HTC THUNDERBOLT REVIEWS AND SPECS

The HTC Thunderbolt has the fastest Internet speeds I've ever seen on a cell phone, but using the 4G LTE network really kills its battery life.

In our tests, I got eight hours of 3G talk time with the Thunderbolt, six hours of video playback time, and only 2.5 hours of LTE streaming. So what's an Internet fan to do?

HTC and Verizon will offer a very high-capacity extended battery, the companies told me. The 2750 mAh battery is nearly twice the capacity of the Thunderbolt's built-in 1400 mAh unit. The big battery will cost $49.99 and will be available very soon, said Pat Bucci, Verizon's director of accessory products.



The new battery makes the phone about an ounce heavier than its existing 6.5 ounces, and it comes with a new back that makes the phone deeper as well, Bucci said.

"We want customers who are power users, that are going to have the hotspot on all day, to just go," he said.

Along with the extended battery, Verizon will offer a $59.99 desktop dock, which can charge both the phone and a second standard or extended battery at once. A second standard battery will cost $39.99.

The Thunderbolt will also be the first Verizon phone to support wireless charging. In April, Verizon will start selling a Qi-compatible back and charging pad for the Thunderbolt. The back will cost $29 and the pad will cost $69; it's fully compatible with Energizer's inductive charging products.

You could also go for a third-party charging solution like the Energizer Energi To Go power pack. The Energizer XP4001 ($53.47 at Amazon) weighs about five ounces and holds 4000 mAh of power, which should be enough to LTE all day.

And while you can't turn off 4G here, you can use our tips on how to improve your Android phone's battery life with the HTC Thunderbolt or any other Android phone.

If you saw our HTC Thunderbolt review video a few days ago you’ve likely already noted that one of the weakest points of this device is its pitiful battery life. Sporting a slightly dissapointing 1400mAh battery, it’s no surprise that the Thunderbolt’s 4.3” screen, 1GHz processor, 4G connectivity and other high end hardware and software leave you carrying your charger with you for extended trips. Today we’ll show you how to maximize your shiny new Thunderbolt’s battery life so that you can get much more than the 6-8 hours of usage I got without optimization.

Turn off 4G when not in use. Even if you don’t life in a 4G covered area, the Thunderbolt’s LTE radio is constantly searching for a 4G signal. Turning it off when it won’t be in use for long periods of time [like gaming during a car ride, etc] can really help. Here are instructions provided by Taylor from Phonedog on how to turn 4G on and off.

    Open the dialer, dial
    Select Phone information
    Scroll down to “Set preferred network type,” select “CDMA auto (PRL)”
    Press the back button

This is just as easily undone as it is done. To turn the LTE radio back on:

    Dial *#*#4636#*#*
    Select Phone information
    Select “LTE mode”
    Press the back button
    Repeat the first two steps
    Select “CDMA + LTE/EvDo auto”
    Press the back button

Also note that you can add a this number as a contact and add a direct dial shortcut to your homescreen for one-tap access to this feature. Perhaps a future OTA update will include a 4G switch widget?

    The Thunderbolt sports a massive 4.3” 800×480 SuperLCD screen that drains a lot of power. It is arguably the biggest battery drainer in any smartphone, Android or not. Adding a shortcut or widget to your homescreen to toggle brightness can help out a lot. Even enabling automatic brightness over full-time maximum brightness can make a difference in battery life. This tip is likely gave the most significant improvement in battery life.


    HTC Sense 2.0 provides a section specifically for Location Settings that has a few toggles your Thunderbolt’s Google Location services, Standalone GPS services, and VZW Location services. At most you only really need one of these on [perhaps if you’re navigating or using for location] but using all 3 at once is simply a battery killer and disabling one or two can’t hurt!
    Turning off Adobe Flash 10.2 may make you cringe but think about it – how often are you browsing a site that’s made up entirely of flash? You may do a lot of your news reading in Google reader or watch most of your online video using the stock YouTube app for Android. If you do love Flash you may want to keep this on; if you don’t however, you’ll see a boost in browsing performance, which translates into less time spent waiting for pages to load, which in the end means less CPU cycles and less battery usage.
    Last resorts: If you still can’t get the battery life you desire after calibrating your battery and following all these tips you can try apps like Juice Defender, which attempts to disable unused settings/services to fully maximize battery life, though I found that it didn’t provide much more than a few extra minutes of usage at the cost of using up RAM in the background. You can also invest in an extended battery for the Thunderbolt; there are a few making their way around the market new that can be picked up for under $100 that nearly double the stock battery’s 1400mAh rating.
    BONUS: Quicksettings is a free application available in the Android market that provides quick access to a lot of features mentioned in this article. A long press of the search button and you have brightness, volume control, GPS and more all at your fingertips.

I’d estimate that fully and carefully utilizing all of the first 4 tips, any heavy Thunderbolt user will notice a significant improvement in the performance of the stock battery – 2 full days of battery? No problem! *A lot of these tips will work for any Android smartphone, so feel free to use them at your own discretion. Note that nothing was said about ‘task managers’ or ‘task killers’ because of their debatable effectiveness. If you’ve noticed a battery life boost on your old phone using a task killer then by all means continue using one!

