Wired iPazzPort USB Handheld Keyboard Mouse Touchpad

This does exactly what I needed it to. It feels cheap, but it hasn't failed me yet and it has been used every day for about 6 months now.

For starters and perspective: Mac user here. Exclusively. And exclusively a trackpad user too, having migrated from trackballs; never much liked the mouse. So the trackpad is the environment I depend on. I've also gotten used to laptop dimensions, nothing much more than two inches square and for my comfort-precision zone not much smaller. Limited experience with wireless touchpads -the response delay is infinitesimal, but enough to be distracting when I do music work in both my sequencer and notation programs. So I'll opt for the "clutter of the cable."

Thus ... I bought the iPazzPort Touchpad because my Adesso Easy Cat had simply lost its touch sensitivity after several years, in a way I'd never experienced on any touchpad before (all previous ones built into their laptop or desktop keyboards), and I thought I'd experiment with another brand before doing a flat-out same-model replacement. There's not a lot of touchpad choice out there, not that's wholly Mac compatible (you can get any input device to work on a Mac, the question is how well and whether you have access to its full functionality), but the iPazzPort boasts all-feature Mac-ability. Which it has.

PROS:

(1) No driver needed; Mac-useful right out of the bubble guard.

(2) "Playing surface" is just the right size.

(3) Touch sensitivity is likewise ideal: you can tap soft and double-tap fast with no glitches. Marqueeing (selecting several items at once) is a breeze.

(4) Built in mini-keyboard is fully functional in all its modes: upper case, lower case, special character and function-button. Not that it has too many practical uses, but --

(5) -if you need to operate the computer from several feet away, the built-in mini-keyboard essentially renders the iPazzPort an all-purpose remote input device. (Obviously the wireless iteration of this model gives you more roaming freedom than that.)

(6) If you want the mini-keyboard backlit, clicking the RF key gives it a nice see-in-the-dark orange glow.

(7) The mini-keyboard does not affect the normal positioning of your hand over the trackpad surface.

CONS:

(1) Depending upon where you place your input devices, you may find the iPazzPort footprint to be a little inconvenient, due to the mini-keyboard, because there's no protocol for rotating the touch surface. You can only use it intuitively in its vertical aspect.

(2) This next one came close to being a deal-breaker for me, but I got used to it (not inured to it, not oblivious to it, just used to it): the left and right buttons have enough resistance in their spring action to make them a hard click, compared to the feathertouch response of other trackpads I've used. I do sometimes feel the added stress in my thumb.

(3) Mini-keyboard touch seems even a bit more hard-springy than the left-right mouse buttons. ("Seems" because no doubt what's really the case is that the frequency of click-button use somewhat softens the springback and lets you use less pressure; plus the spring buttons are of a much larger dimension than the letter buttons. so simple physics of their design renders their touch easier.) But then, since I don't use the mini-keyboard but rarely, this is a negligible caveat. To me.

IN GENERAL:

Because it's so inexpensive, you can wind up buying the iPazzPort as a stopgap. But because it's so easy to use and so responsive, you may procrastinate a good deal before getting around to replacing it.

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