Customer Reviews

Trackbar Mouse Is The Newest and Most Economical Central Pointing Device In The

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

 

 

Compared to Contour's own RollerMouse Pro, the TrackBar Emotion's

-Trackbar is sticky and requires too much friction to go left and right
-Scroll wheel sticks and can only do half a rotation before I have to unstick it by banging on the wheel
-Trackbar not rubberized like the RollerMouse
-Lacks friction adjustment
-Software utilized to reprogram the extra buttons do not work
-It's too wide if you don't use the palm rest.
-The button locations are awkward (they should have a button group after the trackbar so the index fingers can use them)
-Pressing on the trackbar does not signal a Left Click like it does on the RollerMouse Pro.

Overall, it's not worth the 75 bucks spent on this unit, if anything, its build quality is worse than the freebie Dell Mice that they hand out with every new computer.

It would be better if the unit was lower and were able to slide underneath the keyboard. I use the new slim Apple Keyboard for Macs (the new one), and if it came from the space bar out diagonally right at a 30 degree angle from the keyboard, it would work so much better.

But unfortunately, the palm rests are not removable and the unit was built to be big and bulky. If anything it's not as ergonomic as it was originally purported to be because the hand's positioning is still the same as using a regular mouse. With you requiring to lift your hand and have your wrist at a strange angle to work.

This is not worth your money or the frustration of daily use of this product. I bought this to replace a dead barmouse, which is much the same concept, only a far superior product. However, this cost significantly less - and now I know why. For Mac users, only two of the buttons and the scroll wheel function. Why? Who knows. It would be far better, comfortwise, if I could use the lower two buttons for clicking, but that is not an option. Also, clicking the bar itself does nothing, which is a HUGE disappointment after the barmouse. The motion on the bar is sporadic. Sometimes it won't hardly budge side to side and then all of a sudden it flies across the screen just as you manage to get it where you want. I waste so much time just trying to move the cursor into position! Also the bar is too smooth for decent traction to move it with your fingers at times.

If you get the right product, this mouse concept is an arm and wrist saver. Using the barmouse product I experienced none of the pain that was occurring with standard mousing. So, buy something like this, just not THIS ONE.

I disregarded the two previous reviews. Don't commit the same mistake I did.
I got the 2009 version which case is built for future wireless support, but brings none. That shows disrespect for the comsumer.
The unit is:
Bulky.
The Trackbar does work well if you are a serious user and know how to configure your mouse scrolling speed.
The Buttons are factually umprogrammable in ANY OS with their first party application.
The Application ran once on Win Xp SP3 then it didn't anymore in both Windows 7 and Xp sp3. Compatibility tried.

DON'T BUY THIS PRODUCT.

Only problem is other trackbars are very costly.

I have this at m work, and hardly use it. Unlike track ball, it rolls and slide side to side. once it goes to one end (left or right), it will pull your cursor to one direction, until you pull the slide bar away from the edge. Idea is good, but with flaw like that, it do you more harm than good.

Save your $$ (obviously the makers of this device did so in design and manufacturing) and get the RollerMouse Pro 2 instead. This thing is just awful. I expect that if you didn't already have an injury, this device would create one. A colleague let me borrow the Emotion since I just got a RollerMouse Pro 2 for the office (through workers comp) and wanted to have one of those at home for when I telecommute (except that those are $200). After using the Emotion for a few hours, I gave it back (my colleague and another person in our office didn't like it either). Then, I put the RollerMouse Pro 2 on my Wishlist. And, I wanted to express my emotion and warn other buyers away from this Emotion device because it's really just a perfect example of a how a good idea can be completely ruined in implementation.

The idea of this device is similar to Rollermouse Pro: the movement of the cursor is done by the bar and the buttons are right below (or above) the bar (depending on how you want to position the device). The advantage of such a device, in my opinion, is that by position the device right below the keyboard or more precisely the space key, the user does not need to reach out for the mouse. The effect is similar to typing using a laptop keyboard, the touchpad or trackpad is right below your fingers.

