[jonmark]

Hey guys, so I'm in the process of possibly switching back to the BlackBerry family. In the past I've had an 8310 and more recently the 8900 - I've always gone back and forth between BB and the iPhone, and love them both. They both serve different purposes for me.

Anyways, the other day I was skimming through Craig's List and saw a Bold 9000 listed at only 80 bucks and knew that it was a heck of a steal so I went for it. The bold is (expectantly) in bad cosmetic shape, but the seller had actually ordered brand new housing for it that he said is coming in Tuesday and he would mail to me at no extra charge. Usually I wouldn't trust that, lol, but he offered this information without me even asking about the scratches so I think I can take him at his word - but I guess we'll see come mid-week. So it's in great operational condition, everything seems fine. Of course, right now I have the iPhone 4, so I can't pop my sim in there to see how it works since it takes the normal size sim versus the micro sim. If the housing does come in the mail like the seller says, then once I replace it, I would have a perfect condition Bold 9000 that I only paid 80 bucks for. #winning lol

But I have a few questions, I guess to refresh my memory since it's been about a year since I've had my 8900 ...

1. The trackball is pretty sticky. It scrolls left and right fairly decent (not great), but it's really hard to make it scroll up and down. How can I fix this? Should I take the Bold apart and clean it out? I never had that problem with my 8900, but I did with my 8310 - and that was too long ago for me to remember what I did lol. I might just order a new trackball altogether since this one is pretty nasty looking anyways.

2. It's running os 4.6.0.304 .. On my 8900, I had loaded 5.0 on it (if I remember correctly), so I'm sure there is a good os upgrade I can get for this Bold, yes? I would hope so anyways. Or is this a decent os on it's own?

3. Is there an on/off or sleep/awake button on here? I thought the button at the top would have been it, but it's standby. Idk, maybe I've completely forgotten BB terminology and need a whole new crash course to get readjusted to it, haha. I thought I remember a sleep/awake button you could just tap to make the display go on/off without having to wait for the backlight to fade out.

I think that's all the questions I have right now, as I start playing around with it some more, I'm sure I'll come across other stuff that I'll need to familiarize myself with all over again. Thanks in advance for your help!

[dhaliwal06]

Hello,

1) To fix a trackball problem the most effective way is to take apart your 9k. You can rub your ball with alcohol and try to see if that works. If not, then you can easily replace the trackball. It's a very simple process and you can buy a trackball from the Crackberry store. IF you take apart your 9k, then it voids your warranty, but seeing as you bought it off Craigslist, it won't really matter to you.

2) OS 4.6 is very old, I remember when I had it, it was very slow. There a few OS 5 updates that you can update to. I highly suggest upgraded to OS 5, it's cleaner and faster. You won't regret it!

3) On the 9k there are several was to lock it. You can hold down the top mute button to lock your keyboard. Also you can hold down the "a" key and it will lock. Another way to do it is to disable Calling From Homescreen, and press the"k" key to lock. To unlock it, you always need to use the top mute button.

Hope I helped!

[jonmark]

Awesome! Thanks, I went ahead and ordered a new trackball (a black one) to replace this one. I also found that AT&T has that official release of 5.0 so I'm in the process of downloading that to try to install it. -- Do I need a sim to do that? Because I currently don't have a sim for it yet. Also, I assigned the left convenience key as the keyboard lock, so that makes it a lot easier. I'm starting to remember more stuff now, finally lol.

[dhaliwal06]

No you don't need a sim card to update to the newer OS. You can download Blackberry Desktop Manager and connect your 9k to your computer, then open up Desktop Manager and a window might pop-up reading that there is a new OS for you to update to. Then just follow the steps!