I'm getting things narrowed down, but I'm worried about longevity issues with some of the new product offerings (do they break easier than the old, good quality products?), as well as the older, used options that are available (does one exchange performance / gadgetry for reliability / durability?).
I wanted to poll y'all on which of these you would purchase as your first trackball in my situation. It may help to know that I live ex-US and travel frequently so buying many, trying them out, returning what I don't like, going to stores to try things out first, etc., are not real options for me.
People who have owned / do own one or more of the options below: your advice is greatly appreciated. Learning things like "The M570 is great but the buttons break in a year" or "I always have to clean the Sanwa" or "This problem can be fixed with another ball / ceramic bearings / this pro tip" will go far in helping me choose a product to buy. Right now I'm kind of stuck with Amazon reviews like "It's great, I've owned it five minutes!" or "Will report back" *never reports back* or "[insert poorly-translated Google Japanese Amazon review]".
I've posted concerns for each product w/in the poll, and let me state that whether or not the ball is wired is not a priority for me (should it be??). If it should be, I would only care in terms of performance / lag, not concerned with bulkiness of receivers, or convenience of wireless device range from the couch, etc.
I've dug through this subreddit but I've mostly found a lot of excited new owners (like me, soon!), reporting their new purchase is on the way / recently-received, and a lot of longtime owners using old tech they love, and I haven't found a real shootout comparison for the thumb balls listed below. If I missed it, sorry for that.
If this is better as its own separate post, sorry for that, too; I didn't want to start putting posts all over the subreddit, so I embedded this in my initial post.
Thanks for your thoughts, y'all!
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*Off to hopefully talk self out of purchasing Kinesis Advantage, but will probably fail.*
Your vote: << Used Trackman Wheel >> | ~$60 | Concerns: Care level of previous owner; lack of warranty; lack of extra buttons; slow/non-adjustable performance??