You don't have to auto-scroll if you don't want to, although it shouldn't affect battery life if you do. On my Forerunner 310XT I can manually scroll through the windows using the up/down buttons - IIRC it was the same on my old FR301. What might affect battery life is your backlight options. Manual scrolling turns on the backlight if it's set to on - I'm not sure if auto-scrolling would turn it on or not, but you can set it to not come on.
I honestly wouldn't bother with grade on a Forerunner. Without a barometric altimeter, real-time grade readings just aren't even close to being accurate. I actually had grade displaying on my 310 when I first got it, but I took it off, because it was so inaccurate.
I do like to display sunset time.
On the bike computer, I primarily use one window for pacelining (where I have elapsed time and speed prominent), and another for solo riding (cadence and distance prominent). The Edge series only gives me two windows, but up to eight data fields in each. I use six, so I can have two fields large and easy to see with my old eyes.
On the Forerunner, it depends on what workout I'm doing. On a long run or a recovery run I'll display only heart rate and cadence ... that'll keep me from stressing about pace.
Last edited by OakLeaf; 06-26-2011 at 04:32 PM.
Speed comes from what you put behind you. - Judi Ketteler