WG: Posibility to get status informations with the help of a LED

[Knight Walker]

On Thu, Feb 01, 2007 at 12:17:36PM +0100, denis wrote:
> It's great that an implementation of LEDs is discussed. My problem with
> flashing screens is the high amount of energy that it costs. At the moment I
> have a SE S700i and I always have to turn the screen on in order to get to
> know if there are messages or emails. And blinking only two or three times
> is not enought because you're not looking at the screen all the time.
> Flashing LEDs have the advantage that they cost less energy and can blink
> over a large amount of time. So you just look at the LED and know "ah there
> is a sms or ah I got an email". 

While I agree with you that a (few) strategically placed LED(s) would be
useful, I believe the hardware design for the Neo1973 has been finalized, and
is most likely already going through Manufacturing.

That said, there are ways to notify without turning the back-light on.  On
my current phone, it never actually turns the LCD off, but it does turn off
the backlight after a user-specified timeout.  It uses a "screensaver",
which includes a large time display, and some small icons around the edge
of the moving display, one for missed calls, one for SMS, one for MMS, and
one for key-lock.  As long as there is a decent amount of light to see by
(And it doesn't take much) I can glance at the screen and instantly know the
status without waking it at all.

Depending on how much juice the actual LCD (not the backlight) uses on the
Neo, as well as the non-lit reflectivity of the screen, something like that
could be quite useful.  It could even be extensible via a plugin architecture
to allow for new icons to be placed on it.

-KW