Check out more of my weekly content on my YouTube Channel!

Computerworld - Independent speed tests for the HTC ThunderBolt smartphone on the Verizon Wireless LTE 4G network show it runs many times faster than on older 3G networks for Web browsing, emailing, streaming video and music and playing online games.

At the same time, though, its battery life comes up shorter -- sometimes much shorter -- than advertised, according to initial Computerworld field tests.

In four field tests over several days, battery life on a review unit of the ThunderBolt averaged only 4 hours and 22 minutes between charges, two hours below the advertised 6.3 hours for the device's 1400 mAh battery.

The faster battery drain came from relatively heavy video and music downloading, though the tests also included typical voice calls, texting, e-mailing and Web browsing tasks.
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The testing was done as the phone occasionally moved between 4G LTE and 3G cell zones in the Boston suburbs.

Four hours and 22 minutes of battery life is not out of line with the findings of various online reviewers who also pushed the ThunderBolt by receiving heavy downloads of music and video, as well as using it for videoconferencing on LTE.

Some bloggers have offered workarounds -- by shutting off the LTE connection or buying a longer-life battery.

However, our experience with the ThunderBolt found that even in 3G zones, the battery life can be quickly sapped by multimedia data. (The ThunderBolt's voice traffic runs over CDMA for now, separate from LTE data traffic.)

In a separate test of battery life, Computerworld also tried out ThunderBolt's Mobile Hotspot capability. Using the ThunderBolt as a Wi-Fi hotspot, we started with five devices connected over Wi-Fi to the ThunderBolt. The smartphone was also connected to the LTE cellular network in Framingham, Mass.

In the mobile hotspot test, the ThunderBolt's 1400 mAh battery was drained to less than 15% in just two hours. That quick battery drain may be why Verizon suggests connecting the smartphone to a wall charger when using it as a mobile hotspot. (A warning on the phone says: "Mobile Hotspot may use more battery. You may want to connect the phone to a power supply."

HTC and Verizon don't appear to have any official statement of ThunderBolt's battery life when used as hotspot without a power connection.


LTE, battery background

Several early testers of the ThunderBolt found LTE speeds are the device's most striking feature. Network World reviewers reported an average of 12 Mbit/sec downlink speeds on five tests over LTE in Framingham, Mass., while a Computerworld reviewer got 16 Mbit/sec download speeds and 19 Mbit/sec upload speeds in the New York City area.

That Computerworld reviewer found the LTE speeds were 20 times faster than Verizon's 3G speeds, which are far more widely available than LTE. LTE networks are now available in some 40 cities.

Read more »

HTC THUNDERBOLT FEATURES AND REVIEWS

The first 4G LTE cell phone for Verizon Wireless, the HTC Thunderbolt, lands with a bang, scorching the landscape and sending mere 3G phones fleeing for cover. This is the fastest Internet phone ever, and it wins our Editors' Choice for the top touch-screen smartphone on Verizon Wireless. It's one of The Best Android Phones, as well as one of the The 10 Best Touch-Screen Phones. But the Thunderbolt's scorching speed has a price: it burns up the phone's battery, so you'll need to bring a spare.

The HTC Thunderbolt looks and feels huge. It's classy looking, though, in all-gray with a glass front and a soft-touch back. There's a small 1.3-megapixel camera next to the earpiece, and a larger 8-megapixel shooter on the back, along with a kickstand, so you can prop the phone up on a table or a desk. The 4.3-inch, 800-by-480 screen looks unusually rich. But at 6.4 ounces, the Thunderbolt will weigh down any pocket, and at 4.8 by 2.6 by 0.5 inches (HWD), it won't fit in some of them. That's the price you pay for being an early LTE adopter.
View Slideshow See all (10) slides
HTC Thunderbolt Home
HTC Thunderbolt Menu
HTC Thunderbolt Right Side
HTC Thunderbolt Back

More

LTE Internet Access and Speeds
Let's get to the most important thing first: this smartphone has the fastest Internet access, ever. It sets the Web on fire.

Verizon's LTE network currently runs in about 40 metro areas, give or take a few, and it's constantly expanding. The carrier doesn't charge extra for LTE: the $30/month smartphone data plan costs the same as a 3G data plan does. And for now, you get unlimited data. An extra $20/month buys you 2GB of data for a laptop or other device to use via USB or Wi-Fi tethering. The phone's hotspot mode supports eight devices rather than the usual five (the faster to use up your 2GB allotment with.)
Specifications

Operating System
    Android OS
Screen Size
    4.3 inches
Screen Details
    480-by-800, 16.7m-color TFT LCD screen
Camera
    Yes
Network
    CDMA
Bands
    850, 1900, 700
High-Speed Data
    1xRTT, EVDO Rev A, LTE
Processor Speed
    1 GHz

More

I ran Ookla's industry-standard speed test on the phone itself, on a PC connected via USB cable, and on a PC connected via Wi-Fi hotspot. Speeds were awesome. As expected, tethering is the fastest— you're using the phone's modem, but a fast PC processor—followed by the on-phone speed test and then the Wi-Fi hotspot, because Wi-Fi bleeds speed.

