Android Lemon Award given to Thunderbolt?

[MojaveHigh]

GizmoCrunch gives their Android Lemon Award to the Thunderbolt for worst phone of 2011.

Android Lemon Award Goes To HTC For Making The Worst Phone Of 2011

They list "random reboots and unexpected crashes, to dismal battery life and the ongoing delays with the rollout of the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update" as the reasons for the "nightmare" that is the Thunderbolt.

Personally, I have had very few random reboots and unexpected crashes (can count instances on one hand), I was obsessed with battery life for the first month, then decided to forget about it and it truly is not an issue, only my desire to have GB bothers me a bit.

 

[OmahaPlaya]

Ha as a former BlackBerry Storm 2 owner I can say with confidence this phone is the most stable I've owned. I haven't had many issues with my phone and those that I do get were usual fixed with a quick reboot taking no more then 3-5 min. My Storm on the other hand took damm near 20 min just to reboot after a battery pull. Once a ICS rom for this phone comes out I'm rooting it to make it better.

 

[MojaveHigh]

The Thunderbolt is my first smart phone and I love it. Still, I have nothing to compare it to, favorably or not.

I'm holding off on rooting my phone for a while since I'm happy with it as is and don't know any better about what I'm missing. Coming from a feature phone, the stock Thunderbolt is just fine right now.

 

[defcon999]

My first smartphone was the Samsung i740 WinMo and then went to the OMNIA....of all the phones I have had or have, the Tbolt is the funniest, coolest phone. Yes, we have our issues, but show me a phone that hasn't. What the article fails to mention that with independent developers, the Thunderbolt is a great phone.....perfect?......NO......but that is what upgrades are for!

 

[chuckh0308]

What an id!ot. So, a few people had random reboots and crashes, OMG, it's the end of the world! I'll give him battery life, but I still have not found it as bad as some claim.

Gingerbread? Now that I have it, I'm not sure what the big deal is? It's not some Holy Grail. I bet 95% of TB owners (in general, not on this site) probably wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between Froyo and Gingerbread.

Sure it's not perfect, but what phone is? My iPhone 4 needs more reboots than the TB. It does win on battery though....

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

If a "lemon award" is to be given out for the Thunderbolt, it should be not for the phone, but for Verizon/HTC's handling of it.

For non-rooted users (you know, the majority of persons who purchased the phone), I really do believe the "thunderbolt experience" has been less than underwhelming. From the time 4G LTE was announced, the Thunderbolt, pegged to be the first Verizon phone to utilize the network, was HEAVILY anticipated. The actual release of the phone was delayed several times (if you listened to rumors), and when it was, it was released with Froyo and did, in fact, have pretty lousy battery life and considerable radio issues. The first update that was released caused a lot of people to experience multiple random reboots per day...and it took WAY too long for Verizon to release a second update to fix it (which still was NOT Gingerbread, which had been promised since launch date). Gingerbread finally does get released, 6 months later, and it too was quite buggy, and VM notifications didn't even work (and was eventually pulled). Add to all that the lack of support for popular apps such as netflix and skype early on, and I don't really think it's too far fetched to think that many who invested in this phone got much less than they were expecting.

Now, in my experience, I rooted my Thunderbolt about a week after I got it at launch. Soon after, installed Das BAMF, as well as the updated radios that were available. I soon tried a few AOSP Roms, and then, once again thanks to BAMF, was able to run Gingerbread months before non-rooted users were able to do so. Now, I'm running BAMF forever with Sense 3.0. My battery life on 4G lasts on average about 18 hours, and if I switch down to 3G, I easily get well over 24 hours on a single charge on my standard issue battery. I have zero reboots, everything on my phone works great, and the Sense 3 UI is far above and beyond the Sense 2.5 that is currently shipping with official Thunderbolt OSs.

I love my phone -- it runs great, I've been able to control the software on it from day one, and there are a ton of devs releasing a ton of great ROMs.

Now, I'm not blinding suggesting people root their devices, but what I am saying is that if Verizon and HTC were able to handle OS development/testing/improvement/distribution like the independent developers are in the rooted community, then maybe EVERYONE would have had a great Thunderbolt experience since day one. I've often said that BAMF Forever is what the official GB update should have been...and there are quite a few other ROMs that I haven't had the chance to run that probably fit that category as well. Unfortunately, that did not happen...not even close. Bottom line? My point is that there is nothing wrong with the Thunderbolt as a device itself, but the "official" software seems like has definitely been a letdown, and yes, possibly even a lemon.

 

[JHock08]

I however have dealt with with all the issues described in the article.

 

[paulmiller82]

The only issue I really had imo was the battery life. Even then it was mostly just me using the phone so much. I averaged at 2.5 - 3 hours screen on time. Which at times was 2.5 hours in a row of straight use.

Now I run BAMF and easily go all day, admittedly with a Lil less constant use.

 

[defcon999]

I think for a first effort of a 4G phone....VZW/HTC did good. I do agree that the lemon award should go to Verizon and HTC in handling the updates and reboots. But, like most HARD CORE users, once you flash to a ROM....all the problems seem to go away. My only problem I am having is I want to FLASH to different ROMS all the time.....but I always come back to FOREVER 1.X.X.

 

[spartanguy81]

This award given out by people that have only used a thunderbolt for ten minutes and then read some articles about it. Thunderbolt is an amazing piece of equipment, the greatest of the single core generation. Verizon and HTC did manage to botch some software...like buying a porche, then the dealership slashing your tires as you drive off the lot...wow porche is the worst car ever!

 

[pnoozi]

Bionic should have won. Broken audio output, horrible screen, and Razr comes out a month later.

