Originally Posted by wesscoggin (Post 1294723)

I actually have thought about why they separated the power and screen off and I know why it's useful to me to have them separate....Have you ever needed to shut your phone off for something, (for instance, going into a long meeting but would like to conserve battery rather than just having it on silent and wasting battery) but you don't remember if you actually shut the phone off or not? Before, when the buttons were the same, to check the on/off status you would have to press the power/backlight on key and it would actually turn the phone on if it was off. You would have to wait for the phone to start up before you could shut it back down or take out the battery. In addition, if the volume was up (rather than vibrate or silent) and you had a startup sound you would be embarassed in the meeting. Now you can press the backlight key to see if the phone is on or not and if nothing happens you know it's off. Perhaps a visual aid as in what the the OP was refering to is just another way to verify the on/off status.