Surely by know you’ve heard that BlackBerry thumb wheel that we have all come to know and love has been replaced by a track ball on the forthcoming BlackBerry Pearl. What you may not have known is that we may not see the thumb wheel again, at least not on the next wave of slim BlackBerry devices like the Pearl.
According to the Boy Genius, the thumb wheel was getting in the way of making BlackBerrys thinner and as you can see from the picture, the BlackBerry Pearl is pretty darn thin. It is actually thinner than a Razr.
Personally I think that this is a great move. I would surely trade my trusty thumb wheel for a track wheel that gives me vertical as well as horizontal motion and cuts the thickness of my device in half. Sounds like a good trade off to me…
I have to admit that I was rather worried about giving up the beloved scroll wheel…it really is a great innovation.
However, after seeing the videos from Boy Genius, I definitely feel better about the trackball.
Either way, the Pearl will be an absolutely amazing device.
Here’s one idea: perhaps RIM will keep the scrollwheel on their corporate devices…maybe that can be a point of differentiation between consumer and enterprise devices.