In the 7280, when in the phone app, you could scroll down to name section and then type letters to find a contact in your list, ie j_al, would locate John Alson, then <enter> to dial.

Can you do the same with the 7100t?

Not the Phone app, but the Address Book. And you click the scroll wheel, which brings up a menu that has options to dial, compose an email, or SMS the given contact. Selecting Phone may pull up a menu asking which number you wish to dial.

So you can use a T-Mobile unlocked blackberryon cingular and it be fully functional?

I have been using an unlocked 7100t on Cingular in Chicago for a couple of months and it seems to work fine. Phone and e-mail are good, browser is fair, not sure I have all of the settings correct, but still learning.

That's awesome, they have unlocked Blackberries from T-mobile for 150 bucks on Ebay, I wasn't sure if it was fully compatable with Cingular so I never bit, but NOW.... I'm off to buy some cell phones!