Thunderbolt or Droid Charge?

S

Shadowprice

2[H]4U
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Jun 7, 2005
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Hopefully not turning into a flame thread but I was wondering how these two stack against each other and which one you would go for.

I'm coming from a iPhone 4 and I like the idea of going to Android and having a bigger screen, 4G LTE, more customization... etc.

I like HTC phones a lot, Sense is a very nice and clean UI, and the Thunderbolt seems like it will have overall better performance with higher ram, more internal memory (8GB).. plus the kickstand is a very nice touch. It's also nice and heavy, I like phones with weight to them. Light phones feel kind of cheap to me.

On the other hand, the Droid Charge looks nice. The super amoled screen probably looks a lot better, and based off track record, I'm sure the Charge will have better battery life compared to the Thunderbolts atrocious battery... then again, 4G signal is probably capable of destroying both batteries.

But I'm also a bit apprehensive to go with the Charge because Samsung has a serious lack of software and update support for their phones, and I don't really root and put roms on my phones much.. HTC seems to get updates better.

Which would you go with and why?
 
It is a tough choice, they both have their advantages/disadvantages over each other. It just depends on what you personally want out of the phone. It seems like you already have a grasp on both of them and know what they bring to the table, so you'll just have to decide what's important to you.

Samsung is getting better about updates though. Soon the Galaxy S phones will have GB (not sure about the Fascinate though as it's still stuck on 2.1 officially I think). From a performance prospective, I'm sure the Charge will outrun the TB, especially in pushing pixels with its GPU (something all Galaxy S phones excel at), but for practical usage, you probably couldn't tell a difference performance-wise. I'll bet battery life will at least be marginally better than the TB out of the box too. Which brings up another question; do you plan on rooting? If not, then you're probably not ever going to be happy with the TB, esp. with battery life. You pretty much have to root that thing to get rid of all the bloatware/sense that can eat a lot of CPU cycles/bandwidth on its own. I'm sure you'll have to do the same to the Charge to some degree, but I don't think it'll be as necessary as the TB.

If I had to choose between the two, it would be a hard choice, but I think I'd get the Charge since it'll have better overall performance and battery life (not sure about that though, just an assumption based off other GS reviews I've seen). You have to factor price too though. The Charge is rumored to cost a retarded $300 on a 2-year contract. It's not official though, so hopefully it'll just be $250 like the TB is (it was rumored to be $300 on contract shortly before launch too).

Oh, and if you want to be able to stream Netflix on your phone, 2nd gen Snapdragon phones (like the TB) are the only devices that will support it as of right now. More good'ol Android fragmentation for you! I seriously don't understand why they can't do DRM in software though. I'm not a dev/programmer though, so that's over me.
 
Funny I'm actually taking my TB back to Verizon today to get something else. The battery life just doesn't work for me. Turning off features that drew me to the phone in the first place isn't an acceptable solution. I may get a Droid X since they can easily be found free with extended contract or grab an iPhone 4... but my dilemma is I have a ton of android apps. Ugh.
 
Palliser said:
Funny I'm actually taking my TB back to Verizon today to get something else. The battery life just doesn't work for me. Turning off features that drew me to the phone in the first place isn't an acceptable solution. I may get a Droid X since they can easily be found free with extended contract or grab an iPhone 4... but my dilemma is I have a ton of android apps. Ugh.
Click to expand...

Have you atleast rooted and rom'd it?
 
I have the Tbolt and have no issues with it. I love it and I am coming from using an iPhone 4. That thing gave me the grip of death and I couldn't make calls with it without using the fugly bumper they ended up giving me for it. I'm no Apple hater either...I wanted the iPhone for years but I was on Verizon. I owned an iPad but sold it in anticipation for the iPad 2 and will be purchasing an iPad 2 very soon.
 
I have the Thunderbolt too, didn't root it yet. I get through the day just fine battery wise, and when I was in NYC, the 4G didn't seem to make my battery die any quicker, and I was certainly using the phone more that day to test out 4G.
 
EDIT to stay on topic:
TB or Charge is a tough choice but it's hard to make the wrong one here. Unless you decide to ditch them both for Boost :( J/K You'd have more money in your pockets with Boost LOL. I think the Charge looks bad ass! The TB has a very refined UI that has some of the best contact / message management and social integration that I've used on a phone. As for battery life being bad, well read my initial findings below. There are ways to manage the battery and get similar performance to an iPhone 4 (on Verizon).


I've had my TB for about a week. I didn't root it till Friday so here's my short take.
Battery life has been fine for me, I immediately got the free app LTE OnOff and put the phone in CDMA (auto PRL) since I don't have 4g at work or home. I can turn it on when I go across the river to Louisville easily. I get about 4 hours awake time ( which is heavy use for me) before the battery dies. I'm usually unplugging my phone at 7:30am and plugging it back in when I go to bed at 10 or 11pm.

After rooting the phone I installed Das Bamf 1.5 along with Juice Defender. I'm still testing the battery use but so far it seems comparable to my wife's iPhone 4.
Below are the times and percents of our two phones from today. I think Juice Defender manages radios similar to iOS. It puts them to sleep and sets intervals for checking data. The nice thing about Juice Defender, it will learn your wifi preferences based on location and turn WiFi on or off based on that information. Pretty flipping sweet if you ask me.

TB rooted w/Juice Defender:
Up Time: 6:54
Awake Time: 1:35
Battery Level: 66%

iPhone 4
Up Time: 7:02
Awake Time: 1:42
Battery Level: 64%
 
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