HTC Thunderbolt

T4rd said:
Lol, guess you're an existing VZW customer and not eligible for upgrade yet? That's crazy. I hope whatever phone you're using now will sell for at least half that to help out.

But I hope to get away tomorrow to pick this up. The only thing I'm worried about is that they stomped out any battery issues they may have had before.
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Yep... I'm using the original Droid.
 
LOCO LAPTOP said:
Yep... I'm using the original Droid.
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Same here and I'm eligible for upgrade now. Did you confirm your weren't at VZW? If your phone is the primary (or only) line, then you can do an annual upgrade. At least that's what the VZW rep told me a few days ago when I was asking about the TB. I got my Droid in Dec. '09.
 
With everyone waiting for the dual core phones to come out, honestly is it really worth the wait? Are the single core phones out now really that slow? Are people running multiple apps all the time?

Sorry, I'm still using my LG Chocolate 2 looking to upgrade soon, but not sure if I should wait a couple more months. Really interested in the Incredible 2 right now. I checked out the first Incredible and it feels really nice to hold. Not big or bulky like the other phones.
 
aeon said:
With everyone waiting for the dual core phones to come out, honestly is it really worth the wait? Are the single core phones out now really that slow? Are people running multiple apps all the time?

Sorry, I'm still using my LG Chocolate 2 looking to upgrade soon, but not sure if I should wait a couple more months. Really interested in the Incredible 2 right now. I checked out the first Incredible and it feels really nice to hold. Not big or bulky like the other phones.
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Single core will most likely continue to rule the smartphone market for at least another 12-18 months. This is why I'm not rushing to a multi-core device. These companies have all that back stock to get rid of and other SoC manufacturers like OMAP and Qualcomm are just not ready to release their dual-core designs yet. So investing in a single core device is not a bad thing like some people would have you believe.
 
T4rd said:
Same here and I'm eligible for upgrade now. Did you confirm your weren't at VZW? If your phone is the primary (or only) line, then you can do an annual upgrade. At least that's what the VZW rep told me a few days ago when I was asking about the TB. I got my Droid in Dec. '09.
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I only had my phone for 6 months.
 
I have the Thunderbolt. :D :eek: :D

LTE is faster then hell. Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons were downloaded in probably 10 seconds total. Flash streaming video runs incredibly well also. My wife's Droid Incredible is fast but this just feels faster to me. I definitely had a clearer voice in my ear when the wife called me versus my Droid. Wife said I sounded clearer on her end as well.

So far I don't miss a thing coming from Project Elite.

Phone is quite a bit heavier then the Droid but that's to be expected. Screen is beautiful though. Crisp, clear, and very responsive. 32GB SDcard is 29.32GB or something after the formatting. Still that's a shit ton of space.

Just need ROOT access to remove the crapware and holy shit is there a ton of it. I don't care if they put this shit on my phone but don't put in the /system/apps folder dammit. I don't want Let's Golf 2 and Blockbuster. I don't want this Facebook horseshit either. I know the XDA guys know the exploit on the demo TB's still works on the production model. Just need to give them time to perma-root and I'm all good till CyanogenMod comes to the phone.

Slayher already has received enough donations to buy a TB for CM development so again it's only a matter of time. ;)
 
Really, its heavier then the droid? I thought the Droid was pretty heavy. My friend has the Samsung Fascinate, and that phone feels super light.

I purchased the original Droid on release and have had the "early upgrade" option for the last month or two. I placed my order for the Thunderbolt just now, my local B&M Vzw stores suck for new phones.
 
Vermillion said:
I have the Thunderbolt. :D :eek: :D

LTE is faster then hell. Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons were downloaded in probably 10 seconds total. Flash streaming video runs incredibly well also. My wife's Droid Incredible is fast but this just feels faster to me. I definitely had a clearer voice in my ear when the wife called me versus my Droid. Wife said I sounded clearer on her end as well.

So far I don't miss a thing coming from Project Elite.

Phone is quite a bit heavier then the Droid but that's to be expected. Screen is beautiful though. Crisp, clear, and very responsive. 32GB SDcard is 29.32GB or something after the formatting. Still that's a shit ton of space.

