HTC ThunderBolt 4G Android Phone (Verizon Wireless) - Get the Best Deals of Cell Phones with and without Plans

If you’re looking for an honest review of the Thunderbolt (mind you, I’ve only had it a little less than 2 weeks at this point), please read on.

First, a little background: I’ve been a Verizon customer for years. I previously had an LG Env2 for 3 years before buying the Thunderbolt. Like a lot of you, I’m sure, I waited and waited and skipped over several releases of the iPhone (on AT&T), desperately hoping for something equal or better on Verizon. For better or worse, I stood my ground and kept on waiting for something on Verizon. I was eligible for an upgrade about this time last year, but I never pulled the trigger on it for one reason or another. I guess I just never found a phone that really made me want to spend the extra money for the data plan (although the Droid Incredible came close). As soon as I heard that the LTE phones would start to roll out in early 2011, I knew I was waiting until that point to use my upgrade.

That brings us to the present. Dismayed a little by the continuous delays that plagued the release of the Thunderbolt, I waited patiently until the weekend following the release. I told myself I was going to wait a little longer to see if there were any major problems. I was a bit nervous on this purchase, just based on the rumors I’d been hearing about (and reading about) that delayed the Thunderbolt’s release. In the end, though, I decided I just couldn’t wait any longer and I made the purchase. My $50 upgrade credit (incidentally, the last time I’ll be able to use one of those on Verizon, since they’re doing away with the program) brought the price of the phone from $250 down to $200. Initial set-up at the Verizon store was minimal and I was out the door fairly quickly.

A few caveats here, before I dive into the guts of the review:
1) I live on the East Coast, in Arlington, VA. I frequently travel up/down the I-95 corridor to NJ/NYC/CT/etc, where Verizon’s 4G LTE signal is very strong.
2) Even though this is my first Android phone, I’m quite familiar with the operating system (OS) since my fiancee has one (Droid Incredible) and my father has one (Droid X). I’ve spent extensive time with both of those phones, so I have a pretty good reference point.

So, the first thing everyone wants to know is, of course, about 4G. (This is certainly the start of the “Pros” category, by the way.) As I mentioned above, I spend most of my time on the East Coast in the mid-Atlantic region. I’ve found the 4G signal to be excellent so far. During a recent trip from Philly down to Arlington, VA, I had 4G signal a good majority of the time. There were definitely spots in Northern Maryland and Delaware that didn’t have 4G, but once I hit the outskirts of Baltimore, I had 4G signal pretty much the rest of the way south to Washington, DC. Keep in mind, too, that the 4G LTE network (on this phone, anyway) is for DATA only. It won’t be until later this year or next year that Verizon starts to release phones that actually make phone calls over the 4G network.

The 4G LTE network that Verizon has up and running is BLAZING fast. I can’t possibly overstate that in any way, shape, or form. I have a Comcast cable modem at home that provides Wifi to my apartment. The 4G speeds that I’m getting with LTE right now are FASTER than my home network. And not even really that close, to be honest. Verizon’s 4G network is considerably faster than the Comcast cable modem. How much faster you ask? Take these numbers for instance (generated using the SpeedTest.net app from the Android app store):

On my home Wifi: 2941 kbps DOWNLOAD, 1390 kbps UPLOAD
On Verizon’s LTE network: 5102 kbps DOWNLOAD, 21214 kbps UPLOAD

In case your math is a little rusty, download speeds are almost twice as fast on the LTE network. Upload speeds are 15+ times faster! That’s compared to a CABLE MODEM! That’s insanely fast, folks!!! The big question, of course, is will those speeds continue to hold up as more folks jump on the LTE network? I can’t answer that question since I’m not a Verizon engineer. I certainly hope so, that’s for sure. Verizon’s network is their reputation, so I’m willing to bet that the speeds hold up fairly well. And let’s face it — even if there is a *slight* downgrade in speed once more folks are on, it’s still insanely fast for a cell phone.

To go along with the network speeds, lets discuss the Mobile Hotspot on the phone. You can connect up to 5 devices to the hotspot. My understanding is that the mobile hotspot option is free on this phone through mid-May (roughly, don’t quote me on this). I tested it out this weekend, and it performed flawlessly using my MacBook. Speeds were, again, outstanding. I didn’t run any numbers, but just browsing the Internet seemed considerably faster when connected to my phone (vs. the Cable Modem Wifi). Definitely an awesome feature to…

Read more

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comments (30)

By 

Petur O. Jonsson (Fayetteville, NC USA) –

  

  

My wife and I just bought a couple of these and we have been playing with them and learning their features for the last few days. Overall, we both like the phones a great deal, but there are still some issues.

The good:

1. We both like the touchscreen keyboard features on this phone better than on other smart phones that we have tried. The phone gives you tactile feedback with a subtle vibration whenever you hit a key, and, as you get more used to this feedback it really speeds up your typing. I still find that I need to type in landscape mode, else the keys are too small for my fingers, but it really works pretty well.

(2) Web-browsing is lightning fast and zooming in and out and moving across web pages seems instantaneus. This makes it very easy to read newspapers, etc. For me, this phone is as good as a tablet for reading newspapers.

(3) The camera and the video recordings work pretty well. Due to limitations of the lens, etc., the 8 Megapixel camera is not even close to what you get from even the cheapest of digital cameras, but it is still a big improvement over earlier phones.

Still needs improvement:

(1) My wife and I have so far not been able to exchange multimedia messages using these phones. Messages that have video and/or audio attachments remain undelivered. A verizon tech support person told us that this was due to some temporary bugs in transmitting multimedia attachments with messages from the Thunderbolt and that this was an android issue which should be straightened out very soon (Update: the problem was indeed taken care of soon: it is now fixed and all backlogged multimedia messages were delivered after we rebooted the phones).

