Grab Life By the Ball - Elecom Huge Wireless Trackball Review

Just on a whim, I decided to hook myself up with some computer trackballs so I could see if this long overshadowed alternative to desktop rodents was ever worthwhile. I'll be doing a few reviews of these in the coming days, and first up we have the hilariously christened Elecom Huge. It certainly lives up to it's name - for better or worse.

For those of you young enough to where half the ancient shit I cover on this blog looks like it came from another universe; a trackball is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of moving your entire mouse around on your desk, it remains stationary, and instead you move the on-screen cursor by manipulating a ball with either your thumb or your fingertips depending on what's comfortable.

A Logitech M570 thumb-ball - one of the more ubiquitous models of trackball.

The primary reason anybody would want to use a trackball is for the ergonomic benefits. By keeping your wrist in a largely stationary, unstressed position, you reduce the risk of developing repetitive strain injuries (RSIs). That, or switching to a trackball can help provide some relief to someone with RSI. Despite the rise of high-performance, ergo focused optical mice since the peak of the trackball's popularity in the early-2000s, new offerings continue to trickle out for those interested in the potential benefits.

Elecom is one of a few large companies still investing in new trackball designs (the others being Kensington and Logitech) and the Huge - released in 2017, is currently their largest offering, with a 52 mm ball. It comes in both wired and 2.4 GHz wireless options. I opted for the latter, just for a little extra versatility.

The Huge has a sculpted body with a cluster of thumb operated buttons and a tilting scroll wheel, a pair of ring finger/pinkie buttons, and an additional two buttons by the index finger. It also sports a three position DPI switch by the thumb, and a two position polling rate switch doubling as the power switch on the bottom. The pam rest is covered in a firm, foam pad with a faux leather texture that feels really nice and doesn't get my hand sweaty. It's not a premium feeling device by any means, but the build quality feels perfectly run-of-the-mill.

The shape, size, and overall layout of the device appears to be reminiscent of the old Microsoft Trackball Explorer (MTE), which is still widely regarded as one of the best - if not the best trackball ever made. However, the Huge has a much more wide, flat and less sharply angled profile than the MTE. It's palm support is also set a lot closer towards the front of the device than on the MTE.

How holding the device naturally looks versus how I do it.

Unfortunately these design choices make for a somewhat awkward feeling device. In my opinion, the palm support is set too far forwards, so when I let my hand rest naturally on the device's shape, my fingertips actually hang completely off the end of the trackball and my thumb overshoots the thumb cluster. This ends up making the device feel like it's meant for smaller hands than it's size and shape would make it seem at first glance.

For the record, I have medium-to-large hands and I have somewhat of a hybrid palm/fingertip style grip. I hold my mice mostly flat fingered and slightly towards the back so I'm never fully resting my palm on the back of the mouse anyways. Because of this, I adapted to the Huge's forward set arch relatively quickly, as I set the base of my palm on the very back of the mouse with just my fingertips resting on the ball. This also puts the tip of my thumb right above the thumb cluster, as it should be.

Still, none of this is going to help users who find that style of grip completely unnatural anyways. You're effectively using the device without the bulk of it's hand support, which more or less defeats the purpose of a supposedly ergonomic shape like this. It's a letdown seeing how this device has design choices that totally fly in the face of that goal - especially the completely flat wrist angle. That's damn near the most basic thing this trackball could've gotten right, and it didn't. 

It's kind of ironic that a trackball called the "Huge" feels like it was meant for small hands. Unfortunately, the problems don't just stop at the shape.

I'm a big fan of the oversized 52 mm ball Elecom dropped into the Huge, and in theory; a larger ball should make precision moves a lot easier than it would be with a ball that is less than 40 mm. Plus it just feels great in the hands. I can easily get three fingers on the ball if I want and moving it around is nice and smooth - as long as I'm moving it quickly over long distances.

The trackball on the Huge is surprisingly quite difficult to use for small moves, which is the complete opposite of what you would expect for a ball this size. It requires a surprising amount of force to get moving from a standstill and as a result, it tends to stick and cause the cursor to skip when it finally moves. Mundane tasks such as selecting text, clicking GUI buttons, or using the lasso tool in Photoshop end up becoming extremely difficult to pull off without cranking the DPI down.