Just need ROOT access to remove the crapware and holy shit is there a ton of it. I don't care if they put this shit on my phone but don't put in the /system/apps folder dammit. I don't want Let's Golf 2 and Blockbuster. I don't want this Facebook horseshit either. I know the XDA guys know the exploit on the demo TB's still works on the production model. Just need to give them time to perma-root and I'm all good till CyanogenMod comes to the phone.

Slayher already has received enough donations to buy a TB for CM development so again it's only a matter of time. ;)
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Nice. So what was the final price with the annual upgrade? I'm going to try to go to town today to get it, but both my kids are sick today and I dunno if I can get away :(.

Edit: Oh, and don't forget to report on battery life stats :p.
 
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sethmo said:
Really, its heavier then the droid? I thought the Droid was pretty heavy. My friend has the Samsung Fascinate, and that phone feels super light.

I purchased the original Droid on release and have had the "early upgrade" option for the last month or two. I placed my order for the Thunderbolt just now, my local B&M Vzw stores suck for new phones.
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It definitely feels heavier to me. I haven't gone to match the specs. I guess the size increase could be throwing off how it feels versus my Droid.

T4rd said:
Nice. So what was the final price with the annual upgrade? I'm going to try to go to town today to get it, but both my kids are sick today and I dunno if I can get away :(.
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$250 plus tax. So do the math for you locale and tax rates. ;)

Definitely loving this at the moment though. It is definitely a nice device.
 
black0ut said:
woo its finally here. please please comment on battery life!

confirm or deny this? http://androidcommunity.com/htc-thu...vealed-hands-on-test-with-slashgear-20110317/
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Can't confirm or deny that yet. I haven't even fully charged the device yet. I left work to get the phone during my lunch break. It was only at about 35-40% charge then. I plugged it in but have been on the move at work and the phone goes with me. Currently charging though and I'm at about 65%.

The use I have been putting on the phone though certainly has not been destroying battery life like it has in that article.

Will probably be able to let the phone fully charge at this point. So will report back after that when I put the phone to good use.
 
aeon said:
With everyone waiting for the dual core phones to come out, honestly is it really worth the wait? Are the single core phones out now really that slow? Are people running multiple apps all the time?
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Most are slow, but dual-core isnt the answer there: Acceleration is. When it gets implimented, the single-core will be smoothe scrolling and quick and responsive.

As for running multiple apps... I have Dolphin running in memory 24/7 (web browser) along with K9 Mail, Y! Mail, and Gmail. All checking my accounts hourly or something.

The only problem I've had (and this may be specific to the EVO/CM6) is the built-in music app will sometimes completely lock down the phone while it's playing (touch is dead, hardware buttons are dead, cant even hold-power-button-to-power-off) but if I wait for the track to end, the phone works again. This is also not a regular thing, I *TRIED* to replicate the bug and could never do it on purpose.

Oh and also, RE: LTE:
I Scored 24mbps on WiMax the other day (will see if I still have the result in memory so I can post a pic) What are you guys getting on LTE?
 
Vermillion, this seems like a stupid question, but can you report on whether the phone stops music playback when you receive a text message? I'm currently using an Env Touch and it pauses playback until you respond to the text message (either reply or dismiss to view later).
 
RustedAngel said:
Vermillion, this seems like a stupid question, but can you report on whether the phone stops music playback when you receive a text message? I'm currently using an Env Touch and it pauses playback until you respond to the text message (either reply or dismiss to view later).
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No MP3's on my phone at the moment. Never used my D1 for that either. I just use Pandora all day long. ;)

But I can confirm that Text/E-mail/G-chat notifications play during Pandora playback causing Pandora to stop and immediately start playing again. When I get home maybe I'll load a few MP3s and see how it goes.

As for battery life I probably won't be able to really tell anybody anything just yet. I'm in the middle of using Privacy Blocker to fix all my apps while streaming Pandora so it isn't really a fair example of battery life. PB chews through battery life.

I can say this though. The phone is damned fast and the RAM makes multi-tasking wonderful. I can gchat, browse the internet, update apps, stream pandora, and use PB all at the same time without a single hint of lag. :eek:
 
Just picked one up, yeah! Coming from the D1 this is pretty awesome. Although I'll say there are a couple things I miss from my rooted droid but I'm sure that'll change over time.
 
