My trackball makes me want to kill myself

[RyaninWonderland]

Aside from the dramatics of me wanting to kill myself, the trackball on the tour is the absolute worst!! It's my like 10000000th replacement phone, and I'm so fed up with it. I run the phone along paper to pick up the dirt, I put rubbing alcohol on it, and nothing seems to work. Scrolling down is a complete nightmare. Does anyone have any tips they can share? Or better yet, does anyone know what I can do or say to Verizon that they can upgrade me to the analog square for free? My upgrade isn't available.

[sgpika]

Forget trying to solve it, i had that phone and same problem, i purshased trackball from ebay from different sellers and the problem always came back after a few days,

Sent from my BlackBerry 9800 using Tapatalk

[spencerdl]

The trackball was a problem with my 8330 so I decided to skip the whole 9630 thing and go straight to the 9650..had to wait an extra 3months but it was worth it. In my opinion, get a Blackberry with a "trackpad" by any means necessary

[KoolKeyth5]

My trackball sucks also. The best thing you can do is keep it clean with alcohol until you upgrade. I'm making the jump to the 9930 in January. I can't wait. The 9630 has been good to me but it's time for a change.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[MikeyD58]

Go to youtube and search for how to clean your trackball. There are several methods shown and the one I use has been sucessful every time my trackball started acting up. The issue is very similar to the older computer mouse that used an ball instead of laser - it's the dirt on the internal pickup, not the dirt that's on the ball itself, so you need to carefully work a small piece of paper behind the trackball. Takes a little practice but it works really well. Good luck.

[DennisMiller]

I just received a refurbished Tour 9630 yesterday and having ignored my son's warning about trackball issues, I can see why he suggested it, having read all this.

My question is this - Are there alternate keyboard commands to avoid the trackball? For example, if I want to delete an email, I know I can click the delete key and instead of clicking the trackball to confirm it, if I just want to delete the email off the phone, I can hit the enter key below the delete key.

Are there other alternatives?

Thanks,
Dennis

[Houshinto]

When using the side menu that pops up when you press the blackberry button in a program you can "scroll" to the menu option by pressing the first letter of the option.

But when you're on the home screen and main program menu you have to use the trackball.

It's taken 2 years but my trackball is starting to give me headaches on occasion. It really seems to not want to scroll up sometimes, but as long as I keep my hands clean and the trackball devoid of any oily substance then it's fine.

[DennisMiller]

Is there a simple way to get the ball out and replace it? I've heard rumors they can just be popped in, but how hard is it to get an old one out?

[oglethorpe]

Is there a simple way to get the ball out and replace it?
No.
My 8330 was easy to pop out and replace. I got 10 months of service out of the trackball on my Tour before it started really getting bad (even after cleaning). Verizon swapped it out with a Tour. I asked them to swap it out with a 9650 and they said no dice. Anyway, I got another 10 months out of this tour and my trackball is really getting bad.......a royal pain in the......but I don't care because my 20 months is up and I just ordered an iPhone 4s.

I love Blackberries in general but the trackball experience has caused me to look elsewhere. It has left a bad taste in my mouth. They should have recalled those 9630s and replaced them with trackpad 9650s if they were looking to keep repeat business.

You can search youtube if you want to learn what must be done to replace a 9630 tour's trackball.

[kbz1960]

I know it doesn't help but my tour is all most 2 years old, the 1 and only 1 I've had and the trackball still works fine. I guess I'm just lucky. There was a thread about running a small piece of paper thru it.

[Sky.Jack21]

my tour was 3 yrs old and the trackball is working really great. No change since purchase

[Simba2011]

Why don't you just replace your trackball.Here is a link to get a replacement.

Parts :: Blackberry 8900 / 9630 Replacement Trackball - Cell Phone Accessories, Mobile Phone Accessories - Apple, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Nextel, Sony ericsson, Sanyo, Kyocera, Audiovox and Bluetooth

[chronomatic]

I'd have to also agree with others whose trackballs are fine. Owned mine for about 2 years now and haven't encountered issues.

How have you been getting your replacements? I remember way back there were issues with requesting replacements from your carrier (specifically the US I think). The carrier would give you a different model trackball (from a curve model? I forget) which wasn't as good in general.

The same could be said from 3rd party providers since the trackball was phased out around then (and the tour wasn't as popular as say the bold 9700). I guess some extra research into the provider would help, though it could also be the phone too.

[Da Pope]

best temporary fix is taking a sheet of plain paper and or construction paper and rolling it against it on a table a couple of times press on it a little and remember to lock your screen when your doing this so it doesn't call anyone, it works for me i do this every couple of days also try to keep your hands dry i put on hand lotion and it stops working but if my hands are rough like sand paper it works fine go figure

[dave1701]

What are all these problems with the trackball. I have none on my tour.