SlimBlade™ Pro Wireless Trackball, Rechargeable Battery, Bluetooth 2.4GHz Connection Options Black/Gray (K72085WW)

Having used the traditional trackball for more decades than I can easily remember I decided to switch to the slimline version about 3 months ago. The "wheel" on the traditional always made an annoying sound and the weakest point on it. The "wheel" on the slimline is not physical but senses when your finger is close to the circular area around the ball, meaning there is no ring anymore and you simply get close to or touch where it used to be and spin the ball to get the same effect, and it works well once you realize how to control it. It is smooth and easy to use. The track ball is the same size and are interchangeable. The socks the ball its in has some nice improvements, gone are the tiny balls use to give it a smooth roll and always collected dead skin and dust and replaced with simple indents doing the same without as much collection. Then at the bottom you now have a hole where dust will fall out through. This makes it less sensitive to collecting particles and easier to clean. You have a choice to use bluetooth or USB cable. The buttons can be harder to click on since you now have to click closer to the center unless you press a lot harder than normal. Not a huge deal but a change. The only real issue I've started to run into namely battery life. The specs lists 4 months or charge, that was good until 2 weeks ago and now it drops to 25% and gives a flashing red-light to let me know the charge is low. Now I charge it once a week. Though annoying it does charge up pretty fast. For all that use this brand of track ball you know they are well made and this is no different and maybe even better. Inserting the USB C connector does require a much harder push, something probably made to ensure it does not fall out easily. And for everyone else, if you ever had an issue with your mouse, try a track ball mouse but one with a large ball. Small ones do not give the same control (more sensitive). --- UPDATE: Called support and they are shipping a new one, can't complain about that!

I came across the Kensington Trackball about 35 years ago and it was just a very simple plug-in device. I have not gone back to using a regular mouse, or a trackpad since I started using the Kensington Trackball. It cuts down on hand fatigue, is much more precise in its movement and I’m sure it helps to prevent future issues surrounding carpal tunnel syndrome. The Trackball remains stationary and you gand works the ball & buttons. Everything is faster & easier with the Trackball. The Trackball has two left-keys & two right-keys, which can be programmed as left-click/right-click, with the remaining keys able to be programmed to snap to websites, email, etc. This is a very versatile product and as I said, I’ll never go back to using a regular mouse or a trackpad again. They are a pain. It’s the perfect merging of a keyboard and the ability to move your cursor around your page , highlight, cut/paste, etc. with speed and precision. FIVE STARS FOR THE PAST 35-YEARS & MOVING FORWARD.

I've used variations of the original Kensington Smart Mouse (trackball) since the mid-90s and have been hesitant to make the change to this model because of the change in the scrolling mechanism compared to the current Expert Mouse, with a mechanical scroll ring. I did not know if I could adapt or would like the change, but I immediately found the SlimBlade intuitive, and it had even better performance than the old scroll ring. My biggest fears were dispelled. Overall, it is quite an improvement over the older Expert Mouse (trackball). This trackball can be directly connected to the computer, and the cable is a standard USB-C variety. I have two old cabled trackballs in the junk drawer due to cable shorts. I also have a couple of the older versions with the dongle that are worn out, too. I preferred the dongle version in the older Expert Mouse, but they went through batteries and did not always work correctly. I was excited to read that the SlimBlade can last months on a single charge using the dongle, so it is like the best of both worlds. The construction of the SlimBlade is a big improvement over the old Smart Mouse. It is sleek and less prone to clogging, which was a constant cat-hair problem in the past. To me, the buttons are easier to click, and it is much quieter. One of the things I notice most is that it is less bulky than my old favorite, the Kensington Smart Mouse; it is a pleasure to use.

