The Logitech Trackman Wheel Trackball Mouse (to give it its full, silly title) is an entry level trackball input device. I recently picked one up in an attempt to combat some soreness I’d been experiencing in the wrist area after a long day’s work!

I chose this device because it was competitively priced (just £24.99 from play.com) and I didn’t want to spend any more than that without knowing how I would react to a different type of input device.The mouse plugged straight into a USB port and ‘just worked’ out of the box. I use it at work on an  Ubuntu machine, and there was no faffing around with drivers or anything like that – just plug and play.

The mouse is nice and big, and to me, it’s comfortable to use. I have pretty big hands (stop sniggering at the back!) and I feel like my hand is just resting on it while I use it. I’ve noticed a significant lessening of wrist pain and fatigue after using this mouse.

I’ve been using a standard mouse for around twenty years now – about two-thirds of my life – so I was initially a little concerned about how long it would take to get used a trackball mouse.

My first instinct when using the Trackman was to turn up the mouse speed. In particular, you might feel there’s a little more effort required in moving the mouse around if you’re using two or more monitors.

I also found that for the first week or so, my pointing and clicking accuracy was lower than usual, so allow yourself some time to acclimatise. However, it became second nature to me pretty quickly after that. In fact, it feels weird going home to use a ‘normal’ mouse now!

If you’re looking for something a little bit different, or you’re concerned about aching arms, you could do a lot worse than this mouse.