On average, I got 11.8Mbps down tethered, 9.6Mbps on the phone and 6.3Mbps with the hotspot. Upload speeds were also fast; about 2Mbps with the hotspot and 4Mbps tethered. (The upload part of the Ookla speed test app isn't compatible with this phone.) Latency was generally around 85ms.

These numbers translate into super-fast file downloads; I grabbed a 99MB episode of The Colbert Report from Bitbop in four minutes. Most smaller files, like anything from the Android Market, just zip along. With unlimited data, I downloaded huge video files without fear or concern, and that felt great.

To test Web page loads, I compared the Thunderbolt against an HTC EVO 4G ($199, 4 stars) for Sprint. Around here, I can get between 3-5Mbps on Sprint's 4G WiMAX network. Complex Web pages loaded about 1.5 times as fast on the Thunderbolt as on the EVO, with many pages coming in under 10 seconds.

That's all compared to Sprint's 4G. Compared to Verizon's 3G, the LTE network is even faster. In last year's 18-city tests, we got average speeds around 1Mbps down on Verizon's 3G, with latency of about 100ms compared to LTE's 85ms.

Early Verizon modems had trouble switching between 3G and 4G. I got the Thunderbolt to successfully trade from 4G down to 3G, and back up to 4G, depending on coverage. Switching up does take longer than dropping down; while the phone can drop to 3G in a instant, it takes about two minutes to get back to 4G.

The Internet access here is so fast that it becomes critically important that Verizon offers an unlimited data plan. Even without tethering, you can eat a lot of data very quickly.

If you don't have LTE, the phone also offers 3G data and 802.11n WiFi. Speeds on 3G were comparable with other top-of-the-line Verizon smartphones like the Motorola Droid X ($199, 4.5 stars)

Phone Performance and Battery Life
Hey, remember all those AT&T ads where they complained you can't talk and surf at the same time on Verizon? No longer. The Thunderbolt allows simultaneous talking and Internet access on both 3G and 4G networks. I tried it, and it worked well.

As a voice phone, the Thunderbolt is just fine. RF reception is on the good side of average. Voice quality is strong; the earpiece is loud and there's an unusual amount of side-tone, the reflection of your own voice in your ear that prevents you from yelling. I like that, because it makes you talk more quietly into the phone and should help make Thunderbolt users more socially acceptable in public places. The speakerphone isn't very loud, but it's just loud enough to be usable outdoors. Voices transmitted through the mic are totally intelligible but sound a bit computerized; the speakerphone lets through a bit more background noise than I'd like, but it isn't awful. The phone paired easily with my Aliph Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129, 4.5 stars) and activated the voice dialing system.

Battery life here is an interesting issue. On 3G, it's great. I got nearly eight hours of talk time on the surprisingly small 1400 mAh battery. In another test, I watched a local video file with the phone connected to the LTE network, but not downloading. I got about six hours of video playback.

Heavy LTE use, on the other hand, totally nukes the battery. I tapped out the battery in only two hours and 20 minutes of LTE streaming using Bitbop and YouTube. If you intend to do a lot of 4G surfing, you'll have trouble lasting a day. Since there's no way to turn off 4G, use Wi-Fi when you can to save battery life.

Another option is to buy a second battery. Verizon offers a second standard battery for $39.99 and a gigantic 2750 mAh "extended" battery for $49.99. Two batteries, or one extended battery, would probably give this phone a full day of life.

Processor, Android and Apps
The Thunderbolt runs on a 1GHz, second-generation Qualcomm MSM8655 Snapdragon processor and runs Android 2.2 with HTC's attractive Sense overlay. On our benchmarks, it performed as well as any high-end smartphone that doesn't have Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 chipset. Unless you're an avid gamer, there's no reason to skip this and wait for a for Tegra 2.

HTC and Verizon have baked a ton of extra software into this phone. Much of it is bloatware, stubs for apps that charge you every month. Verizon has actually taken bloatware to a new level, installing an entire alternative app store called "V Cast Apps" that is sluggish and ugly, but has one big advantage: you can charge app purchases to your phone bill. Of course, you also have access to the 100,000-plus apps in the standard Android Market, along with whatever you sideload from other sources.
he HTC ThunderBolt delivers big, in nearly every sense of the word. It lives up to its sky high expectations (see huge banner below from CES 2011). And it’s physically really big and heavy. It’s big in hype, big in performance, and big in form factor — and it has one big caveat.

The ThunderBolt is Verizon’s first 4G LTE phone. And, while AT&T and T-Mobile are abusing the term 4G and causing it to lose its meaning, Verizon’s LTE is a legitimate next generation experience with uber-fast download/upload speeds and lower latency connections that provide better responsiveness. For the ThunderBolt, all of that connectivity goodness is paired with a phone that has screeching fast hardware to keep up with the wireless speed boost.