However, the design of this device makes it very uncomfortable to use.
1. The trackbar is way too heavy. Don't get me wrong. It is not that you have to put in a real force to move the trackbar. But the level of efforts required making it less ideal for any usage of a prolonged period of time.

2. When the trackbar is being pushed towards one side, after some threshold, the cursor starts to move automatically towards the edge of the screen even if you have stopped moving your trackbar. To stop the cursor, you have to pull the trackbar towards the opposite direction. Such a design is really odd.

3. The device is too thick to be placed along the long end of the keyboard. For most regular height keyboards, the level of the trackbar and your wrists are about 1/2 inch higher than the level of the keyboard. Note that those portions beside the bar and the buttons are hard plastic rather than soft cushions. So in the end, your wrists are at the higher level and you are reaching your keyboard, especially the bottom row of keys, from top down by bending your wrists in an awkward way.

4. The customization of the buttons only works for PC.

In short, as another reviewer said, it is a good idea but poor implementation.

I've been suffering from severe wrist pains for years, but with Trackbar those pains are long gone! THANK YOU, TRACKBAR!

No one likes this thing on amazon! Crazy!!

I love it myself. I've gone through three now - all with different types of "rollbar".

But first - if you have *any* sort of wrist or shoulder pain, this thing is brill. Literally, brill. It will wipe out your problems. If you've got bad shoulder pain, combine this with a decent keyboard tray - just something that is adjustable regarding height and can roll out - and you'll be on the right track. As a useless aside, a lot of the more expensive keyboard trays have "adjustable height with one touch access". This sounds, and is, awesome. However, unless you are changing your seat height constantly over the course of the day, you won't need it. Go for cheaper versions.

But - i digress. This is a nice, solid little rollbar thingy. The first one I had was as pictured, a metal/plastic rollbar that got sweaty and spun around a ways. It was good, but not as good as the next version I got, which had a rubber-mesh rollbar, that I use at work. The most recent version (I lost the first one, and always have a work-one and a home-one) is a fully rubber bar. This one sucks a bit, the bar is "heavy" to drag from one side to another, and my mouse often gets jumpy and runs around a bit.
If possible, try and get ANY OTHER version than this "fully rubber" one. Ask around. This item is well worth 4 stars when it is not the fully rubberised bar, but is only worth 2 stars when it is the fully rubberised bar.

So the mesh-rubber is the best. I haven't tried the more expensive versions that are being touted on the reviews here - I need one for work and one for home, and I'm not about to spend 3,4 hundred dollars on what is, in effect, a glorified mouse. The most recent version is probably pretty close to unusable.

Unless you are a gamer. Then these things, any version, any brand, I don't care - are utterly and totally hopeless. You never get anywhere near the precision of a mouse unless you're using both hands to move the rollbar. and then you can't, you know, move. That's not saying they're unusable for day-to-day tasks - buttons are big, these days, and microsecond speed isn't a necessity in writing programming apps or what have you. But it is in shooting, I don't know, some monster with a gun.
I did play a bit of DragonAge (which I liked, the little I played of it) with this rollbar, and that was mostly ok. The thing "locks" when you slide it too far to one side, so there were times when my witless hero would run in circles down the town square, eyes to the sky, like a 12 year old girl in the big city for the first time. But mostly the rollbar was fine.

EDIT

Ok, I cannot advise you to buy this anymore, assuming you have the money for the rollbar mouse pro 2. It is 100 dollars more than this thing, but it is worth it.
My trackbar is approaching useless because I cannot *clean* the damn bar, which means it is hard to move now. Annoyingly, the old trackbars used to let you clean the rollbar somewhat. For whatever godforsaken reason, the idiots that manufacture these things decided to disable that. When this thing finally goes kaput, i'm getting another rollbar pro 2.

I tried this device out because I thought it was a less expense version of the rollermouse. When I got the device I found out the it did not fully work. The bar when push all the way to the left could not reach the end of my two screens. When with the device I could not fully use my entire desktop. I see that as an unusable device.

Now, I spent the extra money for the RollerMouse Free and I really love it. I am really glad that this device did not work out.