 

[judpma012]

I have not had ANY of the issues listed by Gizmo.......maybe they just don't know smartphones!!!!

So my "Lemon Award" goes to....da ta da da!!!!! GizmoCrunch :-\

 

[TBoltJ]

I bought the first TB sold in the store the day it finally came out. It is a beautiful phone and has great capabilities. I have had many issues with my phone and I was one of the unlucky ones to get Gingerbread before it was pulled and now I have even more problems. As a programmer myself I would never release such a buggy piece of crap. There is no way that they didnt know they were shipping a phone like this with a video recorder that doesnt record audio. That says it all. I have resisted rooting all this time as I dont want to void my warrenty but it seems like if I want a phone that works I will have to.
FYI:
Memory - How about that whole 8GB really formatted to 4GB fiasco! Who thought they were buying 8GB and feel cheated still?

Reboots - Yes, but not as many as everyone else

No email sync - Always buggy but now does not work after GB past the first day after set up

Sense- Likes to shut down when I hit the battery widget

Voice Mail Notifications - None post GB

Battery - Bought the slightly larger capacity battery from a 3rd party but its the physical same physical size as the stock

Signal - Lots of 1X to 3G and back sucking my battery to hell. No 4G in sight. When I travel to a 4G area it locks on then drops to 3G.

GPS Signal lock - Finally works, at least GB fixed something!

Speaker volume - Can you hear me now?

Should I go on? All I wanted was my first smartphone and instead I got a lot of grief.

Moral of the story: At least I can get a phone call on verizon. I couldnt get a call in my home for years on ATT

 

[pauldroidr2d2]

I hated my Thunderbolt. Flat out the battery life on it stinks. HTC has made it a common practice to use smaller powered batteries in their smartphones.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

 

[KanyeSouthEast]

Fascinate?

Sent from my Nokia 3390 using Tapatalk

 

[mikefrombx]

I resisted jumping on a TB from an old school incredible. My cousin has one and she doesn't know or yet to do with and her phone has been problem free I will say I think this award goes to the bionic the flagship phone that was obsoleted within two months. I had just worked up the courage to buy one with the laptop dock so that I would not have to bring my laptop to work now I am just going to wait. I understand that people could have problems but once you root a phone those problems go away and you get a more reliable update cycle from the rooting community. I have rooted my phone and my wifes phone, old school incredibles, to run cm7 and will root my cousins TB the second she has a problem.

sent from my incredible

 

[natehoy]

There is no way that they didnt know they were shipping a phone like this with a video recorder that doesnt record audio. That says it all.

Is this an old problem that's since been fixed, or something new? I got mine a month or so ago on MR2 (so I avoided a lot of the startup problems and the reported MR1 fiasco). I'm now on Gingerbread.

I take plenty of videos with my phone (both when it was MR2 Froyo and now with Gingerbread OTA), and I've never had a problem with the audio.

I'll freely admit that I came late to the table, so a lot of the problems of early reports simply never affected me. I do have my share of small niggles (when the signal drops, it takes an inordinately long time to re-establish data, Gingerbread failed to deliver on the Front Facing Camera which was very disappointing, Voicemail notifications broken in Gbread seems like a programming 101 fail even though it doesn't affect me directly).

The GPS works a lot better now under Gingerbread, but under Froyo MR2 initial lock was still within about ten seconds with assisted GPS on, it just "stuttered" a lot (it seemed like the GPS was polling every 10 seconds or so, which was annoying but not fatal). In Gingerbread, initial lock time seems about the same (so fast I barely even notice the delay) and polling seems to be at least once a second, which makes navigation apps run a lot more smoothly than anything I've ever owned, the dedicated GPS receivers.

All in all, it's been a solid smartphone for me. Not as reliable as a phone at making phone calls, but neither was my Blackberry. 3G is noticeably faster than my Blackberry, battery life (now that I have the extended battery) is good enough to easily get me through an average day, I think I've had it reboot on me once when I was first charging my extended battery, and it actually does a pretty darned good job as a phone - voice is crisp and clear, controls are well-thought-out.

The only thing I want back is the ability to make phone calls while the phone is PIN-locked. Give me back that, and it'll be everything my Blackberry was and SO MUCH MORE.

If the Thunderbolt is a lemon, the top pick must be capable of doing my job for me.

 

[JHock08]

I bought the first TB sold in the store the day it finally came out. It is a beautiful phone and has great capabilities. I have had many issues with my phone and I was one of the unlucky ones to get Gingerbread before it was pulled and now I have even more problems. As a programmer myself I would never release such a buggy piece of crap. There is no way that they didnt know they were shipping a phone like this with a video recorder that doesnt record audio. That says it all. I have resisted rooting all this time as I dont want to void my warrenty but it seems like if I want a phone that works I will have to.
FYI:
Memory - How about that whole 8GB really formatted to 4GB fiasco! Who thought they were buying 8GB and feel cheated still?

Reboots - Yes, but not as many as everyone else

No email sync - Always buggy but now does not work after GB past the first day after set up

Sense- Likes to shut down when I hit the battery widget

Voice Mail Notifications - None post GB

Battery - Bought the slightly larger capacity battery from a 3rd party but its the physical same physical size as the stock

Signal - Lots of 1X to 3G and back sucking my battery to hell. No 4G in sight. When I travel to a 4G area it locks on then drops to 3G.

GPS Signal lock - Finally works, at least GB fixed something!

Speaker volume - Can you hear me now?

Should I go on? All I wanted was my first smartphone and instead I got a lot of grief.

Moral of the story: At least I can get a phone call on verizon. I couldnt get a call in my home for years on ATT

Wow, you just described my Thunderbolt! Galaxy Nexus and ICS here I come!