Interface: USB
USB ID: VID_0DC6&PID_9081
Product Name: Wired Track Ball Mouse
Model: TB01
Year: 2024
New trackball from little-known company, apparently their first one as the model number implies. Device is similar to the Kensington Expert or Sanwa Trackball Pro: four main buttons around freely-laying 55mm ball, and detachable wrist rest. Mechanical design of enclosure is unusual: there's a hatch to access the sensor's PCB assembly. With the sensor removed, it's possible to unscrew the cup and finally take the device apart. Bottom part of casing have molded contour of battery cover - so probably wireless version of this trackball is due to be released as well. Ball cup is single-piece part, rigid enough, with 2.0mm synthetic rubies mounted in receptacles accessible from outer side.
TB01 uses single-chip MX8736 sensor/controller made by Sigma Micro (unable to find datasheet, but should be similar to others in that family, for example MX8732). Resolution is not specified, but subjectively feels like around 1000 DPI. Polling rate is 125 Hz. Primary switches made by Huano, except for SMD one under wheel. Encoder is mechanical. Transparent wheel have blue LED backlight, horizontal scroll (tilt) is not supported.
Wrist rest have soft padding covered by thin faux leather: very pleasant to touch. Its mounting tab allows to select two distances, but the difference is negligible. The shape is questionable: it's too small, low, positioned too close to the device, and is sloped - so, the efficiency is not great. I prefer to use separate gel rest instead of default one.
Interesting detail is blue wheel backlight, activated only when host PC is in sleep mode. During operation, it's switched off. Device is also available with red ball.
Overall quality is rather high, and comparable with major vendors: ball movement is very smooth with no sticking, button clicks are crisp. As a standard 5-button HID device, it does not need proprietary software: any third-party mouse utility (e.g. XMBC) or default OS configuration tool is sufficient. The device is very pleasant to operate: all the buttons are easily accessible, tracking is reliable at normal speed.
Seems like the only drawback is the outdated sensor with DPI a bit low by today's requirements: usable if mouse sensitivity is set to max in OS settings, but not impressive. With modern high-resolution sensor, this trackball would have good chances to be very successful product. Looks like it was developed in the same era as Expert or Sanwa, but production was postponed. Maybe MC Saite acquired some other company's intellectual property, or something like that: its USB VendorID is associated with "Precision Squared Technology Corp." company.
Compare to the "siblings" Kensington Expert and Sanwa Trackball Pro, as well as with BMC Micro button shape:
Enclosed manual:
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Manufacturer logo:
Traditionally, this trackball was used to prepare this article.