I've been through it all. Touchpads, trackballs, trackpoints, mice of course, and out a laziness to put it away I used a tablet too. There were traits of each I all likes. The tap to click from touchpads is great for a nice casual internet browsing session, and trackpoints are god like for non-gaming movement period. Not having to leave the home-row due to how trackpoints are positioned and how you can switch hands on the fly was really nice. Mice have unparalleled DPI. Most of the prior except tablets, I use and in the back of my head I'm thinking "if it was just a wee bit faster". Trackballs bridged the gap between touchpads and mice but wasn't quite what I was looking for. But it did have the ability to "flick" which technically makes it take less effort as you're more a less letting physics do the work for you. Great for fast movement and stopping on a dime. But again, that nagging feeling of "do I have enough DPI?" always kicks in. Then there's tablets. The absolute tracking made cursor drifting a thing of the past. While there're a few absolute tracking touchpads out there, for desktop use, and in general, the amount of options available right now is very sparse.
On pure accident I found out about "rollermice". A long time ago I watched the unbox therapy video about the RollerMouse R:ED. Ya I know, his content is a bit dodgy at times, but I remembered that video when I was looking for my "perfect mouse". I looked into rollermice a bit more, and for what little information I could find, I came to the conclusion, "fuck it, let's see how this goes!" Saved up a ton of money, got it with the arm support add on (as I have a standing desk), and I didn't actually expect it to go over as well as it is!
It has everything I wanted. A optional tap-to-click, up and down rolling and partially to the left and right, up to 2800 DPI which while not the gaming mice standards, its by all means better than modern trackball DPI ratings! Next, due to its design, I can use it as a trackpoint basically. I don't have to leave the homerow if I don't want to and keep all of my hands centered. If one hand gets too tired, I can change hands on the fly. I could use almost any finger I want to manage the scroll wheel, etc. If you really want to, you could even use two hands. One for button clicking, and the other for the roller bar. Because of this fluid switching on the fly, I can't really get hit with that clean RSI unless I'm gaming. In gaming, I can only do left hand on the keyboard, and one hand right handling the RollerMouse R:ED. With gaming, there's the absolute cherry on top. While it isn't absolute tracking like on tablets, it does have something pretty close. It DOESN'T have cursor drift!!! I mainly play osu! these days. Its an absolute god send! It even has 6 programmable buttons, and the tap to click can be programmed to something else as well! Technically making it having 7* programmable "buttons".
I just now realized an additional aspect of rollermice that I just thought about right now. I can technically use any sized keyboard that doesn't have a non-removable wrist rest, and not have to worry about desk space! Everything nowadays is always in regards to the mouse. "I need more space for my mouse". "That keyboard gets in the way of my mouse". But because of the way rollermice are shaped, now that entire issue is pretty much null and void. Full sized keyboards ahoy!
The only real downside is when someone sees you using one for whatever reason. The level of "WTF
" that's on peoples faces when they see a rollermouse for the first time is quite the sight! Because once they see one for the first time, expect to answer a books worth of questions!
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