[kirson]

Originally Posted by jibi

Thank you for being the logical person here.

I think this is one of those features that will only ever appeal to a certain pool of users. I think you can likely take a look around at the topics on this forum and figure out who would like this functionality...

The real issue is a more basic one, and that is the existence of a "backlight" feature. Older (?) Blackberries had a basic display mode that lasted "forever" -- you could leave the device on, work on it, play games, type, surf, etc., and still only need to recharge the device every week to 10 days. The only exception was the phone -- it KILLED the power. On those devices, you could select to turn on the backlight, and that feature would go into effect for 10 to 20 seconds and then turn off. The backlight REALLY killed power, and if you used the device a lot in the dark, you could go through a full charge in 24 hours, even without the phone. A screen saver was a fantastic idea on those devices, and many of us worked on developing open source versions of such applications. Since the device was always on - meaning that the screen only ever shut off if you put it into a holster - it was nice to have a picture to look at, or a slide show.

The 7100, on the other hand, does not have a "backlight off" option -- if you use it, the backlight is on. It runs through power like a camel runs through water after 18 days in the desert. If you use the device to surf the web, or type messages, or do much of anything that keeps the screen on, you can go through a full charge in under 4 hours. This type of device HAS to shut off the screen completely almost all the time if it's to have ANY use to us at all. In this context, what's the point of a screen saver?

The real issue, IMHO, is that the 7100 doesn't have the ability to display ANYTHING unless the backlight is ON. For that reason, the battery on the 7100 SUCKS. Sure, if you want to read an email here and there, type one every now and then, it can last you a day or two. Maybe even an entire weekend (if you're lucky). But if you're a power user, you're SOL.

Combine this with a keyboard so crampped as to make typing almost painful, and the 7100t is a very poor replacement for the older 7230/6230 models. Some of the new 7100 models have the Vodafone keyboard configuration, and that looks like it could solve the keyboard issue, but the battery/backlight issue has been a real disappointment.

Just my $0.02.

Ian