Logitech MX Ergo Wireless Trackball Mouse Review - Review 2022

Not only does the Logitech MX Ergo Wireless Trackball Mouse ($99.99) make my wrist more comfortable during a long day of pointing and clicking, but as someone who never used trackballs during their heyday 20-or-so years ago, I detect the learning bend to be shallow. Likewise, the potential payoff (a reduced chance of carpal tunnel syndrome) is well worth the effort required to transition from a conventional mouse. Throw in infrequent build quality, useful software, and the freedom of a wireless connexion, and Logitech's offset new trackball offer in almost a decade is one of the best ergonomic mice yous can buy.

Trackball Trepidation

The thought of using a ball as a pointing device has been around since at least the 1950s as a way to control military radar displays, merely it'due south currently a fringe alternative to the mouse equally a PC peripheral. That'south a shame, considering it requires much less wrist movement than a traditional mouse does, and eliminating precise repetitive wrist motions is a good fashion to reduce the risk that you'll develop carpal tunnel syndrome. Certain, trackballs are available from obscure retailers on eBay, and Logitech yet sells its Trackman, the earliest version of which first hit stores in the late 1980s. If you're used to conventional mice, however, buying the Trackman or another similar product means radically altering your behavior. The pointer and middle fingers motility the cursor, while the thumb and ring fingers perform clicks, instead of the other mode around on a mouse. If Logitech wanted to sell a trackball to people who like using a mouse but want to reduce wrist strain, it was going to take to come up with a new design.

And that's what the company did with the MX Ergo, whose main innovation isn't the trackball itself, but what lies underneath: a metallic plate that attaches to the device's body, allowing you lot to tilt the command surface up to 30 degrees to the correct. Together with the thumb-controlled trackball, the combined ergonomic do good is that not just are you reducing the motion of the tendons that pass through your carpal tunnel, you're besides leaving it in a more than natural orientation—akin to a handshake—to further reduce strain on your wrist.

Logitech MX Ergo 1

That sounds great in theory, only I was a bit apprehensive every bit I unboxed the MX Ergo, considering I perform repetitive mouse tasks all twenty-four hours long and I wasn't sure I'd exist able to exercise them every bit rapidly as I'm used to if I had to suit from moving my wrist to rubbing a trackball with my pollex. I temporarily forgot my uneasiness every bit I set the device upwards, however. Clad in grey, with a silver bottom plate and a silvery trackball that vaguely evokes the constellations in the night heaven, the MX Ergo looks nifty on a desk. Certain, it's not very colorful, but y'all're likely to be using information technology next to a grayness or black keyboard, likewise equally a nighttime-colored laptop or display, so it probably won't disharmonism as much as, say, the peppery blood-red ball on the Trackman. That the MX Ergo looks so good is fortunate, because at its $100 listing price, it's bordering on condition symbol territory, particularly since you tin find several very good mice for half that price.

The mouse is large and quite heavy—five.22 by 2.02 by three.93 (HWD) and merely over a one-half a pound—but the heft is a expert thing, likewise. Since the MX Ergo is going to stay put on your desk, it doesn't really matter how much information technology weighs, and the solid metal base is sturdy plenty that there is absolutely no jiggling. You palm it as you would a baseball glove, and unless yous have uncommonly large hands like I exercise, it should nest comfortably without any of your fingers hanging off the terminate.

Like most loftier-finish wireless Logitech peripherals that aren't designed for gaming, the MX Ergo is compatible with the company'southward Unifying USB receiver, which is included in the package. You can as well connect via Bluetooth, just that is a bit more cumbersome and often non every bit reliable as the 2.4GHz band that the USB receiver uses. Finally, although my review unit came partially charged, I connected the charging cable to a spare USB Type A port on my computer to start off with a total battery. The USB cable is only for charging—you must connect wirelessly to actually use the mouse—and information technology's a bit odd that Logitech has eschewed USB-C, since those ports are the futurity of USB connectivity. Still, even if you take a MacBook Pro or another laptop that has only has USB-C ports, you can charge your MX Ergo by plugging it into your iPhone wall charger, for case. An LED above the Logitech logo begins to pulse; it will change to steady green in one case the lithium polymer battery is fully charged, which took nigh an hour in my case. A full battery lasts up to four months, Logitech says, while i minute of charge results in a full day of employ.

