Bad idea?

[SpaceCracker]

I have the Thunderbolt but from what i read the Bionic is going to be better. Thinking of sending back the Bolt and waiting for the Bionic but worried about loosing the unlimited data plan and possibly the Bionic not being easy to root for free wireless tether. Any thoughts?

 

[DJBeanPole]

I'm sure VZW will make some sort of announcement about tiered plans before they actually go into effect. If thats the case and the Bionic has not come out yet you can still go back to your TBOLT.

 

[dbermanmd]

Life is a gamble.

I did not pull the trigger on the TBolt and continue to rely on a 27 month old Storm 1.

I am gambling that Big Red will continue its current pricing for the rest of the year for the following reasons:

1. it just opened the gates of the LTE network. It has Billions invested in it and needs to draw in a number of users to covers its costs. It does NOT want to limit enrollment at this point

2. the handle and the blade concept. Give away or make cheap the LTE network to get what they consider the base number of users necessary to cover expenses + attrition,,,, expose customers to how great the LTE network is (and it is) and then start slowly increasing the price and changing the pricing structure.

3. competition - there are other carriers out there with a single pricing structure and there are other carriers out there looking to take any advantage they can. the moment Big Red goes to a tiered pricing structure count on some other carrier highlighting a one priced 4G cost system.

4. device makers - have a lot invested in these devices. i dont think Motorola or Samsung or name your device maker that has yet to get their device on the market for Big Red wants HTC to have such a huge buying incentive just because their device came out first. Big Red does not and will not and the device makers are smart enough to make sure their new devices that are close to launching will share the same data plan pricing as the Tbolt. I can see Big Red allowing each device maker to get at least one if not two devices on their store shelves before they change the price structure.

and,,, if they do change their pricing structure,,, you will have enough heads up to go out and pull the trigger on whatever LTE phone they have.

so,,, i am gambling that the current price for Big Red's LTE service will remain unchanged for the remainder of the year.

David

 

[rpitts9999]

Sounds good to me dbermanmd. I just hope some one at Verizon reads that and gets what you and the rest of us hope they will do.

 

[DolfanCole]

I have the Thunderbolt but from what i read the Bionic is going to be better. Thinking of sending back the Bolt and waiting for the Bionic but worried about loosing the unlimited data plan and possibly the Bionic not being easy to root for free wireless tether. Any thoughts?

I wouldn't worry about it being easy to root. I'm sure that it will be, as others have been. Also, having a locked bootloader and being able to root the device are two different topics. So, having the locked bootloader doesn't mean you wouldn't be able to root.

 

[Brett]

Life is a gamble.

I did not pull the trigger on the TBolt and continue to rely on a 27 month old Storm 1.

I am gambling that Big Red will continue its current pricing for the rest of the year for the following reasons:

1. it just opened the gates of the LTE network. It has Billions invested in it and needs to draw in a number of users to covers its costs. It does NOT want to limit enrollment at this point

2. the handle and the blade concept. Give away or make cheap the LTE network to get what they consider the base number of users necessary to cover expenses + attrition,,,, expose customers to how great the LTE network is (and it is) and then start slowly increasing the price and changing the pricing structure.

3. competition - there are other carriers out there with a single pricing structure and there are other carriers out there looking to take any advantage they can. the moment Big Red goes to a tiered pricing structure count on some other carrier highlighting a one priced 4G cost system.

4. device makers - have a lot invested in these devices. i dont think Motorola or Samsung or name your device maker that has yet to get their device on the market for Big Red wants HTC to have such a huge buying incentive just because their device came out first. Big Red does not and will not and the device makers are smart enough to make sure their new devices that are close to launching will share the same data plan pricing as the Tbolt. I can see Big Red allowing each device maker to get at least one if not two devices on their store shelves before they change the price structure.

and,,, if they do change their pricing structure,,, you will have enough heads up to go out and pull the trigger on whatever LTE phone they have.

so,,, i am gambling that the current price for Big Red's LTE service will remain unchanged for the remainder of the year.

David

You do make a lot of good points. I think you could be right but there is something to consider. Look what ATT did with tiered data. They released the iPhone4 and then started the tiered data. Now I know the difference in this comparison is a little off due to it was 3g then and now it would be with 4G (trying to get people to change data packages from 3g to 4g) but it does indicate that people will make the jump even with the tiered system if there is a device the people want. The general public will not care about how much data they get. They assume the 2 gb of data is sufficient enough even though they aren't aware of how much data consumption will be used in a month.


to the OP:
Both are great devices. If you are a power user and don't plan on rooting and hacking, get the Bionic. If you are like me and are a power user but are willing to sacrafice some of it in order to root, theme and hack, keep the TBolt. The TBolt is rooted already and seems to have a pretty significant developer following. The Bionic (unless it is rootable) will have a very limited amount of devs due to not wanting to waste their time if it is unrootable.

