The Bottom Line: One of microosft's better offerings. It's a great trackball only thing it doesn't have is the horizontal scrolling available on newer ms mice.

I've had this trackball for a few years. I'm not even sure this item is even sold anymore. My laptop has one of those awful touch pad things, don't like it and can't get used to it. I prefer a trackball for the laptop because it needs less space to operate than a mouse. Primarily on the laptop I'm working with text and surfing the net so a trackball is all that's needed. My laptop really doesn't have the horsepower or graphics handling ability for anything but the simplest of games anyway, so just no reason for anything but a trackball here.

I for one don't care for trackballs for games, I don't think like that, at least for me it's a lot more intuitive to move a mouse around than have to stop and think about what to do with a trackball. Maybe I'd change my mind if I spent time trying to learn to deal with it but so far I just don't care to.

Microsoft came out with this product at least five years ago, at the time optical mice were available but the tech was still kinda new. The ball on this trackball is marked with a pattern of light and dark markings, the laser inside the trackball apparently keys in on those light and dark markings to make the trackball work. Like all the microsoft products this trackball has several "ball bearings" (for want of a better word....only way I know how to describe them) inside the cavity where the ball fits. Occasionally these metal balls get gummed up with filth from your hands that transfers to the trackball and thus gets inside as the ball rolls around (skin oils etc.)it's simple matter to pop the ball out and clean those metal balls with a qtip moistened with alcohol. Face it guys, this is not the same kind of optical mouse that you move around with your hand, there are going to be some moving parts to gum up with crap...that's just life.

I've owned several track ball products from microsoft and from logitech, they all have this achilles heal. Several of my older ps2 microsoft trackballs had a lot worse problems with those bearings getting gummed up than this unit does. This trackball like most newer mice and trackballs can be used usb or ps2, your choice. I like the usb becaue my laptop doesn't have ps2 ports, only usb.

What comes in the box:
Microsoft intellipoint and the trackball, windows supports this natively with the native driver so no drivers to load and the intellipoint lets you set the buttons up the way you want to and setup fancy pointers etc.

What I think of it:
I love this product, wouldn't trade it for anything similar. I have used this for years with my laptop and as a secondary pointing device on my desktop, it's a sturdy well made product that works dependably in windows 98 and newer. This was one of microsofts better offerings, their newer stuff isn't up to the standards of this item.