Gary Krakow’s BlackBerry Is Broken And He Is Really Upset About It…

BS – i have found that if I pop out the track ball and clean it out with some condensed air, it’s fine. I’ve had my curve for a year, dropped it hundres of times, the thing has taken a beating and yes, every once in a while the track ball gets a little stuck, but it takes two minutes to pop it out and clean it. Sometimes, even reinstalling the software upgrades fix it to. This guy is annoying and soo over dramataic. If you drop the iphone once, it’s done. The blackberry is built tough and to last, I’ve never had a serious issue with the hardware and as I mentioned above, I abuse the hell out of it.

Yeah total BS the trackball comes out very easy and is simple to clean.

wow, this just proves that GK AND the IT department at “thestreet.com” are idiots. perhaps if they stopped shoveling pringles into their mouths and then using their trackball, they wouldn’t have an issue. replacement trackballs on amazon are like $20 for a 5 pack. Get over it.

I don’t know about the warranty but it is very easy to clean. Just use a small micro screw driver to carefully pop the silver ring surronding you your track ball out.

Once you do that there should be a little plastic piece that holds the trackball and the track ball itself.

Clean the gunk out and pop everthing back into place. You should be scrolling like new when you do.

I cannot believe that those tech guys from the video never tried that.

Funny you say that Robb…when I had my Pearl with TMO, my trackball was shot too (after 1 yr.). Wasn’t just from dirt, just use. Heavy user. Anyway, I brought it in to the store to let them fix it after cleaning it a couple of times myself. At some point, cleaning it won’t do it anymore if it gets a bit worn. Sure enough, the kid at the store thought he was the sh*t and popped it open only to break the plastic piece around the ball. Better yet, they couldn’t find a replacement in the store, so I had a makeshift part trying to hold the ball in place. The plastic is a little sensitive around the ball, so be careful with that piece when taking it apart. Happily, my VZW ball hasn’t had any issues at all (slightly different build). Not as accurate as the original Pearl or easy to use, but can endure heavy usage.

I’ll refrain from commenting on heavy usage, cleaning, pulling out, screw drivers and balls. Good thing we’re not talking about the dingleberry.

Trackball? Even RIM learned they don’t need a trackball.

“”We don’t want to do these,” he said. “We want to do a leapfrog product that’s way smarter than these phones and much easier to use. So we’re going to reinvent the phone.” The iPhone does not use a keyboard, nor does it use a stylus, as many smartphones do today. The device uses new technology called “Multitouch.” “We’re going to use the best pointing device in our world,” said Jobs. “We’re born with 10 of them, our fingers.” Multitouch is far more accurate than any touch display, according to Jobs. It ignores unintended touches, supports multi-fingers gesture. “And boy, have we patented it,” he added.”

-Steve Jobs
Jan 9, 2007

Gary upgrade to state of the art….
http://www.macworld.com/article/135813/2008/09/iphone_survey.html?lsrc=rss_weblogs_iphonecentral

Nancy, back in the old days although I never had problems with the thumb wheels or trackballs on any of my blackberry’s I would always stop by any of my service providers locations and let them do their jobs. Certainly the service provider branded on your BB should handle any easy fixes to keep you and your device happy and then you don’t have to run the risk of accidently breaking something while trying to fix it.

I cant believe the “IT” guy doesnt buy a gross of trackballs from http://www.cnn.cn and replace them himself. They are about 3-5 dollars each, and it takes just a second to change.
If the reporter really looked< he’d find a ton of postings about this

Mike,

Before you start calling people names like “idiot”, “retard” and “dumbass” you should take a step back and learn something for a change. Gary has enough experience in the industry to back up his opinions. If RIM was smart they would be reading and acting on Gary’s words.

“Gary Krakow is MSNBC.com’s Emmy award-winning Technology guy, cell phone addict, audiophile, ham radio operator and all-around gadget guru.”

“Gary Krakow is TheStreet.com’s senior technology correspondent.”

“Veteran NBC Journalist Gary Krakow, With 34 years’ experience as a journalist – the last 27 of them with NBC – Gary Krakow has seen all the best and worst technology that’s come along. ”

“Seasoned tech pundit Gary Krakow”

bluehorseshoe,

You and mike are entitled to have your own opinions however the quotes were done to point out Gary’s been in the business and has creditability. Even without creditability even you might agree it’s un-wise and rather silly to call someone you don’t know, and know nothing about “idiot”, “retard” and “dumbass”.

Do you honestly think someone in Gary’s position, with his years of experience has “He never really ‘used’ a blackberry before on a full time basis…”????

Why not allow the critique without name calling and having a fit? Of course Gary could be bias like the rest of us but even you admit there are failures with the BB trackball (which other than copying the iPhone, RIM is solving with the 9500 series.

PS the “problems” you have with the Apple products named are again your opinions, to others those are “No problem, No issues at all.” The point is again you are entitled to your opinion, others see things differently. What did mike add to the discussion other than name calling and showing his lack of knowledge that Gary might just know what he is talking about and have the years experience to back it up, not be called names. It’s also rather interesting you bluehorseshoe felt the urge to try and defend someone who made a post using poor judgement.

I was going to let this go but… The tech guy kind of surprised me with his response. Granted everyone has the right to pursue an issue as far as they see fit. Maybe the tech guy has been overloaded with other work issues and decides that he will let the carrier fix the problem because its on warranty or because of priority rather than spend time to look into an alternative resolution. That said, each and everytime I come upon an issue with hardware or software I turn to a search engine. Which like I said in my previous post gave me the answers in about three minutes as I picked up the tips on blackberry forums and crackberry for dust removal on the trackball. I have also turned to search engines which landed me on a site to help me remove the hard drive of my mac laptop. Basically the answers are out there in the wild and whether you choose take the time to search for answers or talk badly about a product is up to you. I search.

listen guys its not that hard to fix this inner workings of it. mine broke last night into like 5 seperate pieces and rebuilt it in 20 mins once i figured out how it went back together. stop over reacting and do your jobs. if you want help feel free to email me ill show u how to do it