Update 03-03-25 I have purchased several SlimBlade Pro trackballs now. My wife has switched to the Nulea trackball as she finds the ball placement more comfortable (the ball sits closer to the buttons). I prefer the SlimBlade, but I do have an issue with the balls. Two of the balls have a flaw (a small bubble in the plastic perhaps) a small cavity maybe 2mm in diameter that catches in the bearings. This is very annoying. I replaced one ball with a LYDD replacement. The LYDD ball is smooth with no flaws (yet, at least). I will probably buy another LYDD ball but I should not need to. --- Update: One problem with the scroll wheel on the Expert is that design means stuff can get into the mechanism. My current Expert has a balky scroll. I decided to give the SlimBlade a second look. This one has a stable frame so that is good. The scroll on the Expert, when not gritty is better. I hope that the open bottom under the ball on the SlimBlade means that grit falls through and not into the trackball. The older ball from my Expert works better for me on the Slimlade, it is not so slick. Some people hate the scroll click, I do not mind it but it would be nice to have an option in KensingtonWorks. The lower profile of the SlimBlade is preferable for me. The buttons on the Expert are a little stiffer which I prefer. The built in battery on the SlimeBlade is a nice feature. It has been five days and I am comfortable with the little differences between the SlimBlade and the Expert. I think the scroll is slightly better on the Expert (so long as grit is not in the mechanism. Since the Expert can get gritty it is a toss-up with the SlimBlade giving a slightly less capable but more consistent feel. The clicky noise does not bother me like some others. The buttons are too soft, lots of miss-fires. But I like the lower profile a lot. You cannot make a lower profile for a 55mm ball. I also like the built in battery. The Expert was a battery eater. I will see how long the SlimBlade runs on a charge. I can run the SlimBlade on a cord if needed the Expert will not do this. With Expert, I would occasionally lose the point with the computer wakes up. This usually required a power cycle to fix. I have not seen this with the SlimBlade (this may be a function of the latest KensingtonWorks). --- I have used an Expert wireless for years. But I never liked that high ball placement. I thought that I would give this a try. Well, the lower ball placement is great but the scroll is so-so. I live in NV which means dry, and a dry finger tends to slide on the ball rather than scroll the window. This is not a problem with normal tracking since I can get two or three fingers on the ball. The other annoying issue is that the frame in slightly twisted so the whole thing rocks (in a bad way). A 1mm shim solves this but for such a pricey device, this is not a reasonable solution. I returned it.

This is a solid well made piece of equipment. The operation of the buttons has some clanking, but I rather like that feedback. The function of the 4 buttons & button-combination is completely customizable with many options for the action that's taken. I just love the twist-&-scroll ability, where you twist the trackball & whatever page you're in slides up or down. It's so much faster & easier than shuffling over to the slide bar at the right of the page, & sliding down manually. For me, this alone was worth the purchase. After a month of using the trackball for many hours, the charge level is still at 100%. I use the trackball on a Bluetooth connection. It's fast & reliable. I am very pleased with the smooth & silent operation of this trackball. Having a large ball is really useful for me to keep control of the mouse over a very large screen. If you've only ever used a mouse, expect a period of adjustment for you to get used to the operation & feel of a trackball. But, this is the best. A little regular practice, & you'll find this fast & more accurate than anything you could have done with a mouse.

After doing some research, I decided to buy this mouse as it seemed better than any other trackball mouse out in the market. I love the slim design, which makes it easy to carry in my bag. I also love how easy it is to clean — as I saw that these type of mouse need to be cleaned regularly for longevity and trackball movement. The ball comes right out so you can get in and clean easily. It’s also wireless and wired, for my personal computer I have it set to Bluetooth, and for my work, it’s set to wired. It also has a dongle and an adapter to convert from regular USB to USB-C, which I highly appreciate as a lot of computers now come with limited USB slots. The mouse movement when it comes to the trackball is smooth and you can control the scrolling speed by the software Kensington provides so it’s very customizable. As far as durability, I’ve only had it for a couple of days so I can’t attest to it fully, but it feels very sturdy and well worth its price. I love the functionality of the Kensington program and the overall trackpad, it can be really nice for those who are left handed too since you can customize the buttons. Overall, a really great trackball mouse and I’m glad I chose it because I genuinely don’t feel like I have to keep searching for another one and that this one will last me awhile. UPDATE: I’m removing two stars because their customization program is a bit invasive in my opinion. It incessantly pops up and stays on top of every page asking me to allow it to give it really invasive permissions. Just recently my Mac asked me that the program wanted to record all keystrokes. It’s just a mouse, why does it want to know my keystrokes as well? I attached one picture of the message that pops up and overlays over every screen until you forcefully quit it, and I didn’t think to get a picture of my Mac saying it was asking me to grant it permissions to record all keystrokes. At this point, I don’t feel comfortable with that much invasiveness so I’m deleting the program and just using it as it was programmed from factory, turns out I’m more comfortable that way anyways as my work computer doesn’t allow me to download this on it and I use it on that computer as well.

