Did I DREAM that one can choose to see "battery life remaining" as a percentage, rather than the "bars"?????
Thanks!

You can try a search and see what turns up, not sure if it's here or another board but there is a post detailing a key command that will do what your requesting...

Rather than looking at the bars, you can change the display of the 'signal strength' to read in real numbers.
While at the home screen (ribbon), hold down the half moon key while you type NMLL. The bars should change to read numbers. For the 'signal strength', if you are in the 100 area (that means -100 dBm), you will be transmitting at maximum power (2 Watts), and since coverage is hit and miss at this weak a signal, you may end up transmitting many times before the packets make it through. This might help explain any poorer than normal battery life. I consider anything at -90 to -50 excellent.


To get the bars back: While at the home screen (ribbon), hold down the half moon key while you type NMLL again.

source: http://www.blackberryforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=19

they have all kinds of tips and tricks, hope this helps =)

Just found this:

Guys - the original question was how to show the BATTERY STRENGTH as a percentage, not the radio strength. ALT NMLL changes the signal strength to a numeric (and thanks verticl for the signal lesson), but the question is how to show battery strength as a percentage.

I do not believe you can do it.

Good eyes NJ! Yep can't say I have an answer for that one...

No charge Unfortunately, no way to change the battery bars, either!

haha, nice NJ, i missed that, but i guess i went through the same thing that bill went through.. i knew i had seen it somewhere just didn't realize it was signal strength not battery.

now this lead me to another question. why would i want to know my signal strength as a %age when the bars for that are fine since that won't tell me how long i can keep my BB on. I think they kind of screwed up on this one. How do they know actual percenatge there is no way to measure signal strenght in numbers unelss there is a maximum number it can negotiate at. I don't know just sounds like battery would have made more sense, then again, thats probabaly why it wasn't done!

oh well, just have to figure out how long it can stay on with your own use!

If you click on options, then status, you will see how much battery life there is in a percentage figure. At least it does on my 7230 on the old OS system. I hope that doesn't go away when I upgrade to 4.0 OS.

You used to be able to change battery strength to a percentage using dbon. This worked on a 857 from Motient at least. Unfortunately it doesn't work on any newer devices.

PocketDay, just released can show the battery as a percentage. It's an option. Try it at www.crossriversystems.com