That said, while the ThunderBolt gives us a peek at the future, it’s also a 1.0 device that has a couple imperfections, which potential buyers need to be aware of before jumping on board.
Photo gallery


HTC ThunderBolt photos: The Ferrari of smartphones

Specifications

    Carrier: Verizon Wireless
    OS: Android 2.2 (Froyo) with HTC Sense UI
    Processor: 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon (QSD8255), Adreno 205 GPU, and MDM9600 chipset for 3G/4G
    RAM: 768MB
    Storage: 8GB internal, 32GB microSD (pre-installed)
    Display: 4.3-inch WVGA with 480×800 resolution
    Battery: Lithium-ion with 1400 mAh capacity
    Ports: microUSB 2.0, 3.5mm audio jack, SIM slot
    Weight: 6.23 ounces
    Dimensions: 4.75 x 2.44 x 0.56 inches
    Camera: 8MP with auto-focus, dual LED flash, HD video capture, 1.3MP front-facing camera
    Sensors: Accelerometer, A-GPS, digital compass, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor
    Keyboard: Virtual QWERTY
    Networks: CDMA 800/1900Mhz (2G); CDMA2000 EV-DO (3G); 700Mhz LTE (4G)
    Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR
    Tethering: USB + mobile Wi-Fi hotspot
    Price: $249 (with 2-year contract)

Who is it for?

This is a phone for someone who needs all the performance they can get out of a mobile device. I have tested a lot of smartphones — iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone 7, Palm, and more — and this is the fastest one I have ever seen. It loads apps, Web pages, videos, and documents at near-desktop speeds. Obviously, the +10Mbps speeds (bursting to up to +30Mbps) of Verizon’s LTE network helps a lot, but this device is still really fast on 3G and Wi-Fi. For the road warrior who does a lot of work on the smartphone and needs a workhorse device, a widespread mobile network, and a future-proof phone that will still be relevant in two years, the ThunderBolt fits the bill.
What problems does it solve?

The HTC ThunderBolt is arguably the world’s first smartphone to experience true 4G speeds over 30Mbps with hardware than can keep up the pace. Sure, there have been Samsung phones running on WiMAX in South Korea, for example, but those don’t have the latency improvements that Verizon has made with LTE and the devices themselves haven’t had the kind of horsepower that you get in the ThunderBolt, with its upgraded 1GHz Snapdragon, Adreno 205 GPU, and MDM9600 chip for LTE. With its 4G LTE phones, Verizon has also solved the issue of simultaneous voice and data. In the past, you couldn’t make a call and browse a Web page at the same time because of the limitations of Verizon’s CDMA network. With 4G, Verizon is sending voice over CDMA and using LTE for data.
Standout features

    Performance sets a high bar - As I’ve already mentioned, the ThunderBolt is really fast. The combination of the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon processor (single core), a dedicated GPU (Adreno 205), LTE chip (MDM9600), 768MB of RAM, and 8GB of integrated eMMC storage gives the ThunderBolt a lot of horsepower under the hood.
    Top-of-the-line hardware profile - In addition of the high-end chips, the ThunderBolt also sports a bight, crisp WVGA display, an 8MP camera on the back, a 1.3MP camera on the front, a 32GB SD card (included), a 1400 mAh battery, and all the latest digital sensors. The camera in the ThunderBolt is a nice improvement over last year’s HTC EVO. Here’s an example of a photo I took using the ThunderBolt’s camera.
    Industrial-strength form factor - As I wrote in my review of the HTC Inspire (which has a nearly identical form factor to the ThunderBolt), this hardware design is appealing with its unibody aluminum frame. It combines the unibody frame of the Google Nexus One and the HTC Desire with the square body of the HTC EVO (which has a shiny plastic bezel). The result is a sturdy, attractive metal body. The battery cover on the back of the ThunderBolt is plastic but has a steely finish that successfully masquerades as metal. The phone is large and a little heavy, but it’s one of the best hardware designs on the market.
    HTC Sense UI adds value - I don’t like any of the software skins that the hardware vendors layer on top of Android, with the notable exception of HTC’s Sense UI. All of the other Android skins subtract from the Android experience, in my opinion, and would be better off just running the stock OS. HTC is the only vendor that improves on Android with attractive UI elements as well as useful widgets and services.

What’s wrong?

