Cleaning the trackball of the BlackBerry Pearl
September 29, 2007 by Jayvee Fernandez
Filed under Accessories, BlackBerry
I’ve been rather disappointed with the trackball of the BlackBerry Pearl the past few days. I assumed that having a trackball mechanism would make the Pearl immune to the failings of joysticks getting stuck or getting less sensitive as wear and tear progresses.
As it turns out, the same can happen to the Pearl, and not only does pressing down become a problem, the discoloration of the white “Pearl” ball becomes apparent also. I’ve had mine for about seven months already and the pearly whites are showing dirty earth grays.
There’s a thread on the BlackBerry forums that describes the process on how to remove the trackball. This was generally used as a hack to change the color of your trackball. But since there’s now a software that allows you to do this, the thread is still useful as a cleaning tip.
I think you can clean the trackball with q-tip and some rubbing alcohol. Its the same way the apple mighty mouse’s scroll ball is cleaned.
good idea its very simple to clean track ball of Black Berry
I’ve been in the situation where my trackball has been cleaned and yet stopped working again. Pulling the battery seems to have fixed the proble.
Thanks for the advice. I have a blackberry pearl and the tracker ball moved in every direction but up. Unfortunately before it failed I had the ringer off and now cannot change that setting or select the phone mode to call out. I called around and the dealers were asking for $35 for parts and labour to change the tracker ball parts. I cleaned it and it works brilliantly!!!