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Krakow: No Excuse for Broken BlackBerries

Gary Krakow

My Blackberry is broken. Turns out I'm not alone.

The handset in question is a T-Mobile BlackBerry 8820 made by Research in Motion (RIMM Quote). This BlackBerry makes and receives phone calls the normal, cellular way and also allows unlimited phone calls via Wi-Fi, when it is available, for a small, flat, monthly fee. For me, that meant seamless cell phone usage indoors and out.

I know this handset doesn't have 3G or a camera inside, but I love it. Minor quirks aside, it is the test device I've chosen to depend on day and night, near and far, here and abroad. You get the idea.

But when I tried to use the phone last week, I couldn't move the cursor. The rolling trackball no longer rolls in the vertical plane (up and down). Horizontally (left and right), it moves a little. Needless to say, I began to panic.

I thought maybe the roller-ball mechanism was dirty. I tried rolling the ball back and forth and up and down. A lot. Then I blew air around the ball to see if I could dislodge the grit inside. Then I tried compressed air. No luck with that either.

Since TheStreet.com is a BlackBerry shop (that's what we all use to access our mobile mail) I asked our help desk if they could help. When I told them my problem they asked how old the phone was. After checking with T-Mobile (the 8820 was officially released on March 24, 2008) I told them: "Six months old."

They just smiled. Then they opened a cabinet with their collection of broken BlackBerries. Several had broken track balls, some had connection problems, and others had various assorted ills. They told me that their experience with recent BlackBerries is that the track ball fails within six months. At that point they contact the cellular company (in our case, usually Verizon (VZ Quote)) and get a new phone. They told me not to panic. "It happens all the time."

That's not what I wanted to hear. I'm careful with my phones, and I test a lot of them. I keep my Blackberry in its holster when not in use. How could the inner works get gummed-up in only six months?

So, I searched the BlackBerry Web site to see if they could guide me back to cellular nirvana. On the support page, the first entry in the "Recently Added To Support" column was titled: "BlackBerry smartphone trackball fails to roll in a particular direction."

They say the problem is "debris lodged in the trackball." Their solution was simple:

"The trackball user interface found on certain BlackBerry smartphones is similar to the trackball used in a mouse in conjunction with a desktop computer. In the event debris comes in contact with the trackball and affects the usability of the BlackBerry smartphone, rapidly roll the trackball up, down, left, or right to potentially correct the problem. If rapidly rolling the trackball does not correct the problem, please contact your wireless service provider for support options.

Note: Do not attempt to repair the BlackBerry smartphone. Your BlackBerry smartphone may only be repaired by persons authorized by Research In Motion. Any attempt to repair the BlackBerry smartphone may invalidate any warranty applicable to your BlackBerry smartphone."

Sorry, RIM but that's just not true. Yes, trackballs are susceptible to dirt and grit clogging up the mechanism. But, any and every other trackball I've ever used has a way to open it up and clean both the ball and the rollers. BlackBerries don't.

So, now I'll contact T-Mobile and discuss the next step. Or maybe I won't. I might just decide I'm going to depend on to the next test phone and send this broken one back. I'm currently receiving my corporate email on my Apple (AAPL Quote) iPhone 3G -- not that it's a perfect device. Despite the constant, and increasingly annoying, software updates from Apple, which include improving power management, this near-perfect smartphone interface makes it easy for me to stop using my Blackberry.

Research in Motion needs to be honest about the BlackBerry's hardware problem. I realize the company is coming off a bad week after missing Wall Street's second-quarter expectations and guiding below estimates for the third quarter, citing the rising cost of new, upcoming product launches.

But, the company needs to find a solution to its problems. RIM should not tell the BlackBerry fan base to try fixing the problem by moving the ball back and forth and then contact the cellular company. And Apple, while just a tiny bit more upfront about dealing with its phone problems, needs to think twice about releasing a product with so many flaws.

Words of warning to all smartphone manufacturers -- especially the big phone companies and software merchants such as Motorola (MOT Quote), Samsung, LG, HTC, Google (GOOG Quote), Nokia (NOK Quote), Sprint Nextel (S Quote) and Verizon -- instead of worrying about how many features you can cram into a device, how fast you can accomplish it, and how cheap you can sell it, maybe you should make sure that the darn thing works, for at least as long as the warranty lasts.

Consumers spending hundreds of dollars on your cell phones deserve better.