    4G battery life - If you look at my 4G speedtests with the ThunderBolt, you’ll see that it was easily topping 10Mbps downloads and uploads on Verizon LTE. I was regularly seeing bursts of speed that were faster than what I have on my cable modem at home. However, all of that crazy speed comes at a price. Almost immediately after the ThunderBolt was released, reports started surfacing that it only gets about 4 hours of battery life on 4G. After spending a week testing the ThunderBolt on LTE in Orlando (while attending CTIA Wireless), I can confirm that 4G drains the battery in about half the day. On 4G, you have to smartly manage battery power, use the extended battery or a add-on battery pack, or charge the phone at mid-day in order to make it through a full work day with the ThunderBolt. You can turn off 4G so that you can get through a whole day — I made it through a whole day of normal use on a mix of 3G and Wi-Fi and still had 70% of the battery left. However, turning off 4G on the world’s first LTE phone is disappointing. The ThunderBolt is still staggeringly fast on 3G and Wi-Fi, but 4G is its killer feature — especially when using it as a mobile hotspot — but if you’re going to use it for an extended period of time then you’ll need to plug it in. To squeeze out more battery life, check out my companion article, Five battery tips for HTC Thunderbolt.
    No dual core - As powerful as the ThunderBolt is and as much as it is packed with top-of-the-line hardware, the one area where it comes up a little short in hardware is its single-core Qualcomm processor. All of the other high-end Android smartphones in this category are going to be running dual core processors in 2011 — usually the NVIDIA Tegra 2. However, HTC has a tight partnership with Qualcomm, which hasn’t come to market with its dual core solution yet. The ThunderBolt doesn’t appear to suffer from any speed lapses because of this, but dual core can improve battery life and multitasking.

Bottom line for business

At CES 2011, I wrote that the HTC ThunderBolt was the early favorite for the best smartphone of 2011. After testing it for two weeks — including some extended time on 4G — I’m ready to officially put the ThunderBolt at the top of my current Android leaderboard. And, with iPhone 5 probably delayed until Fall and other LTE phones on hold until this summer, the ThunderBolt is likely to remain on top for a while.

Despite its 4G battery problems, this phone is a powerhouse. It sets a new standard for how fast we can really go on a smartphone and provides a peek at what the future will look like for nearly all smartphones once the next generation of mobile broadband is fully deployed and the devices are optimized for it. In the short term, this is still a lightening fast device on 3G and Wi-Fi, with the ability for seismic 4G bursts when needed. Plus, it has a great hardware design and HTC’s excellent software enhancements for Android.
Competitive products

    HTC Inspire
    Motorola Atrix
    Google Nexus S
    Apple iPhone 4
    Motorola Droid Bionic

Where to get more info

    HTC’s official ThunderBolt page
    Verizon’s official HTC ThunderBolt page
    Photos: HTC ThunderBolt, the Ferrari of smartphones
    Five battery tips for HTC ThunderBolt (and other Androids)

This was originally published on TechRepublic.

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Read more »

HTC THUNDERBOLT FEATURES AND REVIEWS

The HTC ThunderBolt delivers big, in nearly every sense of the word. It lives up to its sky high expectations (see huge banner below from CES 2011). And it’s physically really big and heavy. It’s big in hype, big in performance, and big in form factor — and it has one big caveat.

The ThunderBolt is Verizon’s first 4G LTE phone. And, while AT&T and T-Mobile are abusing the term 4G and causing it to lose its meaning, Verizon’s LTE is a legitimate next generation experience with uber-fast download/upload speeds and lower latency connections that provide better responsiveness. For the ThunderBolt, all of that connectivity goodness is paired with a phone that has screeching fast hardware to keep up with the wireless speed boost.

That said, while the ThunderBolt gives us a peek at the future, it’s also a 1.0 device that has a couple imperfections, which potential buyers need to be aware of before jumping on board.
 


HTC ThunderBolt photos: The Ferrari of smartphones

Specifications

    Carrier: Verizon Wireless
    OS: Android 2.2 (Froyo) with HTC Sense UI
    Processor: 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon (QSD8255), Adreno 205 GPU, and MDM9600 chipset for 3G/4G
    RAM: 768MB
    Storage: 8GB internal, 32GB microSD (pre-installed)
    Display: 4.3-inch WVGA with 480×800 resolution
    Battery: Lithium-ion with 1400 mAh capacity
    Ports: microUSB 2.0, 3.5mm audio jack, SIM slot
    Weight: 6.23 ounces
    Dimensions: 4.75 x 2.44 x 0.56 inches
    Camera: 8MP with auto-focus, dual LED flash, HD video capture, 1.3MP front-facing camera
    Sensors: Accelerometer, A-GPS, digital compass, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor
    Keyboard: Virtual QWERTY
    Networks: CDMA 800/1900Mhz (2G); CDMA2000 EV-DO (3G); 700Mhz LTE (4G)
    Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR
    Tethering: USB + mobile Wi-Fi hotspot
    Price: $249 (with 2-year contract)

Who is it for?

This is a phone for someone who needs all the performance they can get out of a mobile device. I have tested a lot of smartphones — iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone 7, Palm, and more — and this is the fastest one I have ever seen. It loads apps, Web pages, videos, and documents at near-desktop speeds. Obviously, the +10Mbps speeds (bursting to up to +30Mbps) of Verizon’s LTE network helps a lot, but this device is still really fast on 3G and Wi-Fi. For the road warrior who does a lot of work on the smartphone and needs a workhorse device, a widespread mobile network, and a future-proof phone that will still be relevant in two years, the ThunderBolt fits the bill.
What problems does it solve?

