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All Reviews > Hardware > Input devices > Mice/tracker balls

November 19, 2008

Cyber E Sport Orbita review

The wireless Cyber E Sport Orbita is a perfectly round mouse that aligns itself with the help of the earth's magnetic field, just like a compass.

Picking up a ball shows how comfortably a round shape can fit into the palm of the hand.

Apple made its standard-issue mouse - nicknamed the hockey puck - in a round shape in the late 90s, but it fell from favour; in part because it was somewhat too small and lead to fears of RSI and hand cramps.

Also, many users couldn't get used to its obvious lack of spatial orientation. In spite of being a wired model, with a cable trailing from its ‘nose', some stumbled over which way was ‘up'.

Take away that cable and you'd think a mouse would be entirely doomed. But the wireless Cyber E Sport Orbita mouse uses a neat principle of aligning itself with the help of the earth's magnetic field, just like a compass.

The Orbita sits on a wired base when not in use, which charges its internal battery. This is also the wireless receiver unit, and connects to your computer via USB.

When first setup, you must calibrate the Cyber E Sport Orbita for your preferred work position by rotating it slowly twice after pressing a setup button. This aligns its internal compass. Thereafter, you have a completely wireless, symmetrically round mouse with which to navigate your computer.

A left-click is provided by pushing the entire top down (think: games show buzzer), and right-click by squeezing anywhere around its soft silicone rubber circumference.

In practice the Cyber E Sport Orbita is not as easy to use as we'd hoped. Take scrolling, for example. This is done by making circular dialling movements with your finger resting in the silver button. Pressing down on the silver button at the same time switches it to horizontal scroll mode - but usually the entire mouse just slips around the desktop/mousemat, making the process all too cat-and-mouse for us.

And more distracting, right-clicks are too easily called up by inadvertent touches around the edge.

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Cyber E Sport Orbita

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