Mapping Buttons

Once the mouse is set up, you tin customize its eight buttons and adjust tracking speed by installing the Logitech Options software (as with the Unifying receiver, installation is unnecessary if you already use the software with another Logitech peripheral). There are Mac and PC versions of Options, and the few controls that pertain to the MX Ergo are dead-unproblematic to use. The first screen is where yous map functions to buttons: Just click one on a picture of the MX Ergo and chose from a listing of assignments. In that location are the standard left and right buttons, as well every bit a clickable and tiltable roll wheel, and there's an exhaustive listing of functions to which you can assign them. There are also 2 buttons next to the left click button, whose default assignments are to move forward and astern in an awarding (say, returning to the previous web page in a browsing session).

Logitech MX Ergo 2

Finally, at that place'southward a button side by side to the trackball that's ready by default to trigger Precision Mode, which is Logitech's solution to my biggest fearfulness—that the trackball would be harder to apply than a conventional mouse, and therefore would make me less productive. Click it, and the cursor tracking is slowed to a crawl, and so you lot can perform precise movements like cropping a photo or selecting a line of text. I found it difficult to remember to plough it on (its position will likely require you to remove your hand from the MX Ergo'due south surface to click it) and while information technology let me crop accurately, information technology slowed downwardly the process dramatically.

What information technology actually comes downwardly to, then, is whether or not the MX Ergo volition let yous perform your daily workflow without frequently stopping to activate the Precision Fashion. For me, the answer was no, at least at first. Moving the cursor beyond multiple monitors requires yous to give the trackball a vigorous whirl with your thumb, and I initially had no idea where my cursor would stop upwardly. Selecting, copying, and pasting a few words of text between apps was all but impossible without stopping to press the Precision Mode button. Only learning to use a trackball is like riding a bike, and I before long got the hang of the trackball movements. Will it ever be as precise as an optical sensor in a high-end mouse designed for gaming? No, but afterward two full days of using the MX Ergo, I institute I could accomplish normal workflows in nearly the aforementioned corporeality of time—but however slightly longer—than they took with a conventional mouse.

Whether or non that time investment is worth it depends on how comfy you find the mouse. You can use it flat on your desk-bound, or you can tilt it xx or thirty degrees to the right, equally Logitech recommends. (Considering of a marketing gimmick, to go the full 30 degrees of tilt, you have to buy the MX Ergo Plus, only available at Best Buy and otherwise identical to the MX Ergo I tested, which offers just 20 degrees of tilt). The tilted orientation was the most comfortable for me, and while the tendons that pass through your carpal tunnel are still flexing in order for you to move your thumb, they're nowhere near as constricted as they would exist if yous were using a regular mouse with your wrist parallel to your desk. This only applies to right-handed people; the MX Ergo doesn't come in a left-handed version. In addition to tilting the mouse, the magnetic stand tin also be removed, which allows you to pop out the trackball for cleaning.

Logitech MX Ergo 2

Rounding out the MX Ergo'due south customization options is the Flow feature, which lets you lot command two computers at one time using the same Logitech peripherals, and fifty-fifty cut and copy content between them. For more on how it works, cheque out our review of the Logitech MX Master ($79.00 at Amazon) .

Degrees of Tilt

Ok, you might be proverb, if twisting your wrist increases discomfort, why not only purchase a completely vertical mouse, and then you lot don't take to twist at all? Y'all can: I such device is the Evoluent Vertical Mouse , our Editors' Pick for ergonomic mice. The Evoluent design withal demands acclimation, however, since information technology requires you to motility the cursor as though you were churning butter. That presents its own accuracy problems. In other words, at that place is no perfect solution if you're worried about the ergonomics of your cursor movements. And so if you're willing to learn how to utilise a trackball (or reacquaint yourself if you've used one before, maybe as a 1950s-era radar operator), the MX Ergo is an fantabulous option, equally much for its build quality and innovative blueprint every bit for its potential to make your long computing sessions more than comfortable.