This things suck.

This is a phenomenon known as "stiction", which is the force that needs to be overcome in order to move stationary objects in contact, and with a little research, I found that the culprit was the bearings. They are artificial ruby, which should be a decent choice for bearing material due to their hardness. However, Elecom's examples are of such poor quality that they wreck the entire experience of using the trackball. 

The issue is so prevalent with this trackball, that if you look up the Elecom Huge on YouTube, one of the first results you'll see is how to do a bearing swap on the device. Hell, almost all the reviews for 2.5 mm zirconium oxide ceramic bearings on Amazon are about the Huge. It's baffling to me that Elecom hasn't addressed this problem despite it being seemingly epidemic not just with the Huge, but their other trackball mice offerings as well.

I also find that I have tendency hit the long, flat ring finger/pinkie buttons while swiping the ball to the right. Those two buttons really should be contoured more away from the ball and set flush to the body so rightward swipes are less likely to trigger the buttons inadvertently. That, or the ball should be slightly more elevated. You can certainly get acclimated towards avoiding it, but it really isn't something you should have to think about. 

The new G3 chrome steel bearings versus what might as well be G1000000 OEM ruby bearings.

So I decided to take a stab at fixing as many of the huge issues (pun intended) myself. Small bearings are graded in terms of dimensional accuracy and the most popular ceramic bearings in use for the Huge are rated anywhere from G10 to G5, with the smaller number representing a higher grade of precision. After hearing some reports of the ceramic bearings not making a major difference in the feel of the device, I opted for G3 chrome steel bearings as they apparently feel even smoother than the best ceramic examples, although they are more prone to wearing, being a softer material. 

The difference is massive. The ball requires much less force to get moving and I'm more accurate with it as a result. It also coasts for longer, so I can more easily flick the cursor across my screen without having to turn the DPI up.

I also fixed the horribly flat angle with this 3D printed wedge. There's a few other examples of this piece you can download off of Thingiverse, but this one had the least extreme level of tilt. You will need to source proper feet for it, but it really does help improve the comfort of the device quite a bit.

The Huge does also offer some genuinely excellent versatility with it's hordes of buttons and switchable DPI. There's no question that Elecom made good use of the acres of space the device's body has available to it, and the three position switch let's me easily adjust between the 500, 1000, and 1500 DPI settings on the fly - though I prefer to keep it on the lowest setting for the additional control.

Elecom however doesn't state what the exact cycles per second are for the device's two polling rate settings. To be totally honest, I didn't notice much of a difference between the two, so I would just leave it on "L" and save yourself the battery life. The manual for the Huge states that on it's two AA batteries, it can hit approximately 534 days with combined standby/operation in low-power mode, while it does 325 days in high-speed mode. I have no idea how to test that, so take it with a grain of salt.

On the software front, Elecom's Mouse Assistant 5 is a lightweight program (it only runs one background process with only 2.6 MB of memory usage) that handles key mapping, macro building, and also supports automatic profile switching for specific programs. It's not the prettiest piece of software - but it does everything it needs to with no extra nonsense.

Honestly, this trackball falls just short of being truly great. If Elecom fixed the bearings and sculpted the body to fit one's hands more naturally, this could be the best trackball on the market. I still think the Huge is decent from a value standpoint and certainly far more versatile in modern day applications than a used Microsoft Trackball Explorer would be for roughly the same amount of money, but it's just too rough around the edges to be a definite "must buy".

I'd say try one out with the intent of returning it, and if you do like it; buy the bearings. They're an absolute must to get this thing working at it's best. It's not a great mouse replacement in my book, but for a first time outing it did convince me I could definitely enjoy using a trackball on my computer - if I ever find the right one.

What's Good

• Oversized trackball makes fingertip use easy.
• Lots of remappable buttons and decent software implementation.
• Switchable DPI settings.
• Decent build quality.

What's Crap

• Scratchy and sticky factory bearings.
• Awkward shape - especially for larger hands.
• No Bluetooth or wired connectivity options.
• Seemingly useless polling rate switch.

Verdict

If you can get past it's unnatural shape and terrible factory bearings, this trackball has a lot to offer.