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Thunderbolt vs Bionic

M

Mabrito

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 24, 2004
Messages
7,004
So my contract is up and I can get a new phone starting yesterday. I am on Verizon and have no plans on switching and want to get in on the 4G LTE network.

Main thing I am worried about with the Bionic is the screen being the same as the Droid X2 and Droid 3, which aren't that great from what I hear. Also, I don't want a locked boot loader.

With the Thunderbolt, the screen is really nice from what I hear, no locked boot loader, but its only a single core processor, even though its pretty fast. When I got my Droid 1, that phone became outdated pretty fast technology wise, even though the rooted/modding community are keeping it going as long as they can.

Especially for people with the Thunderbolt, what would you recommend? Also, how is the battery life doing on the Thunderbolt now?
 
I heard the X2 was good? Personally I think a 4.5 inch screen for the Bionic is pretty overwhelming if your hands aren't huge. Rooting the Thunderbolt isn't an easy task from what I read. I haven't tried yet. Need to find a free weekend and really get it done. But otherwise, its a good phone. The battery life is mediocre at best. I can generally get through a whole day on 3G. I can 4G off even though Im in a 4G market for battery life sake. But I guess once you root it getting good battery with 4G on all the time should not be an issue. Personally, I'd wait for the bionic since it will be more "future proof" with a better processor, higher res screen, and such.
 
It's all speculation until the Bionic is actually out. To know for sure you'd have to wait until then.
 
I'm a huge HTC fan and so far I've been trying to stick with them. I had an OG Droid then switched to the Incredible and I've been sold since. My best friend just switched from the X2 with Verizon to the Evo 3D with Sprint and he was a hard core Moto guy but now admits that Sense UI is in a different league than Blur.

I'm kind of in the same boat you are, I've been able to upgrade for 6+ months now. Personally none of the offerings are tempting me to leave my beloved Incredible. I'm trying real hard to wait for a dual core HTC phone with LTE (also must be unlocked and rootable and hopefully have MIUI ported to it) but I'll admit I'm getting impatient.

To answer your question though, it really depends on if you can live with Blur or not and if in fact the Biotic will be locked or unlocked. I feel with it's single core that the TB will fall behind pretty quickly in the coming months with Ice Cream Sandwich on it's way.
 
Tricky said:
I'm a huge HTC fan and so far I've been trying to stick with them. I had an OG Droid then switched to the Incredible and I've been sold since. My best friend just switched from the X2 with Verizon to the Evo 3D with Sprint and he was a hard core Moto guy but now admits that Sense UI is in a different league than Blur.

I'm kind of in the same boat you are, I've been able to upgrade for 6+ months now. Personally none of the offerings are tempting me to leave my beloved Incredible. I'm trying real hard to wait for a dual core HTC phone with LTE (also must be unlocked and rootable and hopefully have MIUI ported to it) but I'll admit I'm getting impatient.

To answer your question though, it really depends on if you can live with Blur or not and if in fact the Biotic will be locked or unlocked. I feel with it's single core that the TB will fall behind pretty quickly in the coming months with Ice Cream Sandwich on it's way.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree with Ice Cream sandwich statement, however, with the Nexus S being fairly new still and regarded as the standard by Google when it comes to Android, I cant see Google dropping full support on single core phones just like that, especially since there few dual core phones to choose from and a lot of people will get boned by as they just moved to Android or upgraded. Even being a single core Snap Dragon, its doing very good for itself in the benchmarks.

I just really want to get off my Blackberry and with the Bionic still only being rumored with what it has and when its getting released (which could be next Thursday), I am just thinking of going Thunderbolt.
 
Lazy_Moron said:
Yeah I agree with Ice Cream sandwich statement, however, with the Nexus S being fairly new still and regarded as the standard by Google when it comes to Android, I cant see Google dropping full support on single core phones just like that, especially since there few dual core phones to choose from and a lot of people will get boned by as they just moved to Android or upgraded. Even being a single core Snap Dragon, its doing very good for itself in the benchmarks.

I just really want to get off my Blackberry and with the Bionic still only being rumored with what it has and when its getting released (which could be next Thursday), I am just thinking of going Thunderbolt.
Click to expand...

ICS will not require a dual-core. My god it's getting hardware acceleration. If anything the single core should actually feel faster with ICS.

I'm willing to bet all Nexus phones and any phone from the last 6 months gets an official ICS. Anything other then that is completely up to the vendor.

Right now between TBolt and Bionic I'd still go TBolt for one reason: unlocked bootloader

That one little feature guarantees me ICS if for some reason HTC decides to fuck all TBolt owners. Plus being able to get a pure AOSP ROM is a wonderful thing.
 
Vermillion said:
That one little feature guarantees me ICS if for some reason HTC decides to fuck all TBolt owners. Plus being able to get a pure AOSP ROM is a wonderful thing.
Click to expand...

Yeah the small shimmer of light from the modding community is the only way I feel I'll get ICS. I mean shit, HTC still hasn't given us GB ffs. Or Skype video as it was so promised when the phone was announced. :rolleyes:
 
Bionic is winner due to dual core and Android 2.3. Thunderbolt is a failure product - the battery life is horrible and size is too big. No Android 2.3
 
kasuza said:
Bionic is winner due to dual core and Android 2.3. Thunderbolt is a failure product - the battery life is horrible and size is too big. No Android 2.3
Click to expand...

Both phones are mediocre at best but after owning a Motorola Atrix for 6 months I'll take any HTC over any Motorola phone that's how much Motoblur sucks. I don't know if I can wait another 18 months until I can upgrade from this pile of shit. The Bionic is also bigger than the thunderbolt and if it's anything like my Atrix on GB the battery life is gonna suck just as bad as the Thunderturds.
 
