Thunderbolt or Droid Charge now, or wait?

**LikeWebOS** · 07-01-2011, 12:36 PM

Hey guys, I currently have a Droid X now, but was thinking of getting a 4G device. Plenty of coverage in my area now, but my main question is that should I get one of the 4G devices that are currently out for Verizon, or is there something coming out closer to the fall that I should wait on. I know there are always going to be better phones coming out and I was interested in the Bionic, but I much rather have a vanilla Android devicelike I had on the Droid 1. Anyways, any and all input would be appreciated, thanks.

**Jalarm** · 07-01-2011, 01:06 PM

If you dont mind having to plug in your phone in the middle ofof the day I say go for the thunderbolt. Overall its a great device.

**BattleSwine** · 07-01-2011, 01:27 PM

I really like my Thunderbolt. Yes it has some issues right now. Wish Gingerbread update would come out sooner than later. I live in a 4G border area. I don't get 4G at home but most places I go do. If you don't travel into 3G areas than that levels playing field. I need the two CDMA radios in TBolt. In your case I would suggest looking at battery capacity and availability of extended batteries... Depending on your use it might not be a big deal, but you should be mindful all current LTE phones tax their batteries harder using LTE than 3G. I don't expect to change with Bionic. Given time (a year or more) newer LTE chipsets should improve LTE battery life.

**drego74** · 07-01-2011, 02:27 PM

I was in the same boat last week. I went ahead and chose the Droid Charge and have been very pleased with my decision. For starters the battery life is better than what my co-worker has experienced with his Thunder-Bolt. The second thing is the phone is actually quite fast, especially on Go Launcher. I have been hearing nothing put great things concerning the unlocked boot-loader which means that rooting it is actually easier and well supported. Gummy Charged and Altered Beast are two development teams that have been doing great things on the Charge. Last but not least is the fantastic display that the Charge has. I would suggest going to a store and holding and demoing one for yourself.

After all of the hype and delays on the Droid Bionic I for one am subscribing to the thought that it won't deliver as expected. The biggest issue right now with 4G LTE phones is how the technology is getting along with the actual service providers networks. I don't think a dual core processor is necessarily there yet with regards to efficient power consumption. The Charge is great with that regard. Hope this helps.

**Krazykid212** · 07-01-2011, 03:13 PM

Can't wait

**LikeWebOS** · 07-02-2011, 12:25 PM

Thanks for the input guys, I'll probably continue to wait. Maybe for the Bionic, I'm not in any particular rush, it would just be nice to have 4G. For now, I'm happy with my Droid X.

**srkmagnus** · 07-02-2011, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

Thanks for the input guys, I'll probably continue to wait. Maybe for the Bionic, I'm not in any particular rush, it would just be nice to have 4G. For now, I'm happy with my Droid X.

Wait and see how the Bionic is. It's expected to be out soon...though no definite date has been set. If it does come out soon it's another device to choose from. If you don't like it then get a tbolt or charge.

**trailblazen** · 07-02-2011, 05:45 PM

current rumor from our resident Best Buy Mobile tech has roughly 28 July. All subject to change of course but thats the best thing we have going. Not to mention it just passed through FCC

**djbango** · 07-03-2011, 08:20 AM

I have the Charge, and it's a great phone, but the battery is not getting through the day. The phone gets so hot when I use it, I could probably cook on that damn thing. I bought mine at Costco and I'm probably going to bring it back for the Bionic...but the 4.5" screen is almost too big.

The pros for the Charge is that it is a quick phone, and the screen is beautiful. Great reception, and the 32 GB card was a nice bonus. Oh and that screen......

**trailblazen** · 07-03-2011, 12:08 PM

Originally Posted by djbango

I have the Charge, and it's a great phone, but the battery is not getting through the day. The phone gets so hot when I use it, I could probably cook on that damn thing. I bought mine at Costco and I'm probably going to bring it back for the Bionic...but the 4.5" screen is almost too big.

The pros for the Charge is that it is a quick phone, and the screen is beautiful. Great reception, and the 32 GB card was a nice bonus. Oh and that screen......

I had the exact same issues with the Charge I had for a week. Only reason I bought it was because a CSR scared me into one the week before last but when more information dropped about being grandfathered into unlimited data I took it back. I have been waiting 6 months for bionic and will now continue to.If you can wait for the end of the month I would. I mean I concur with the pros that dj posted but it wasn't what I was waiting soo long for.

Oh and as for the Tbolt.....you couldn't give me one for free. Not impressed at all spec wise and my friend at work has to keep his tethered to a power outlet all day. not my idea of fun.

