SpaceExplorer review

This, more capable, big brother of the SpaceNavigator for Notebook, augments the latter's cap with a large base and 15 programmable buttons, compared to the Navigator's two.

This comes at the cost of portability due to its dimensions and 590g weight, but it feels very sturdy and well built. Strangely, the small indentations on the SpaceNavigator's cap are missing. Instead, the top of the cap is rounded and, although not painfully detrimental, we'd like to see the feature filter across to the Explorer for the comfort of the heavy users at which it's aimed.

The buttons are arranged in five groups in 360° around the cap, an arrangement that works well since the cap is held gently with the fingers, rather than resting the palm like a mouse. All of the buttons are within easy reach of a finger or thumb.

Every button's action can be customised in the driver's preferences pane, either with a simple key press or to invoke more complex functions by recording a macro, which strings together key presses, including combinations, and typing text. A third option inserts a pause between steps to give applications time to catch up.

For supported applications, the driver provides shortcuts to common functions. For SketchUp this includes shortcuts to views and tools, but other functions of any application can be accessed by setting a keyboard shortcut in Mac OS X, and then recording a single-step macro to link it to one of Explorer's buttons. If it seems a little long-winded, the advantage is being able to call any function without the risk of conflicting shortcuts, as Mac OS X's pane already resolves them. Button actions are called only once rather than repeating, which makes sense most of the time. We would welcome the ability to toggle this for the built-in actions that control the cap's sensitivity, which would also benefit from a bit of Mac-style presentation. There's no volume-like visual feedback when adjusting the setting - to see it, the preferences pane has to be open.

We also credit 3Dconnexion for the ability to back up settings from the pane. This includes everything from button assignments to macros. Should you clean down or upgrade your Mac, the configuration is easily restored from the Configuration pulldown.

The cheapest SpaceNavigator costs £39, so there's a big leap for anyone in need of more control. SpaceExplorer's buttons save jumping back and forth to the keyboard to access a wide range of tools, but it comes at a very high price. If you spend your whole day working in 3D environments you may be willing to bite the bullet. If you do, the reward is customisability and greater control to justify the investment.