TourBox NEO Overview
Being an input peripheral, the NEO is designed to sit on your desk, typically in close proximity to your keyboard, mouse, or drawing tablet, depending on your use case. In this review, we will focus solely on Windows-based PC connectivity, though the NEO does support use with Apple devices as well. If you are anything like me, despite having a fairly large table top, desk space is at a premium, so the compact size of the NEO didn’t make me feel like it was going to be taking up too much space. Coming in right around 4.5″ x 4″ x 1.7″, the TourBox NEO is small enough to allow me to easily access all of the input options without having to move my hand around much, but still large enough to contain a large number of buttons and control surfaces.
The NEO has a solid build quality to it, and along with that a good amount of heft, coming in at just over 13oz. This weight helps keep the NEO in place, and the solid plastic body, with a soft-touch texture offers good stability and comfort. All of the inputs, aside from the scroll wheel, have a hard plastic feel, with various textures. The Dial, Knob, and Large button all have texture lines for identification and grip, while the remainder of the buttons are are smooth. The C1 and C2 buttons have a concave top as well. The Scroll wheel has a rubber surface like that found on your typical mouse, and not only scrolls with a notched feel, but can be clicked for access to additional functionality.
Taking a look from the top down, you can immediately see the wide variety of input options on the NEO. There are a total of 14 inputs grouped into the following sub-types: 11 buttons, 1 knob, 1 scroll wheel, 1 dial. TourBox has identified three sections on the NEO, based on their operational logic – Rotating, Prime Four, and Kit. A small LED indicator is also present on the top surface of the NEO in order to indicate connectivity status.
Rotating – The Rotating section consists of the Knob, Scroll, and Dial inputs. These are used to control various parameters quickly and accurately, and they can be paired up with other buttons to gain access to additional controls.
Prime Four – The Prime Four section is a grouping of the Tall button, Short button, Top button, and Side button. These all sound like very basic options, but they are shaped and placed in a way that makes sets them out to be the most commonly used inputs. And like all of the other inputs, you can pair them up with other buttons, or even double-click them to access additional functions.
Kit – The Kit section is made up of the D-pad, the Tour button, and buttons C1 and C2. Their default settings offer access to functions that can be switched easily, but as with all of the other inputs, they can be mapped to whatever custom option you would like via the TourBox console application.
Taking a look at the left side of the NEO you can see the single Side button and the curved top and corners of the device.
The right side of the NEO is free of any inputs, but you can again see the curved design of the body, and the height of some of the input options.
The lower side of the NEO doesn’t contain any input options, but it does feature a contoured design where your hand can sort of rest in a more comfortable position as opposed to just a straight edge.
Moving to the top side of the NEO shows us the USB Type-C port, as well as another view of the Side button and the other top-mounted inputs and their heights.
Flipping the NEO over shows us four rubber feet that elevate the unit just slightly on your work surface, as well as a standard sticker with the various regulation and certification identifiers.