Thanks for your assistance Vermillion. I personally prefer MP3s to pandora because 1)I'm a metalhead and Pandora doesn't seem to do to well with associating more obscure music types, and 2) I'm a control freak. I can't even stand shuffle playback. There will be order in mein playlist!
 
Honestly, I'll still wait till the Bionic or maybe even the Droid 3. Can't remember, is the Droid 3 going to be 4G or no?
 
SolidSnakeUS said:
Honestly, I'll still wait till the Bionic or maybe even the Droid 3. Can't remember, is the Droid 3 going to be 4G or no?
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Nobody knows if DX2 and D3 are going to 4G or not. DX2 is rumored to but nothing on D3 yet to my knowledge. Pictures of the two devices only leaked over the last day or two.

For the time being I'm staying away from Motorola and their bullshit locked bootloaders. When I pay this much for a device I'm going to be damn sure I can do whatever the fuck I want with it.
 
Vermillion said:
Nobody knows if DX2 and D3 are going to 4G or not. DX2 is rumored to but nothing on D3 yet to my knowledge. Pictures of the two devices only leaked over the last day or two.

For the time being I'm staying away from Motorola and their bullshit locked bootloaders. When I pay this much for a device I'm going to be damn sure I can do whatever the fuck I want with it.
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This is why I wish the Pyramid was coming to Verizon... damn you T-Mobile...
 
Engadget hasn't really posted shit today in the mobile section. I hope they're testing the shit out of this phone and will post a review later, hah. I won't be able to pick it up today, so I have to wait til tomorrow anyways. At least this way I can be aware of any flaws before I decide to pick it up. I really will miss my Droids keyboard though. I'm using it to type this post right now and dunno if I could get used to the software keyboard for longer messages.. well I'm sure I could, but dunno if I'd want to.
 
T4rd said:
Engadget hasn't really posted shit today in the mobile section. I hope they're testing the shit out of this phone and will post a review later, hah. I won't be able to pick it up today, so I have to wait til tomorrow anyways. At least this way I can be aware of any flaws before I decide to pick it up. I really will miss my Droids keyboard though. I'm using it to type this post right now and dunno if I could get used to the software keyboard for longer messages.. well I'm sure I could, but dunno if I'd want to.
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With my D1 I used my physical keyboard very little unless i had something big to write. With the size of the TB's screen the virtual keyboard is far bigger then the virtual one on the D1. I can easily say good bye physical keyboard at this point.

Battery life seems to be OK so far.
 
Vermillion said:
With my D1 I used my physical keyboard very little unless i had something big to write. With the size of the TB's screen the virtual keyboard is far bigger then the virtual one on the D1. I can easily say good bye physical keyboard at this point.
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I second this: EVO's screen is the same size, I can say that it's not hard to type on and in fact works better than some of the physical KBs I've used (and autocorrect fixes around 70% of mistakes w/o a problem) Though there is 1 drawback - you cant read anything else on-screen when your typing, the KB and text-area take up the whole display.
 
Vermillion said:
Nobody knows if DX2 and D3 are going to 4G or not. DX2 is rumored to but nothing on D3 yet to my knowledge. Pictures of the two devices only leaked over the last day or two.

For the time being I'm staying away from Motorola and their bullshit locked bootloaders. When I pay this much for a device I'm going to be damn sure I can do whatever the fuck I want with it.
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Word on the grapevine is no LTE for the Droid3. I was disappointed.
 
Awesome. I can't live without WiFi tether(not paying for hotspot) and a clean rom(removed bloatware)
 
sethmo said:
Awesome. I can't live without WiFi tether(not paying for hotspot) and a clean rom(removed bloatware)
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Well Verizon is being cool right now and giving TB users free Hotspot tethering til May 15th, so you'll have that until devs fix WiFi tether to work good with the TB and have permanent root. And with most launchers, they let you hide apps you don't use. So with 8GBs onboard storage, I wouldn't mind the bloatware too much as long as it's not in the app drawer.

