I used to love my BlackBerry Pearl

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:19:42 +0000

I got my phone in April 2007 from LetsTalk.com. I got a good deal – a BlackBerry Pearl and 2 Motorola RAZR V3rs for… free. No rebates or anything, totally free. LetsTalk screwed up the account creation but I got that straightened out with Cingular.

The BlackBerry served me pretty well until around September 2008 when the trackball got so gunked up I couldn’t use it. I keep my phone in my pants pocket and not in some protective case, so I guess the lint and finger grease got to be too much. I dealt with it like this for a couple of weeks until I decided to try cleaning the ball. It’s pretty easy to remove the clip and take the whole apparatus out, and it was indeed very gunky in there. I went at it with a can of air (computer dusting stuff), a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol. I got all the gunk off, put it all back together and it was pretty good for about a week or two. Then it was back to its old self - spinning the trackball didn’t do anything and I couldn’t navigate menus or use almost any of the features of the phone. Plus - this is the best part - the plastic clip that kept the trackball apparatus in place had apparently lost tension or something and would pop off, and by the end of 2008 the trackball had fallen out completely and is now lost to the ages.

Pearl on Evan Hoffman

I used to love my BlackBerry Pearl