Sketchup
Using the Orbita in Sketchup took a bit of getting used to. Just over a year ago, I designed a floating wall for my lounge with an inbuilt cabinet to house my AV gear and stand my TV on. I have to say that while I doubt that using the Orbita would have made much difference to the time it took, it could have done. It’s a hard thing to quantify in hindsight, but I started to recreate the same wall using the Orbita mouse as part of testing for this review. Being able to 3D scroll with the mouse is very efficient, but I did find that for some reason I was accidentally right clicking more often in Sketchup than I was with other apps. The time gained by the 3D scroll was balanced out somewhat by my accidental right clicking, however as time went on I was able to find a comfortable position to hold the mouse (near the bottom) that prevented me from right clicking without intention. Looking at this from a perspective other than Time, there is an intuitiveness that appears after a while; it becomes quite natural to rotate, hold shift and rotate to navigate around your model. To make it clear here, there is a which adds to the functionality in Sketchup for the Orbita. Overall a positive experience with the Orbita and Google Sketchup.
Google Earth
One thing that certainly became clear very quickly while using Google Earth (and this applies to all applications while using the Orbita) is that you must get the calibration exactly right. Otherwise you’ll find yourself forever telling the mouse which way is up. Frankly, it took me over 10 attempts to get it precise and right now I dare not calibrate it again! That aside, Google Earth is another application where the Orbita provides a natural usage feel. Google Earth does however seem to want to rotate in only one direction regardless of the direction you scroll the Orbita in, which with the freedom you have in other programs can be a little disorientating at first. This is where the calibration comes in. Without it, you will find yourself having to either pick the mouse up or telling it yet again which way is up, more so in Google Earth than others I tried because of the lack of being able to rotate in 2 directions. There are ways around it via keyboard shortcuts, and in theory you could easily bind some of those shortcuts to the Orbita via it’s configuration app. Despite the single rotation direction using the Orbita was once again a positive experience overall.
Web Browsing
Here I enjoyed using the Orbita the most. You know how it is; you’re looking for some information and you come across a forum thread. It’s a long thread, pages of information and the majority of it isn’t relevant to you. So you scroll and skim through the information. Being able to control the scroll speed and simply rotate the mouse works really well in this situation. Trawling through eBay or even the news pages of your favourite tech site, as a browsing mouse the Orbita is great. Speed reading as you slowly (or quickly) smooth scroll (assuming Vista) is really nice. I’ve defined a profile which allows me to create a new tab at a click in Firefox and the silver button is set for Horizontal scrolling; nice and easy to surf around looking at images as well. And it’s not just the intuitive scrolling, it’s the continuous scrolling as well; you don’t have to stop scrolling when your finger reaches the edge of the mouse as you do on a regular scroll wheel.
Coding
Another simple use but one that I must admit I preferred using the Orbita over a regular mouse scroll wheel. Scrolling through lines of code, such as HTML or PHP is pretty easy and intuitive with the Orbita. Can I do it just as well with a regular mouse? Sure, but the Orbita is easier on the hands over extended periods, and it’s a very natural feel over a scroll wheel. It’s almost the difference between a digital and analogue control stick in definition, but I feel that that is probably too large a gap for an accurate description. Then there is the fact you can speed read with continuous scrolling at your own pace. Very handy here.
Photoshop
Ok, for Photoshop, I much prefer my regular mouse, but for one overwhelming reason; DPI. The Orbita has 800DPI, which is fine for everyday usage in the majority of applications, but the really fine work is certainly easier with my Habu at 1600 DPI (I find 2000 too sensitive). Still, being able to zoom in and out of an image by rotating the mouse is pretty nice, and of course while zoomed in you’ll likely want to horizontal scroll as well, which again the Orbita is easily able to do. Here I like the idea of using a toggle on the dimple button for horizontal scroll. That’s not to say you can’t do photo work with the Orbita, far from it; the 800 DPI is plenty, but I do prefer the precision from a higher DPI mouse.
Gaming
FPS gaming? No. Just no. I tried, I really did, but I’ve been spoilt by the higher DPI of today’s mice and I couldn’t get past using it as a mouse and therefore not using the scroll for anything other than changing weapons. It worked well enough, but this isn’t a gaming mouse other than as a novelty for me. That said, a lot of this is going to depend on the game. I was all set to put the Orbita in the negative bracket for gaming but then I thought about it some more and tried a few different genres.
I should guess that a few RTS or RPG gamers have already thought up ways in which the Orbita could be beneficial. I don’t play those type of games regularly so I’m not going to attempt to come up with a reason for using the Orbita, however I would imagine that if the game involves a lot of scrolling then you can find reason enough yourself to want the Orbita for your game. Perhaps Google Earth style navigation of your villages in god games.
The important thing here is being able to set up the mouse to do what you want. Since the software application allows for binding various functions, you probably already have more idea than me in this respect. I didn’t detect any lag during my attempts at gaming between the mouse and it’s receiver (the dock).
I’ve no idea why I didn’t think of it initially but how about using the Orbita as a steering wheel in your favourite driving game? I quickly set the Orbita to Multi-Axis Controller and fired up an old favourite; Flatout 2. The game recognized the device, and I was able to choose Orbita as my control device. But it wouldn’t steer. Out of the game back into the options for the Orbita, try again. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. No luck. Ok, how about Racedriver GRID? I’d already discounted this one as my first try for the simple fact that GRID really does require you to have analogue controls for everything. Still as a test, it would do. Same issue. Mouse buttons worked, but I could never get the Orbita to control the steering. A shame, as I could bind all the buttons easily enough.
