Customer Reviews

Adesso Smartcat 4-Button USB Glidepoint Touchpad ( GDU410 )

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've got to tell you first off that I have some carpal tunnel in my "mousing" hand, as well as the lunate bone in my wrist dying and deteriorating due to a fall I suffered 8 years ago. I wish I had all the money back for the various mice and track balls that I've tried, especially in the last 3 or 4 years. I've also examined and adjusted all the ergonomic factors at my work meticulously, but it's all been to no avail.

Then I bought the Veritcal Mouse 2. I thought it would be the miracle I was looking for, especially after reading many reviews. And at first, it seemed to be. But I found that it didn't really fix anything. I just traded my existing joint pains for pain in other joints that were used differently in the movements of the new mouse.

Then I came across information on the Smartcat, and figuring I had nothing else to lose (except for more money), I tried it. It was a smart move, and my smartcat sent the mice scurrying to the hills for cover. One word of caution - it DOES NOT have 4 programmable buttons - at least not the way you'd expect that to mean. The two smaller buttons, one on each side of the touchpad, act together. In other words, you program one function, and that function is performed whenever you hit EITHER small button on the sides of the touchpad. So the big buttons on the bottom are my standard left and right clicks. I then programmed the button on the sides as a double click. (It reduced my overall number of clicks! Now that's a good thing in my situation.) To scroll, I just rub my finger on the right vertical side/edge of the touchpad screen to scroll up and down. To scroll left and right, you use the bottom of the touchpad screen. I ultimately chose to turn off the ability to "click" and "double click" by just tapping on the touchpad. There were times that placing my finger on the pad as I was getting ready to move the mouse would be interpreted as a click - wherever the mouse cursor happened to be on my touching the pad. So I turned that feature off.

All in all a great production - the first to help me, and I've tried many.

But it's been a wonderful product, and I wouldn't go back to anything else. I didn't trade pain for other pain this time. Everything has improved.

I purchased this product after reading the reviews and looking for a solution to hand pain experienced with the Microsoft Trackball I had been using. I find this device very easy to use. It works just like the touchpad on a good laptop but has a bunch of additional features which are also very helpful such as scrolling. It responds perfectly to my finger and I find it vastly easier to use than a mouse or a trackball and it makes me wonder why anyone would want to use a mouse at all? I have only one complaint - the buttons are supposed to be programmable but they are only marginally programmable ... they can be re-programmed to do one of the functions that Adesso wants to support but they cannot be re-programmed for other functions (i.e. program to reproduce any particular keystroke). So far I'm very happy with this product overall though. One user mentioned it comes with no drivers - a CD was shipped in the box for me with drivers. -- Updating this review, I still love the product, and my severe hand pain has disappeared since I switched from a Microsoft "Ergonomic" trackball to this device because it eliminates much of the repetitive motion and one's hand is at a much lower and more natural position. One annoying thing to note is that the functionality of this device appears to be dependent upon processor activity. When the processor is not busy, it works wonderfully but when the processor is busy with a task then it hardly works at all. This is an intermittent problem but I've never had trouble like this with a regular mouse so it seems the driver for this device has a lower priority than a normal mouse driver.

The touchpad is great! My wrist and forearm don't hurt anymore!

The instructions for set up were easy. There are programmable buttons for shortcuts, but you need to register the product to download the program to do that.

The touchpad is very sensitive and takes alot of getting used to. I find it difficult to highlight a whole passage (as opposed to a word or sentence which is easy) and sometimes I click on things accidentally because my finger just brushes the pad. It's just a different creature and will take some time to learn how to use it. It's well worth the time and effort.

This review is strictly for Mac users running Snow Leopard, who have the option of using Apple's Magic Trackpad ($70). I purchased the Smartcat because I am sick of giving Apple my money and am embarrassed when people see me with a full line of Apple products. I figured the Smartcat would be at least as good because Cirque has been making these for well over a decade. But I was wrong. This has four buttons, against the Magic Trackpad's one, which I hoped would translate into added customization/functionality. But the software is not Mac compatible, leaving only the basic features comparable to those of a mouse with a middle button and a vertical scroll-wheel. Regardless, this is not a multi-touch device, so it wouldn't support the large range of gestures natively available on the Magic Trackpad anyway. Nor would it support the even greater range of gestures available through third-party software like the free BetterTouch Tool.

Here are ten more significant shortcomings of this product as against the Magic Trackpad:

(1) It is far less sensitive/precise than the Magic Trackpad, resulting in the annoyance of frequently over/undershooting.
(2) It is thick and clunky feeling, although it does feel relatively solid.
(3) It has a plastic surface that is far less comfortable than the glass surface on the Magic Trackpad.
(4) It is wired.
(5) It is ugly.
(6) The right button can only be pressed by pressing a physical button or by the user moving her finger to an area in the upper right of the pad; this contrasts with the intuitive and much more efficient two-finger click.
(7) The vertical scroll functionality depends on the user running his fingers along the right side. Worse, the horizontal scroll functionality is completely disabled. By contrast, the Magic Trackpad enables these frequently-used functions through two-fingered swiping anywhere on the pad.
(8) Mac users---who must forgo the Glidepoint software---pay a premium for this product over the entry-level version for only one reason: a larger surface area. This supposed large surface area is about a quarter the size of that of the Magic Trackpad. Yet the overall size is not much smaller.
(9) This is expensive considering the above shortcomings and the price of the Magic Trackpad ($70).
(10) This is not future-proofed. Apple has announced that they will make much more use of gestures in their next OS (Lion), which they plan to make more iPad-like. This device does not accept gestures.

This touchpad saved me after gettig my laptop. It doesn't require a flat surface and is light and portable.

I've tried almost every other type of mouse, including basic models, contoured basic models, trackballs, and vertical mice. The problem with them all (except the trackball) is that my fingers or hand would have to grasp the mouse, leading to fatigue and RSI. (With the trackball, I had to hold my hand in an awkward position, which eventually resulted in fatigue and RSI too.) But, with this touchpad mouse, I can hold my hand at desk level and not have to grasp anything. Plus, it has the biggest mousing surface for a touchpad mouse I could find in the consumer marketplace (i.e. for an affordable price).

I'm giving it a 5 because it avoids wrist/hand strain far better than any other mouse I know of, though I too am slightly annoyed by the limited programmability of the buttons (see other reviews for more info).

The only better mousing solution I can imagine is a mouse that responds to voice commands.

I've had this touchpad for almost 5 years now and it still works great. I use it just like the touchpad on a laptop; never needed to program/use the side buttons. I have it sitting in front of my keyboard and it doesn't get in the way of typing nor does it move around unless I deliberately move it. I would definitely buy another one again.

I bought this touchpad to alleviate wrist and arm pain from using a mouse. It had such great reviews here on Amazon. The touchpad is too small for convenient use, and the entire device is so light that it inadvertently moves all over the place with the slightest nudge. It is not synched correctly with onscreen motion so that the cursor movement is sometimes not immediately reflected correctly on the screen. This is junk - a total waste of $43.