The HTC ThunderBolt is arguably the world’s first smartphone to experience true 4G speeds over 30Mbps with hardware than can keep up the pace. Sure, there have been Samsung phones running on WiMAX in South Korea, for example, but those don’t have the latency improvements that Verizon has made with LTE and the devices themselves haven’t had the kind of horsepower that you get in the ThunderBolt, with its upgraded 1GHz Snapdragon, Adreno 205 GPU, and MDM9600 chip for LTE. With its 4G LTE phones, Verizon has also solved the issue of simultaneous voice and data. In the past, you couldn’t make a call and browse a Web page at the same time because of the limitations of Verizon’s CDMA network. With 4G, Verizon is sending voice over CDMA and using LTE for data.
Standout features

    Performance sets a high bar - As I’ve already mentioned, the ThunderBolt is really fast. The combination of the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon processor (single core), a dedicated GPU (Adreno 205), LTE chip (MDM9600), 768MB of RAM, and 8GB of integrated eMMC storage gives the ThunderBolt a lot of horsepower under the hood.
    Top-of-the-line hardware profile - In addition of the high-end chips, the ThunderBolt also sports a bight, crisp WVGA display, an 8MP camera on the back, a 1.3MP camera on the front, a 32GB SD card (included), a 1400 mAh battery, and all the latest digital sensors. The camera in the ThunderBolt is a nice improvement over last year’s HTC EVO. Here’s an example of a photo I took using the ThunderBolt’s camera.
    Industrial-strength form factor - As I wrote in my review of the HTC Inspire (which has a nearly identical form factor to the ThunderBolt), this hardware design is appealing with its unibody aluminum frame. It combines the unibody frame of the Google Nexus One and the HTC Desire with the square body of the HTC EVO (which has a shiny plastic bezel). The result is a sturdy, attractive metal body. The battery cover on the back of the ThunderBolt is plastic but has a steely finish that successfully masquerades as metal. The phone is large and a little heavy, but it’s one of the best hardware designs on the market.
    HTC Sense UI adds value - I don’t like any of the software skins that the hardware vendors layer on top of Android, with the notable exception of HTC’s Sense UI. All of the other Android skins subtract from the Android experience, in my opinion, and would be better off just running the stock OS. HTC is the only vendor that improves on Android with attractive UI elements as well as useful widgets and services.

What’s wrong?

    4G battery life - If you look at my 4G speedtests with the ThunderBolt, you’ll see that it was easily topping 10Mbps downloads and uploads on Verizon LTE. I was regularly seeing bursts of speed that were faster than what I have on my cable modem at home. However, all of that crazy speed comes at a price. Almost immediately after the ThunderBolt was released, reports started surfacing that it only gets about 4 hours of battery life on 4G. After spending a week testing the ThunderBolt on LTE in Orlando (while attending CTIA Wireless), I can confirm that 4G drains the battery in about half the day. On 4G, you have to smartly manage battery power, use the extended battery or a add-on battery pack, or charge the phone at mid-day in order to make it through a full work day with the ThunderBolt. You can turn off 4G so that you can get through a whole day — I made it through a whole day of normal use on a mix of 3G and Wi-Fi and still had 70% of the battery left. However, turning off 4G on the world’s first LTE phone is disappointing. The ThunderBolt is still staggeringly fast on 3G and Wi-Fi, but 4G is its killer feature — especially when using it as a mobile hotspot — but if you’re going to use it for an extended period of time then you’ll need to plug it in. To squeeze out more battery life, check out my companion article, Five battery tips for HTC Thunderbolt.
    No dual core - As powerful as the ThunderBolt is and as much as it is packed with top-of-the-line hardware, the one area where it comes up a little short in hardware is its single-core Qualcomm processor. All of the other high-end Android smartphones in this category are going to be running dual core processors in 2011 — usually the NVIDIA Tegra 2. However, HTC has a tight partnership with Qualcomm, which hasn’t come to market with its dual core solution yet. The ThunderBolt doesn’t appear to suffer from any speed lapses because of this, but dual core can improve battery life and multitasking.

Bottom line for business

At CES 2011, I wrote that the HTC ThunderBolt was the early favorite for the best smartphone of 2011. After testing it for two weeks — including some extended time on 4G — I’m ready to officially put the ThunderBolt at the top of my current Android leaderboard. And, with iPhone 5 probably delayed until Fall and other LTE phones on hold until this summer, the ThunderBolt is likely to remain on top for a while.

Despite its 4G battery problems, this phone is a powerhouse. It sets a new standard for how fast we can really go on a smartphone and provides a peek at what the future will look like for nearly all smartphones once the next generation of mobile broadband is fully deployed and the devices are optimized for it. In the short term, this is still a lightening fast device on 3G and Wi-Fi, with the ability for seismic 4G bursts when needed. Plus, it has a great hardware design and HTC’s excellent software enhancements for Android.
Competitive products

    HTC Inspire
    Motorola Atrix
    Google Nexus S
    Apple iPhone 4
    Motorola Droid Bionic

Where to get more info

    HTC’s official ThunderBolt page
    Verizon’s official HTC ThunderBolt page
    Photos: HTC ThunderBolt, the Ferrari of smartphones
    Five battery tips for HTC ThunderBolt (and other Androids)

This was originally published on TechRepublic.