Difficult product to review. On the one hand it is new, fresh, an exciting departure from the norm, an attractive piece of tech that looks stunning and gets interest from anyone who hasn't seen it before. On the other hand it is a very flawed computer peripheral that isn't good at doing the job it is actually designed for. In summary, what could have been the best pointing device I've ever used turns out to be one of the worst. It is let down by small overlooked functionality issues, that should have been obvious during testing before releasing the product, and should easily be rectified by the devices software. Poor design choices regarding the location of settings buttons on the trackball are just that, very poor functional design. It is almost as if it is a BETA version prior to the official release. Setting up the Slimblade is easy. Plug in USB and it's detected and usable immediately, or pressing the Bluetooth button connects just as quickly. I have not tried the 2.4Ghz wireless. The trackball is usable without installing Kensington Works software but to take advantage of button programming the software is required. BTW I am using Windows 11. Buttons can be assigned different actions within Kensington Works, allowing up to 8 user programmable actions. However, this does little to alleviate the biggest issues with using this trackball especially as the software doesn't have any way of disabling, either temporarily or permanently, the twist ball scrolling system. That is just plain stupid, and I cant help thinking that no one at Kensington has even tested their own product! Twisting the ball delivers a very annoying and again totally uncontrollable artificial speaker generated click click click noise. WHY? and why can it not be turned off? On top of that the Twist to scroll cannot be disabled making the trackball useless in environments that require consistent accurate movement of the cursor. The Trackball will often interpret a diagonal slight rotation of the ball as a twist and start scrolling, totally ruining the current design being drawn on screen, for instance. When playing 1st person shooter games, again the trackball will interpret your input as a request for scroll, destroying gameplay. You are just trying to look around or navigate a character when all of sudden the view point changes or zoom changes or head up display appears, or whatever is assigned to the scroll function within the game happens. This is NOT acceptable. It renders the trackball unusable and quite frankly unfit for purpose. There should be a software switch, as Kensington have not provided a hardwired switch on the device itself, to suspend the scroll twist function in addition to turning off that incessant click click click click click etc. so the trackball is of no use in most user cases already, but it gets worse........ The buttons on the side of the unit to select DPI or pair bluetooth could not be in a more inconvenient position. Again, I believe there is no way anyone properly product tested this before release otherwise it would have been addressed. In order to pick up the large footprint trackball unit your hands/fingers grab the unit exactly where the DPI button is located. Instantly changing DPI settings or worse, messing up bluetooth connection. It is disappointing that an expensive and often assumed quality brand Kensington is happy to sell this beautiful ornament as a trackball when it clearly isn't ready for use, despite being available for years now. I cannot use this trackball, neither can my partner nor my work colleagues and all for the same reasons. It is not just me being difficult! This trackball really is a waste of money, effort, time etc. A quick bit of software development to enable useful features such as disable the DPI switch and disable the twist scroll and associated click click click click click click click would completely change this useless trackball into a very good product. WHY has it not been done? My more than 20 year old Logitech Cordless Trackman is way better than this Kensington effort. I do not recommend this Kensington Slimblade Pro at all. The only users likely to be happy with it as a pointing device are ones that are wealthy and don't mind overspending on a useless device and would very rarely use it, or have another pointing device anyway. There are more issues with the trackball but enough is enough, this is just a quick Amazon review.

I've only been using this a few weeks but given I have a hand injury and the other styles of ergonomic mouse weren't much help, this has been really nice and my hand does not ache much if at all by the end of the day like it had been. I can easily roll this light trackball without cramping my hand unlike typical mouse having the positions of gripping or moving or even the vertical style that I had previous to this that I was happy with before injury. The other styles with small thumb based trackball also weren't an option for me based on the grip and position of movement and repetitive stress on the thumb. I was very excited to find this and that I could keep my palm open and more flat most of the time, and that I didn't have to grip and hold to move it either. The twist to scroll feature was easy to adjust to and it takes such little effort and is little to no strain for me, and hand injury or not, I think the scroll mechanism is a really nice feature that anyone could be happy with. The buttons are big too and everything just feels relaxed and not stressing my hand. I haven't yet experimented with setting up custom buttons as my company doesn't allow downloads without admin access to use that feature. It's so easy to just connect and use out of the box, if you're ok with their default placement, I haven't felt the need beyond standard use functions or to change the button setup. It works either by wireless USB or Bluetooth. I've used it both ways without a problem between two laptops. I can't really comment on battery life after only a few weeks, but I haven't charged it at all since I initially got it; though I was OOO several days but otherwise using it everyday all day. I am really pretty happy with this and how my hand feels much better now, when before I had daily aches or cramps with others. Well worth the money!