Am I the only one that prefers the trackball over the trackpad?
Don't know about you guys, but am I the only one that prefers the trackball?
I'm talking here of strict functionality. I had a Bold 9700 for 2 weeks before switching back to the Bold 9000, and while the trackpad was a slick looking piece of kit, I felt it was overall, less accurate than the trackball was.
Initial impressions of most any smartphone review website, or gosh, and most any forumite here is generally that, yeah, the trackpad is not something that grows on you eventually, but something you learn to appreciate *almost immediately* after using it for the first time.
Some reviews mentioned, for things like Brickbreaker, the trackpad does feel less accurate, and it's more difficult to play, and I tend to agree, but without saying this is true for just Brickbreaker. So many things in the BB OS (for better or worse, usually worse) are dependant upon your having positioned the trackball/pad just right, other options being a slight roll of the ball/pad away.
ie. Calendar, while rare, it can be frustrating to hit the Hours when you meant to adjust the Minutes of an appointment, or hit the wrong option when you have your BB menu open, or what have you. Not that you gain a huge advantage with the trackball, but with BB OS, to have a more accurate cursor, is to everyone's benefit when you're using your phone as much as most any Crackberry user would be.
There is a tactile response with the trackball that I still love from my old 8800, which is missing on the optical trackpad. The trackpad also, to me, suffers when your thumb is sometimes TOO dry, and it's a bit harder to move your cursor around, making the experience inconsistent sometimes.
The TL; DL version is this:
Trackball Pros:
- Tactile feedback, thus it tends to be more accurate
- If there are issues, replacement parts tend to be on the cheap side for most Blackberry models
- For ME, the trackball does not suffer if my hands are too dry, but the argument could go, well if your hands are dirty, the trackpad works better. My hands are far more often too dry than they are dirty/am eating messy food/etc. IMO.
- While it probably suffers from a lot of things I may not be aware of, the trackball does not suffer from the 'loose' trackpad issue, where many users have complained of the trackpad moving around in its casing during use -- kind of annoying every time you use your phone
Trackball Cons:
- Gets dirty quick, requires more maintenance
- At its worst, the trackball is fugly looking when yellow/darker/etc.
- Terrible and impossible to use if it gets dirty, much harder to clean than a pad (where a simple wipe, and ta-da, clean)
The ugly look of the trackball however, can be fixed with a black trackball. The issues with the trackpad however, cannot so easily be fixed with a simple replacement part.
THE CONCLUSION IS THIS: While the trackball requires more maintenance by far, when it's working right, my argument is that it works better IMO.
I know this will not be a popular opinion, and I fully expect to get chewed out, but what does everyone else think? Thanks.