I'm going into town this afternoon. Hope to try thing thing out! Can't believe Engadget hasn't reviewed this thing yet..
 
sethmo said:
Awesome. I can't live without WiFi tether(not paying for hotspot) and a clean rom(removed bloatware)
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Too bad you're probably on borrowed time with getting away with breaking your TOS.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-news/133480-att-going-after-illegal-tetherers.html

AT&T is already cracking down. Verizon, Sprint, and T-mobile will likely follow.


As for TB battery life. It is pretty bad. Not EVO bad IMO but I definitely need them to hurry up with the root access so I can get SetCPU installed for the ramping.

My D1 could easily stream Pandora for 5-6 hours and only lose 20%. TBolt isn't anywhere near that. Right now I'm at about 50% charge. This morning at 600am I took it off the charger. I've made three short phone calls. 5-20 minutes a piece and have been streaming Pandora or listening to a TWiT podcast for a majority of the day. Other then that the phone isn't doing much. My D1 at this point would probably be at about 80%.
 
My D1 used to get pretty decent battery life(12hr+). I am on the Liquid Gingerbread rom now and I got 9hr47min on a full charge yesterday(was at a low 5% when I put it back on the charger). Thats with an hour or two of Pandora, hour of Sirius, a few phone calls(30min tops), and other average use.

As long as I can get at least 8-10hr from the TB, I will be happy.
 
sethmo said:
My D1 used to get pretty decent battery life(12hr+). I am on the Liquid Gingerbread rom now and I got 9hr47min on a full charge yesterday(was at a low 5% when I put it back on the charger). Thats with an hour or two of Pandora, hour of Sirius, a few phone calls(30min tops), and other average use.

As long as I can get at least 8-10hr from the TB, I will be happy.
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Honestly, even 12 hour on a D1 is only OK. I could routinely get 18+ on mine. :) That was with Project Elite 5.0.2, CM6.1.2, CM7, and Simply Stunning 4.x.

With the Tbolt 10 hours is probably a pipe dream (unless you do nothing all day) if the phone is stock. The Tbolt battery life reminds me lot of my wife's Droid Incredible. I figure once I get the thing rooted and SetCPU is running I'll be able to add 4-6 hours of life like the Dinc did.
 
Yeah that is what I was thinking. On Froyo roms with a low voltage kernal, I could get on average 12-15hrs. I went several times at over 24hrs, but with less then normal usage.

I just got my TB at lunch, charging it now. I am going to love this 8gb onboard storage. I kept having to move apps to my SD card on my D1 as it would always fill up the internal.
 
sethmo said:
Yeah that is what I was thinking. On Froyo roms with a low voltage kernal, I could get on average 12-15hrs. I went several times at over 24hrs, but with less then normal usage.

I just got my TB at lunch, charging it now. I am going to love this 8gb onboard storage. I kept having to move apps to my SD card on my D1 as it would always fill up the internal.
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Go look at your 8GB onboard. ;) It's only 2.5GB. :eek: :eek: :eek: Looks like there's a shit ton of wasted space due to all that bloat that we can't remove without root. Yippee!? :rolleyes:

According to a discussion over at XDA the biggest offender looks to be the extremely shitty, not to mention totally unnecessary, VZN Navigator. Looks like VZN loaded up EVERY map of the US on the damn phone directly instead of having it download like Google maps.
 
I work at VZW and a couple of co-workers have it and its FAST. Speedtest shows we're getting 14mb down consistenly indoors in the office. I'd really love to tether it to my PC using PDANET, much faster than my ATT DSL connection, just worried of any limits and cracking down VZW would do. I tried Sprint for a month, their Wimax got about 6-8mb down and I tethered 15gb to my PC for a few days (Steam games) and not a peep from them. I doubt VZW would do the same.
 
black0ut said:
woo its finally here. please please comment on battery life!

confirm or deny this? http://androidcommunity.com/htc-thu...vealed-hands-on-test-with-slashgear-20110317/
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Im sure its true, givin the evo's record for poor battery life. Think about it, its called the thunderbolt- its going to give you lots of power, but its going to require lots of power too. For mobile computing , forget the spare battery- just get one of these http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-DPP-...HMWK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300481166&sr=8-1 :D.