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HTC THUNDERBOLT REVIEWS AND SPECS

With the ThunderBolt, HTC has delivered yet another “first 4G smartphone” following its EVO 4G for Sprint (and the often forgotten MAX 4G introduced in 2008). It’s the first handset to run on Verizon’s brand new 4G LTE network, and it’s an Android smartphone powerhouse that is easily the fastest smartphone on the planet in terms of data speeds. That’s not to say the device is perfect, however. The release of Verizon’s first 4G handset was pushed back several times, spanning almost two months, and I’m not so sure all of the wrinkles were ironed out even after all of the delays. But the ThunderBolt is finally here and I’ve spent some quality time with it over the past week or so. Read on to see if this is not only the fastest smartphone on the planet, but one of the best as well.

The HTC ThunderBolt packs a punch in the specifications department. In addition to being the first Verizon handset to be released with 4G LTE compatibility, the ThunderBolt stays at the top of the smartphone pack with competitive specs like a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a 4.3-inch Super LCD display, an 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, and more.

As far as the build quality of the HTC ThunderBolt is concerned, it’s a tank — but I’ll get to that part in a moment. The ThunderBolt seems to be very well manufactured in typical HTC style; it feels very sturdy, durable, and solid. There are no creaks, no parts wiggling, and nothing I could conceivably see being an issue down the road with normal use and wear and tear.

The device is, however, extremely large and heavy. It’s one of the widest, thickest, and heaviest smartphones on the market. It absolutely dwarfs an iPhone 4, for instance, and it could pretty easily could swallow a T-Mobile myTouch 4G in a couple bites. It doesn’t necessarily feel as thick as it looks thanks to the heavily tapered edges, but some slick tapering can’t do anything to mask the phone’s heft. Another thing that just might be a personal niggle is the kickstand… I mean, I just can’t honestly ever see myself using it in any scenario. As heavy as the ThunderBolt is, I would like to have seen HTC strip out as much as possible, and the kickstand definitely could have been stripped.



The design identity of the ThunderBolt is typical HTC — literally, aside from little changes here and there, one HTC device could pass for another most of the time these days. The ThunderBolt specifically doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of differentiation beyond its bulk, at least, and its design seems dated. Compared to, say, the aluminum unibody HTC Inspire 4G, the ThunderBolt just feels kind of last year. That, coupled with the viciously thick and heavy body makes it hard to swallow from a hardware perspective alone. Thankfully that’s not all a smartphone is nowadays.

Display

The 4.3-inch display on the HTC ThunderBolt is beautiful. The viewing angles are here are straight up incredible — noticeably better than the HTC EVO’s screen. Colors are very rich, whites are bright, and text is pretty crisp. With such a big display, however, the 800 x 480-pixel WVGA resolution shows its shortcomings. This is a common issue among devices with larger displays: since they spread the same number of pixels over a larger surface compared to modern sub-4-inch displays, the result is a less impressive picture. The ThunderBolt’s display is still great, but I would have loved to see one of HTC’s qHD displays on here.
Software

The ThunderBolt runs the latest version of HTC’s Sense UI and for all intents and purposes, this is about the same experience as any other HTC Android handset released in the past year or so. There’s really no need to get into this for the millionth time — it’s Froyo with HTC Sense. We should all know it very well by now. If you’re a fan of HTC’s customized UI, you’ll be pleased to know that the experience is still tip top, and coupled with LTE data, a 1GHz processor and 768MB of RAM, it’s speedy and responsive as well. If you’re an Android purist on the other hand, you’re going to have some major issues.

Noticeably absent from the ThunderBolt is the much-touted Skype app with support for video calling. We’re not sure why it wasn’t included on the ThunderBolt, though there are most certainly other video calling apps available for download in the Android Market. It would have been great to have some clarification on why Skype didn’t make it on here though, considering how popular the service is compared to other video chat solutions.
4G LTE

In a word? Wow. As soon as I picked up my review unit from Verizon’s headquarters in Basking Ridge, NJ, I was in 4G LTE heaven. Heading back toward New York City, I was cruising along at download speeds of around 15Mbps. As I set the device up, all of my Android apps reappeared on the ThunderBolt almost immediately with no effort from my end. Web pages load at desktop-like speeds in the Android browser and apps that move data seemed to breathe sighs of relief compared to how they run on other Android devices. I really hope Verizon’s LTE network can maintain this level of performance once it actually has a fair amount of traffic on it, but since 4G is a much different beast than 3G, I’m confident Verizon’s 4G network will maintain a high level of performance.