(2) Voice dialing is not as efficient as it is on the blackberries. With the Thunderbolt, you can voice dial a contact, but then if there are multiple numbers, you must use the touchscreen to select one of them (unless you are using bluetooth). In contrast, on a blackberry you can voice specify one of several number for a given contact even without a bluetooth.

(3) Battery life seems to be on the short side. I do not believe that you get even two hours of intensive browsing, etc., from the battery.

Update 6/4/2011:

We bought HTC extended life batteries few weeks ago and I now see these a necessity for the Thunderbolt. Even with the extended life battery,we still have to recharge the phone every other day with light use and every day with moderate to heavy use. Also, my wife’s phone started using up the battery at an even faster rate, to the point where the original battery would be depleted in two hours with little or no use. We returned that phone under warranty and the replacement phone is doing better.

Another issue is that my phone has frozen up a few times and when this happened I was not able to get the phone to reboot until I actually removed and reinstalled the battery. This seems to happen about every other week. So far it has not been a big problem albeit this it is annoying when this happens.

Update 6/14/2011:

Whatever problem is causing my phone to freeze up started getting progressively worse. These last few days it has happened every day and earlier today it simply refused to come back on when I took the battery out to reboot it. I then took the phone to a verizon service center, where they were eventually able to get it to reboot, but then it had lost all its data including my address files, etc. At that point I was expecting the verizon backup assistant software to reinstall my data, but it failed to do so, so I seem to have lost my directory of contacts (I will check later whether it can be retrieved through other means). Verizon tells me that I will be receiving a replacement phone in overnight mail. I will post another update once I receive that one and have set it up properly.

Update 6/19/2011:

I received a new thunderbolt the very next day as promised and I was able to download all my original information to it. I am not sure exactly what the problems were with the first one, but the new one has been faster from the get go and so far everything has been copacetic.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comments (4)

By 

R. Vogt “Robert” –

  

As a previous iPhone 4 user, I would say I was apple brainwashed (or is it “applewashed”?) and thought the iPhone was the only smartphone worth considering. Well, the iPhone truly is a great phone, but a combination of AT&T’s miserable service – including 5-10 dropped calls a day on average and terrible reception otherwise – the iPhone was often rendered a $700 smart paperweight unless WiFi was accessible. So why not get an iPhone 4 with Verizon you say? Well, after hearing about Verizon’s new LTE network and the new HTC Thunderbolt I decided to take the plunge into Android for a change of pace.

I will not talk much about Android itself, well, because this isn’t a review of Android. However, I will say that I really like HTC’s Sense overlay and the level of customization that is possible. HTC’s platform and the Android GUI’s feature set is impressive compared to the iPhone’s cut and dry. I love the widgets and having instant access to a bunch of useful information on the home screen.

So about the phone. The phone is substantially bigger if you are used to the iPhone. The size alone might rule this phone out for some people. It works out well for me since I have bigger hands and felt myself squinting at the iPhone screen. Reading and viewing text is made a very pleasurable experience on the Thunderbolt given the screen size. In terms of data speed, the phone is blisteringly fast when on Verizon’s 4G. The speed of the GUI is smooth, albeit not as smooth as the iPhone 4. For example, when scrolling amongst apps, it’s just not as fluid. It’s not a deal breaker by any stretch and perhaps they might tweak this a bit in future OS revisions.

In terms of style, where the iPhone 4 is svelte, the Thunderbolt seems “all business”. The case itself is robust and hefty but the material is actually a bit slippery – a good reason to opt for a rubberized cover of some sort. Nonetheless, it does feel good in the hand and quality made. I’d say the touch responsiveness with the capacitive screen is near equal to the iPhone’s.

The camera is a downgrade from the iPhone 4 but is still passable. For me this really wasn’t a big deal since I have this incredible invention called a digital camera for high quality photos.

The stock battery life is not as good as the iPhone, but it’s also not bad at all for average use in my experience. Unless you are simultaneously streaming your HD soap opera over 4G, syncing 30 apps, playing Angry Birds, and listening to music through your bluetooth headphones, you’ll probably find that the battery life is satisfactory. That being said, the iPhone 4 vs. HTC TBolt battery comparison is not truly apples to apples one (no pun intended) because the screen is so much larger on the HTC and it’s running 4G. But guess what: you can actually replace the battery yourself without sacrificing your phone to Apple, and furthermore, you can replace the battery with an extended one if you need it. What luxury.

So there you have it. Coming from the iPhone 4 I feel like I made a great upgrade, and I am no longer having my blood sucked by AT&T. While both phones are without a doubt superb, my preference is for the HTC. Faster and better things will surely come down the pipe like they always do, but this is a great phone for the here and now.

-UPDATE – APR 28 –

I just wanted to post a quick update on my experience with the Thunderbolt thus far. I still am very pleased with the phone, and I find it cumbersome when I go back to using my girlfriend’s Iphone 4. I’ve grown accustomed to the bigger screen size (which I think it’s just about perfect).

It does seem like the phone has some issues switching amongst the 3G/4G radios and I hope HTC will release an update soon. For instance, at times it seems like the handoff isn’t smooth and apps like Pandora will skip momentarily. I also find it annoying that certain apps (such as the internet) won’t transfer data when on basic 1X service like the iPhone would (albeit super slowly which is expected). Perhaps this is also something that could be addressed.

I would like to make one suggestion and recommend purchasing the aftermarket charger/battery options provided by Seidio if you find yourself draining the battery. They have a nice battery charger that will allow you to charge your spare and your phone at the same time – which is great for those days when you use the phone more and need the extra juice. I don’t often need to change the battery during the day but on the weekends it’s nice to have the spare.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comments (2)