 

[mc21]

Life is a gamble.

I did not pull the trigger on the TBolt and continue to rely on a 27 month old Storm 1.

I am gambling that Big Red will continue its current pricing for the rest of the year for the following reasons:

1. it just opened the gates of the LTE network. It has Billions invested in it and needs to draw in a number of users to covers its costs. It does NOT want to limit enrollment at this point

2. the handle and the blade concept. Give away or make cheap the LTE network to get what they consider the base number of users necessary to cover expenses + attrition,,,, expose customers to how great the LTE network is (and it is) and then start slowly increasing the price and changing the pricing structure.

3. competition - there are other carriers out there with a single pricing structure and there are other carriers out there looking to take any advantage they can. the moment Big Red goes to a tiered pricing structure count on some other carrier highlighting a one priced 4G cost system.

4. device makers - have a lot invested in these devices. i dont think Motorola or Samsung or name your device maker that has yet to get their device on the market for Big Red wants HTC to have such a huge buying incentive just because their device came out first. Big Red does not and will not and the device makers are smart enough to make sure their new devices that are close to launching will share the same data plan pricing as the Tbolt. I can see Big Red allowing each device maker to get at least one if not two devices on their store shelves before they change the price structure.

and,,, if they do change their pricing structure,,, you will have enough heads up to go out and pull the trigger on whatever LTE phone they have.

so,,, i am gambling that the current price for Big Red's LTE service will remain unchanged for the remainder of the year.

David

made some points i never thought about, good arguments

 

[TuxDotKing]

The Bionic (unless it is rootable) will have a very limited amount of devs due to not wanting to waste their time if it is unrootable.

There's nothing to indicate it wouldn't be rootable, don't get all FUDdy-duddy on us.

 

[DroidyMcDroid]

I have the Thunderbolt but from what i read the Bionic is going to be better. Thinking of sending back the Bolt and waiting for the Bionic but worried about loosing the unlimited data plan and possibly the Bionic not being easy to root for free wireless tether. Any thoughts?

wasn't there a story recently about the wireless companies cracking down on the free tethering? i remember it being about at&t specifically so don't know about verizon.

as far as waiting for the bionic, you gotta get a phone sometime and as we've seen no matter what phone you got you're only going to be the latest and greatest for a few months before a brand new phone comes out. but the battery issues i've read about with the thunderbolt would cause me to wait for the bionic

 

[Brett]

There's nothing to indicate it wouldn't be rootable, don't get all FUDdy-duddy on us.

Sorry. I need to be more specific when I type. It will probably be rootable but it will most likely (99% positive) have a locked boot loader.

 

[TuxDotKing]

Sorry. I need to be more specific when I type. It will probably be rootable but it will most likely (99% positive) have a locked boot loader.

Yeah, the bootloader is gonna be locked more than likely. It will most likely still have a decent dev community like the D2/DX/Atrix though.

 

[Droid hungry]

Decent ehh? I feel like its gonna be a huge change for me if I get it. From an Eris to an incredible both rooted running roms. Hopefully its worth it.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[heraldo]

Life is a gamble.

I did not pull the trigger on the TBolt and continue to rely on a 27 month old storm 1

David

Dude that's pretty strong. That you're still rolling with the storm. I had mine from day one till day one of the X. I did enjoy my storm while I had it. The browser was soooooooooo slow tho

 

[dbermanmd]

thanks,,, yes it is slow but i have other stuff going on in my life that occupy my time while the browser is browsing.

I am however getting somewhat impatient. I downloaded the Cablevision App for my iPad (sorry, have two iPad 1's for the family and an iPad 2 on order as a gift from somebody) and it was so cool BBQing last night while watching TV on my iPad. It gave rise to the concept of tethering my iPad to my LTE device and watching stuff anywhere i am.

I have not been hearing much about the Bionic which seems to be the device i am waiting for having abandoned the TBolt at the alter - and apparently that was a smart move. I am just hoping the battery in the Bionic is more Bionic than the one in the TBolt.

David

 

[loooney2ns]

I'm waiting for the Bionic. Since I have to live with whatever I choose for 2 years now(Thanks VZW!), I want it to be powerful and fast. I don't care about the locked bootloader, as long as I have root so I can run TiBu, Rom Manager, etc., and have some themes, I'll be fine. I do like playing with different roms on my Droid, but it's not a deal breaker for me. The Sammy sounds interesting, but with their history of updates, I'm not willing to take the chance. Besides, Moto makes the highest quality hardware, so I know it will hold up for the duration of my contract.