Things look great over the ThunderBolt’s Wi-Fi hotspot feature as well, with no speed degradation that I could see. In fact, I was continually hitting speeds above 20Mbps with my MacBook Air connected to the ThunderBolt. It is pretty incredible to think that this is over a cellular connection, especially for any of us who remember using tedious WAP pages on a tiny black and white cell phone display in years past. Verizon’s 4G LTE service is truly the next generation of fast — it’s easily the fastest cellular network I’ve ever tested.
Phone calls / Speakerphone

Voice quaily is decent on the ThunderBolt, but not great. As far as the ear speaker is concerned, I’m not a fan of what HTC delivered on its handsets in this regard recently, and that includes the EVO 4G. These phones are always uncomfortable to talk with, and some even sound like you’re talking on a tin can. Unfortunately, the ThunderBolt falls into that category for me. I would have loved the ear speaker to be a tad lounder in certain environments, and additionally, calls just didn’t sound that clear to me. Callers on the other end weren’t overly impressed with the quality of voice calls either, and some went as far as to use particularly colorful language to describe the audio quality. I’ll spare you the details.

Another problem comes into play when speakerphone is enabled, and this is an area where HTC typically shines so I was disappointed. When the loudspeaker is used while the kickstand is closed, the audio becomes slightly muffled. It’s not severe, but it is something to take note of and something that definitely annoyed me. It’s clear enough in most cases, but in noisy environments I found myself wishing I could eke a little more out of it. Callers also told me that I sounded a little “staticky” while on speakerphone, but I was still audible and I was never asked to speak up or repeat something I said.
Talk and Surf

Uh oh. AT&T has really focused on the remarkable capability its phones possess that allows them to make voice calls and move data simultaneously. Verizon Wireless phones have historically not had this ability. I would argue that “talk and surf” capability is hardly as important as a vocal minority makes it seem to be, but that’s neither here nor there. The bottom line is that AT&T’s advertising firm now has its work cut out for it.

The HTC ThunderBolt is able to send and receive data and carry voice calls simultaneously. It the first of many Verizon Wireless smartphones that will be able to carry voice calls while moving data, and it can do so over Verizon’s new 4G LTE network as well as its older 3G EVDO network. I tested this capability a great deal over the past week, and it has worked flawlessly for me. Whether connected to 3G or 4G, apps and web pages on the ThunderBolt continue to hustle along while voice calls are being made. I’m not sure if this new technology plays a role in the noticeably degraded audio quality I noted above, but the functionality is there so and many users will be elated.
Battery

The ThunderBolt’s battery is obviously a major point of discussion. How does the Verizon Wireless’ first 4G LTE smartphone do in the real world? Well, not that great to be honest — especially with a 1400 mAh battery. Over 3G, the ThunderBolt can easily power through a normal workday. On 4G, however, I couldn’t get more than around 4.5 hours of usage at best… a figure that is not at all acceptable to me.

What makes matters worse is the fact that 4G can’t be switched on and off by the user. There is no widget to disable LTE and there’s not even a menu setting you can check on and off to enable or disable 4G. While there is a method floating around to do this by entering into the phone’s field test mode, this doesn’t even come close to cutting it. While enthusiasts might be comfortable with a “hack” like this, the average consumer will never even know the option exists. Other 4G smartphones like the HTC EVO 4G and the Google Nexus S 4G have a simple widget that disables 4G, and it really helps with battery life. When users don’t have a need for speed, they should definitely have an easy way to turn LTE off and stretch out that puny battery.

Verizon has an extended 2750mAh battery that will effectively double the battery life of the ThunderBolt. To be honest, the extended battery adds so much extra thickness and weight to a phone that’s already way too thick and too heavy, there’s no way I would even consider using it regularly. Most people will likely feel the same way and a widget to disable 4G would have been a much cheaper and more user-friendly way to fix the battery life problem. I get that Verizon wants to deliver a consistant user experience that showcases its beastly new 4G network, but I don’t think a 4G widget would have detracted from that experience or confused anyone.

 

Conclusion

The HTC ThunderBolt is a phone from the future in many ways. It delivers the fastest internet speeds of any device I have ever tested (at least 2-3 times faster than anything else, in fact), and it runs on a very fast (and customized) version of Android to deliver great performance. In many ways, however, the ThunderBolt resembles phones from a year or two ago — in styling and in thickness and heft.

I’m not a fan of any smartphone that features a display beyond 4-inches, and the sheer thickness and weight of the ThunderBolt makes it a non-starter for a role as my daily driver. In addition, the poor battery performance makes it a tough sell. It’s awesome that I can use the ThunderBolt to email presentations, download files and and stream video at ridiculous cellular data speeds, but all that means nothing if my battery dies after just a few hours of usage. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the HTC ThunderBolt isn’t the right device for you, however.

My advice is to definitely play with one in person at a Verizon Wireless store to see if the device is your perfect Android match. If you can look past the poor battery life — or if you don’t mind reinforcing your pants pockets so that the added weight and size of the extended battery doesn’t rip right through them — then you’ll find yourself with an amazingly fast smartphone packed with all the bells and whistles you need.

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