**Dark Wizard Matoya** · 07-03-2011, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by trailblazen

I had the exact same issues with the Charge I had for a week. Only reason I bought it was because a CSR scared me into one the week before last but when more information dropped about being grandfathered into unlimited data I took it back. I have been waiting 6 months for bionic and will now continue to.If you can wait for the end of the month I would. I mean I concur with the pros that dj posted but it wasn't what I was waiting soo long for.

Oh and as for the Tbolt.....you couldn't give me one for free. Not impressed at all spec wise and my friend at work has to keep his tethered to a power outlet all day. not my idea of fun.

I agree about the Thunderbolt. All I've ever heard about it is that it has terrible battery life and an extended battery is needed just to get through the day. The Charge doesn't interest me, either. Honestly there really isn't anything on Verizon right now that would make me want to upgrade from my OG Incredible. My advice would be to wait if at all possible.

**Raptor007** · 07-03-2011, 04:44 PM

The Charge and the ThunderBolt both have great developer teams supporting them. Das BAMF on the TB is a great ROM to run and both Altered Beast and Gummy Charged on the Charge are awesome. I can say I have benefited all around from great developers in the community. For users like me who cannot code, I financially support the coders who can.

Hopefully we will see some Droid 3 support as well.

**Raptor007** · 07-03-2011, 10:24 PM

Over at Droid-Life they have what appears to be a new leak that may be worth waiting a week for. If you like FREE, and can deal with some of the "quirks" of the ThunderBolt then free it will be.

Here is a copy of the promo flyer that Droid-Life has on their page. Good news all around if you really want a ThunderBolt. I guess Verizon is making room for the Bionic.

**STL 314** · 07-04-2011, 10:08 AM

If I were you I would get the Charge over the Thunderbolt

**trailblazen** · 07-04-2011, 11:12 AM

HA! they are trying to give me one for free. NO! I do not want it LOL. I will wait patiently for my bionic.

**dmb803** · 07-04-2011, 01:20 PM

I'll say wait to see what the Droid Bionic have to offer. It just went thru the FCC so expect something soonnnnnnn!

**thekylebrody** · 07-05-2011, 04:33 PM

Wait it out til Mid Fall!

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**droid-ed** · 07-14-2011, 08:00 AM

My son has a Thunderbolt and I have a Charge. He was barely getting 4 hours on his phone and I was getting almost 7 hours. So neither of us could get through the day.

But thanks for the dev community, both of us have custom rooted roms. He is on some BAMF? rom (sorry not sure) and gets over 16 hours!

I experimented with Gummy Charged and THEN I moved to HUMBLE. HUMBLE gets me over 20 hours on my Charge.

Having closely looked both phones, I can say that Charge is a better phone than Thunderbolt. The SAMOLED+ screen is way better than all other options. I read somewhere that this screen uses less power depending upon what you're displaying. It uses power at pixel level - the entire screen is not backlit. If you have a lot of black on your screen, you use much less power than other screens. That is also how they get extremely sharp contrast in images.

So I have become a fan of Samsung! I'm not going to bother going to Bionic. GS2 (Function at Verizon) will be my next device! I heard Apple is fighting Samsung to keep GS2 out of the US market. They fear it has iPhone 5 killer capabilities!!

**russeltraut** · 07-14-2011, 08:29 AM

Thunderbolt is the talk of the town. You may be in a hurry to buy a phone but buying the one which remains presentable even after considerable amount of time is very important too.

**Jalarm** · 07-14-2011, 10:08 AM

Buy the thunderbolt. I have had so many bad experiences with touchwiz.

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**KiboeTheDog** · 07-14-2011, 04:40 PM

if you don't mind delays. wait for the bionic. but, realisticly, i'd go for the HTC t-bolt
i played with a display unit and a freind's (rooted, so, i guess it's a bit faster then it would be out of the box) and even when not on 4g, the thing is snappy, loads web pages fast. i'm a bit biased aggainst the charge because of....well, i hate touchwiz, the layout reminds me to much of LG's Chocolate touch feature phone.

**EggoEspada** · 07-14-2011, 07:49 PM

I say just stick with the Droid Charge, it sounds like you really enjoy it. Besides, if you are planning to get the GSII, then you wouldn't be sticking with the device for long, so might as well stay with it.

**Jalarm** · 07-15-2011, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by KiboeTheDog

if you don't mind delays. wait for the bionic. but, realisticly, i'd go for the HTC t-bolt
i played with a display unit and a freind's (rooted, so, i guess it's a bit faster then it would be out of the box) and even when not on 4g, the thing is snappy, loads web pages fast. i'm a bit biased aggainst the charge because of....well, i hate touchwiz, the layout reminds me to much of LG's Chocolate touch feature phone.

Samsung and LG copy each other all the time.

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