SpaceNavigator Personal in Pointing devices

The basic design of the mouse has remained unchanged since its invention by Douglas Engelbart in 1967, but its limitations are exposed by modern 3D and photo-editing software. 3DConnexion's Space Navigator attempts to remedy this situation by adding myriad extra controls to the essentially 2D left/right-up/down-click controls of the traditional mouse. It immediately impresses with its build quality, but it's in use that this 'mouse' really excels. It takes a while to get used to it, but if you spend a lot of time in 3D apps, use Photoshop CS2/CS3 or Google Earth a lot its ability to zoom, pan, tilt and roll all at once is a real boon. The major caveat is that its uses aren't universal - you have to be using one of the supported applications for it to work at all.

Author: Jonathan Bray