Multimedia Controller
Using the mouse as a Multimedia Controller was a bit of a mixed bag for me personally. I preferred to set it up and use it as a mouse but alter the buttons for transport/audio controls. One thing that became quickly apparent was that the scroll speed needed to be adjusted way down; scrolling is a very simple and easy thing with the Orbita and it is quite sensitive by default in this respect, which works fine for general scrolling in all other programs. If however you’re trying to go through a bunch of photos or a list of music tracks it can be very easy to skip past the one you want. Reducing the scroll speed of course then meant that navigation via scroll was reduced so it was a bit of a balancing act here. A lot of this is going to be subjective, as indeed is a lot of this review, so I have to add that I can really appreciate the uses as a Multimedia Controller that the Orbita can be put to via the software settings. At the most basic, it makes for a pretty big volume dial, but the additional options in the software can extend the Orbita way beyond this function alone.
Video Editing
I was unable to find any video editing software that I could use with the Orbita in the manor of Final Cut Pro, and since there is no demo version of it, the only thing I can go by here is the Video from Youtube/the Orbita Website.
I would imagine, having used this mouse in other programs that using it as a jog wheel is extremely useful in this respect, and probably one of the most common uses next to 3D modeling that folks will look at this mouse for.
Tractor DJ
I’m not a PC DJ (although my Dad is during his spare time) but I have to admit that one of the first thoughts I had when I saw the Orbita was ‘Volume Control’, quickly followed by ‘In the Mix, DJ VoOdoO in the hizzy, scratchin and maxin, re-rewin —’ (yeah, that’s enough of that thank you -Ed). So while it was one of the last things I installed to try, it was one of the first things I went looking for. The Orbita Website mentions Tractor DJ, but since the
Configuration App for the Orbita can bind a lot of it’s buttons to keyboard functions, Audio Controls and Transport controls I would guess there is quite a lot of scope here for Keyboard Jockeys. How about using this mouse with one of the new touchscreen Netbooks/Desktops that have just started to make an appearance. Ok, it’s not going to take the place of a true PC mixing desk, but it should be a step up from a regular mouse/trackpad controlled setup.
Other Applications
3D Modelling is something that the Orbita really wants to help you with. Cyber-E-Sport are working hard to get vendor support for a number of 3D Modeling applications but even out of the box the Orbita should be good. In fact, pretty much anything that involves scrolling, revolving, steering, 3D orbital control of some kind will likely benefit or at the very least be usable via the Orbita mouse. It’s a tough thing to say that using the Orbita is better than using a regular scroll wheel on a mouse, but if you’ve ever used chiral motion on a laptop trackpad then you already know how even this basic scrolling function is better. Moving on to different navigation purposes and the appeal increases.
Final Words
I freely admit that when I was asked to review this mouse, I wasn’t expecting to write such a large review; larger than normal for a mouse yes, but there is just so much to talk about with the . I’ve found plenty of different uses for the , and I would imagine that more than a few of you reading this have even more ideas. This is the big thing with this mouse; you would need a reason to want it, but there are plenty of applications you could possibly put the to, to give you that reason/those reasons.
In use as a basic mouse, the works well. The round nature is very easy on the hand and wrist over extended periods and an inbuilt compass means you are not forever picking it up after scrolling just to make sure you are pointing it ‘up’. Still, there are times when you need to tell the which way is up which a triangular button on top allows for. If however you get the calibration right, this triangular button use will be minimized.
You do need to handle it quite delicately but that’s mainly to do with the fact that the side buttons are quite sensitive. It is not however a flimsy low quality item. The construction is quite clever and the mouse is designed to come apart to allow you to firstly change the feet ring and secondly to allow you to clean the mouse. The side buttons are (by default) set as right click while the entire top of the mouse is a left click button while a third silver button provides for additionally functionality as a middle mouse button.
The software is nice and simply laid out and provides for a very large range of applications. Basic mouse functions can be set, as can more advanced options such as keyboard commands, transport controls, audio controls and even 3D Multi-Axis control. Multimedia Keyboard functions for controlling your Media Center application are also possible. The software, at time of writing, supports Windows (including smooth scroll under Vista) and MacOS X, but currently only Windows uses the more advanced settings. You can get around this since the has on-board memory and you can save your defined profiles from the mouse software. You can however only upload one profile at a time, but perhaps with Windows in a Virtual Machine you can get around this (for Mac and Linux), at least until increase software support for the Mac, or open up the protocols for the Open Source community.
Honestly I could talk about the all day. It’s not perfect; you have to get the calibration right, most folks will find a bit of a learning curve in using it as a basic mouse (although the scrolling itself is incredibly intuitive) and the side buttons will likely be a little sensitive for many but I really like it. It’s great fun to use, and the scrolling becomes second nature after a short while. It’s also very useful, although that is quite subjective. You will need to find a particular use for it to justify the price tag which is quite high for a mouse, but it is overall a really good device.
Speaking of price, tell me that prices will be coming down slightly very soon, so if you’re interested in the , keep an eye on their page.
Questions? Comments? Talk to us in the Forums .