I'm curious to know how long battery life will be when you just have it on standby for incoming calls?
 
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Bullfrog2099 said:
Im sure its true, givin the evo's record for poor battery life. Think about it, its called the thunderbolt- its going to give you lots of power, but its going to require lots of power too. For mobile computing , forget the spare battery- just get one of these http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-DPP-...HMWK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300481166&sr=8-1 :D.

I'm curious to know how long battery life will be when you just have it on standby for incoming calls?
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I dropped roughly 10% over 6 hours last night while sleeping.
 
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Vermillion said:
I dropped roughly 10% over 6 hours last night while sleeping.
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That lines up about right with Engadgets review where it dropped 20% in 14 hours idling.

I went to VZW today to try this thing out. They didn't have a display unit, but let me unbox one and hold it without putting the battery in it. I didn't think it was way too heavy, but then again, it didn't have the battery in it. I really dunno if I dig the 4.3 screen. I have really small hands and find the 3.7" on the D1 to be about good. A 4" would be the perfect medium for me though, I think. I'm in Northern KY, on the IN border and they said the nearest 4G is Nashville, TN, lol.

So, I dunno.. maybe after I see what you all experience over the weekend, I might still pick it up Monday after I'm in town for other stuff. But as of right now, after holding it and reading early reviews.. it's just barely under the "gotta have it" status. Not sure how else to put that, lol. I'm still happy with my Droid too, save for a few small bugs in the PE ROM I'm running. So I dunno.. maybe if they have a better root solution over the weekend.

Vermillion - I really thought Android throttled the CPU down while idling anyways, so I didn't think setCPU helped much when running stock kernel/speeds..?
 
T4rd said:
I'm in Northern KY, on the IN border and they said the nearest 4G is Nashville, TN, lol.
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Wouldn't that put you by Cincinnati? Cincinnati has 4G. They have a map on vzw's website too that you can check out to see 4G coverage.

I just picked this up today and am loving. Of course it is my first smartphone, so it's a huge step up over my env touch. I just want to do so much with it! Did speedtest and got 14 Mbps down and 1.8Mbps up. Better than upload than my cable internet and I got one of the faster packages for that. I wish mobile hotspot would be free forever. So I could my laptop at those speeds anytime I wanted!
 
T4rd said:
Vermillion - I really thought Android throttled the CPU down while idling anyways, so I didn't think setCPU helped much when running stock kernel/speeds..?
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I've heard that rumor as well and I don't believe it for a minute. If the Tbolt was throttling last night then I shouldn't have lost that much battery in a 6 hour period when it's idle 99% of the time.
 
coder_t2 said:
Wouldn't that put you by Cincinnati? Cincinnati has 4G. They have a map on vzw's website too that you can check out to see 4G coverage.

I just picked this up today and am loving. Of course it is my first smartphone, so it's a huge step up over my env touch. I just want to do so much with it! Did speedtest and got 14 Mbps down and 1.8Mbps up. Better than upload than my cable internet and I got one of the faster packages for that. I wish mobile hotspot would be free forever. So I could my laptop at those speeds anytime I wanted!
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It would kill the 4g network if everyone got to keep the hotspot feature, becuase you know the %1 of people out there would like to use this as their primary connection instead of paying for dsl or cable for home use. You can root it, but I wouldn't milk the unrooted hotspot too much- VZW will catch on to it and at some point it may reflect on your bill. I can see the customer point of view "no way am I going to pay $20 a month for a feature that you should get for free on your OWN device". Yet, I can see VZW point of view, "no your not going to tie down 4g speeds for everyone because you want to stream movies, download apps, while listening to pandora hours on end". We who root should be careful how we use our freedom , otherwise our freedom will be taken away again after we've already freed ourselves.
 
i picked up my TB yesterday and it ROCKS. I love this phone compared to my original Droid. Still, i'm keeping my Droid. I have the multimedia dock next to my bed so i'll use the Droid as an alarm clock/radio (pandora).
As for LTE, it's not available in my area yet but I'm in the chicago metropolitan area so it shouldn't bee too long. Although, I didn't get the phone just because of the LTE.
 
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