Anyone own their 8130 pearl for many months now? Curious to know how long the track ball is actually going to work as well as it does now. Seems somewhat fragile and I scroll that thing like mad.

Deciding on the $5.99 insurance since it is going to have to last me 2 years.

Anyone own theirs for a while? How is your trackball working?

They can take a beating....just look at the thread with high scores for Brickbreaker! Seriously, they will turn brown and dirty but the keep working. You can buy the assemblies for less that $12.00 now. I do not think insuring your phone over a 12 buck part would be worth it if that is the only thing that concerns you.

E-

Wirelessly posted (8800: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8310/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

The 8130 has not been very long, but it is the same as most previous trackball models. Use a case or holster and it clean with a light wipe from an alcohol wipe from time to time.

Great tips, thanks for the insight.

Anywhere you recommend buying parts? I saw the replacement trackball on ebay for about $20 shipped. Luckily I don't need this, just thinking ahead since it seems like the track ball can easily get thrown off.

i have the 8100, and have had it since the end of August. my phone comes with me onto dirty dusty construction sites everyday, and my trackball is still working good. the odd time it gets pissy, and i have to push a little harder, but it frees up almost immediately

be cautious in using alcohol wipes or rubbing alcohol. There's a percentage of water to it and if you're cleaning the trackball it's just going to roll underneath and get down into other parts and possibly cause corrosion.