Verizon and Sprint Respond to BlackBerry Tour Trackball Issue

trackball_black.jpg">trackball_black" src="http://www.berryreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/trackball_black-300x255.jpg" alt="trackball_black" width="300" height="255" />The BlackBerry Tour trackball has been a hot topic lately.  It seems like one out of every two BlackBerry Tour phones have a faulty trackball. This has caused a major stir around the Internet and many users want answers.  We’ve seen some minor trackball issues in the past with BlackBerry phones but nothing compared to this.

In a recent report by Townhall Investment Research an analyst says the Tour has seen a 50% return rate with Sprint.  Verizon is said to have an even higher rate of return and it appears that they are not happy with RIM’s latest BlackBerry.  I can understand the frustration because the Tour had so much hype.  Many users like this unhappy Tour owner switched to Verizon because of the service and now are having second thoughts.

All this feedback has caused Sprint and Verizon to release official statements about the trackball issues and their responses are a little surprising.  If you take a look at each response you’ll see they are very similar.  Yes they have acknowledged there is a problem but they both say it was only a small percentage of the early models.  If this is true then they may have solved the trackball issues that has plagued so many of us.

Sprint:

“We experienced a small percentage of early production BlackBerry Tour smartphones with trackball issues. As soon as the issue was identified, we worked closely with our partners at RIM to resolve the problem quickly. We recommend any customer experiencing issues with the trackball on their BlackBerry Tour smartphone visit a Sprint Service & Repair Center.”

Verizon Wireless:

“Early on there was an issue with the trackball that affected a small percentage [of] the early production units — far less than industry norms. The issue was detected early, addressed immediately and is no longer an issue. Returns on this device are some of the lowest among any of our smart phones.”