I agreed with you that both HTC thunderbolt and Bionic is mediocre smartphone. If i have money, i am going to buy Samsung Galaxxy SII

I am waiting for Samsung Galaxy SII I9100 dual core processor, slimmer than iphone 4, Super AMOLED screen, and Android 2.3. Due to past experiences, Samsung had a worst software support and updates.
 
kasuza said:
Bionic is winner due to dual core and Android 2.3. Thunderbolt is a failure product - the battery life is horrible and size is too big. No Android 2.3
Click to expand...

Size too big is your preference and for the record isn't Bionic rumored to be a mammoth 4.5 inch device with a shitty pentile screen? At the very least it will be a 4.3 inch phone the same size as TBolt.

I'm on an AOSP built Android 2.3.4 without shitty ass Motoblur. How about you? I get 12+ hours of battery life as well with my TBolt. Failure product my ass.
 
Vermillion said:
Size too big is your preference and for the record isn't Bionic rumored to be a mammoth 4.5 inch device with a shitty pentile screen? At the very least it will be a 4.3 inch phone the same size as TBolt.

I'm on an AOSP built Android 2.3.4 without shitty ass Motoblur. How about you? I get 12+ hours of battery life as well with my TBolt. Failure product my ass.
Click to expand...

HTC thunderbolt has random reboot issue and the whole battery life problem. Only 12+ hours of battery life. You need to recharged your cellphone every night. Very nice products!
 
Vermillion said:
I get 12+ hours of battery life as well with my TBolt.
Click to expand...

And if you put that much time tweaking another Android phone with your same exact usage, you'd get even more battery life.

TBolt has one of the worst battery lives of any android phone to date, period. Making it last longer just means that doing the same with another phone would be even more effective.

It's like my car, it's only rated 24MPG, but the way I drive and the commute I take, I've averaged 31.2MPG over the past 12 months (I've been recording my mileage and fillups via the aCar app religiously). Does that mean my car is better than a 30MPG car? No, if I drove the same way with a 30MPG rated car, I would most definitely surpass 31.2MPG.

HTC does a lot of things right with their phones, but battery life is pretty much never one of those things.
 
kasuza said:
HTC thunderbolt has random reboot issue and the whole battery life problem. Only 12+ hours of battery life. You need to recharged your cellphone every night. Very nice products!
Click to expand...

No random reboots here and that issue was fixed recently with an OTA update. My iPhone 3G needed to be recharged every night. My Droid needed to be charged every night. A buddies iPhone 4 needs to be recharged every night. What's your point?

Neurofreeze said:
And if you put that much time tweaking another Android phone with your same exact usage, you'd get even more battery life.

TBolt has one of the worst battery lives of any android phone to date, period. Making it last longer just means that doing the same with another phone would be even more effective.

It's like my car, it's only rated 24MPG, but the way I drive and the commute I take, I've averaged 31.2MPG over the past 12 months (I've been recording my mileage and fillups via the aCar app religiously). Does that mean my car is better than a 30MPG car? No, if I drove the same way with a 30MPG rated car, I would most definitely surpass 31.2MPG.

HTC does a lot of things right with their phones, but battery life is pretty much never one of those things.
Click to expand...

Where did I ever say TBolt is great battery life? I simply stated that it isn't nearly as shitty as people make it out to be. 12+ hours on a TBolt and I'm a very heavy user is pretty damn good.

Yes, my Droid got far better battery life but it was also considerably slower, much older, but mature technology, no 4G LTE, and much smaller. No 4G LTE phone right now gets good battery life. Neither did the first 3G phones. People act like this is new or the end of the world or something.

I'm just sick of people ranting about the latest and greatest tech without considering all the information. You don't like the poor battery life of TBolt? Fine, go get a 3G phone, but keep in mind that it doesn't make the TBolt shit to everybody. Droid Incredible 2, Droid 3, and Droid X2 are all great phones (minus the locked bootloaders and the incredibly shitty pentile screens on the Moto phones). The Droid Bionic will be just as poor with battery life due to the 4G LTE radio. The only difference may be that shit pentile screen it's shipping with may not use as much battery.
 
kasuza said:
Bionic is winner due to dual core and Android 2.3. Thunderbolt is a failure product - the battery life is horrible and size is too big. No Android 2.3
Click to expand...

lol wow quoting for failure...


BTW someone remind me again the benefit of dual core on a phone at this point?
 
Tbolt is an excellent phone imo, at least once rooted. Rooted mine and installed a custom rom as soon as it was charged when I first got it.

Really don't know what else I would need a newer/faster phone for. Originally had a Moto Droid, returned that after a week cause it was too slow. Got an HTC Incredible and used it for a year. Was pretty fast, but it would still struggle when too many web page tabs were open, or just lag like crazy in various apps/games. 3G in Los Angeles is also pretty craptacular, spotty coverage and 0.5-2mbps at best.

With the Tbolt and the ownage of LTE in Los Angeles, this phone feels as though it could last a long time. Always have 4G coverage, and speeds are ~5mbps minimum in places I had no 3G previously.

I'm on 4G 24/7, battery lasts 12-48 hours depending on usage.
 
Lazy_Moron said:
What ROM's can the TBolt get?
Click to expand...

AOSP ROM's are my favorites, but here's a good list.

CyanogenMod 7.1 - AOSP ROM - RC1.3
Das Bamf - latest is RC4.9 which is a Sense 3.0 port. IMO the best of the Sense ROM's
Liquid Thunderbread - AOSP ROM - v2.4
OMFGB - AOSP ROM - not sure latest version they have nightly builds though
OMGB - AOSP ROM - this is a pure AOSP ROM with no extras (think things like CM Settings)
Gingeritis
VirusROM

Plenty more out there too.
 
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