.
An important
aspect to the Turboball is how smooth the ball moves.
This is one of the biggest concerns I have when
shopping for a trackball.
That’s why testing out a trackball before buying is
always a great thing to do. I can assure you that the
Turboball is just as smooth as the other higher priced
trackballs that you may have seen from Logitech. Another good
thing about the ball is it's larger ball size than most of the
other trackballs out there.
I find the
trackballs with a larger ball size are more precise than the
trackballs with a smaller ball.
Another advantage to having a larger ball is the less
cleaning you have to do on them.
I can use the Turboball for a whole week, three to four
hours per day without having to take the ball out to clean it.
Installation
I thought to
myself that the installation of the trackball was going to be
a breeze. I mean,
how hard can it be to install a trackball anyway?
Well, installation on a PS/2 port is super easy.
Just plug it into the PS/2 slot and Windows will
install the correct software and most importantly, you will be
able to use the trackball as it installs the drivers.
Getting it
installed as a USB device is another matter. Plugging in my
Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro and the Kensington Turboball
both into the USB ports left me with no input device when
entering Windows. I
then had to move the keyboard to the PS/2 port and leave the
Turboball plugged into the USB port.
I could then install the drivers for the trackball via
my keyboard. After
that was all done, I moved the keyboard back to the USB port
and was able to install the drivers for the keyboard via the
trackball. After
all of that, I was able to use both of them on the USB ports.
My
Microsoft Natural keyboard has USB ports on the back of it, so
I wanted to test the Turboball out with it plugged into the
back of the keyboard. I
plugged it in the back, booted into Windows and Windows
redetected the correct hardware. I was running smoothly ever since. When plugging USB devices into each other, you have to make
sure there is enough current available for the device. The Turboball uses less than 100mA, so I didn't have to worry
about any power problems that could erupt when plugged into my
keyboard.
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