Happiness is owning a ThunderBolt!

[Jrocker23]

I was first on line at BB when it launched and have to say never had one issue with it. It has worked great. No issues at all. Even better after rooting which I wasn't gonna do but just wanted to do somethings that arent possible without root...

 

[bjboucher]

12-16 hours? 28 hours? Going to have to say not a chance. Unless of course it was turned off for about 25 hours of those 28.

It last about 5 hours, tops, on stock battery, with medium flashy stuff running. No apps in the background and such, just a live wallpaper, low brightness and not checking any mail or such.

If I run it with the brightness I always have, checking email and such at regular decent intervals, check my mail on and off, play a few games, it will last about 2-3 hours. My first two weeks I put up with unplugging it before work and it being just about 10% left on my first break 2 hours later. Totally utterly pathetic and useless.

With the extended battery which I bought and love, with usage on 3 breaks during work, I get about 6-8 hours now.

You definitely need to figure out what is eating your battery. You do not have anywhere near normal battery life. Maybe its the live wallpaper, or you have a rogue app that is killing your phone. My phone with the extended battery will last 2-3 days with light use but I can definitely get a full days worth of heavy use out of my extended battery (using it almost constantly on a day off). I have all my stuff updating constantly, auto brightness and leave 4G on most of the time (use WiFi once in awhile).

I would install the Battery Monitor widget and keep track of how man MaH the phone is using. On idle it should be in the 30s to lower 40s....i'm guessing yours is much higher.

 

[bjboucher]

I'm going to have to say I'm starting to get slightly disappointed. I love the phone, I have no GPS problems and no peeling or any of that but I have massive rebooting problems, every day, no help from the latest update either. If I had the problems which I do now, as many others do, during the first 2 weeks, the phone would have been returned.

I will even go as far as to say if the iPhone had widgets, Google Maps navigation and a larger screen, I would have picked that instead. But hey, it doesn't, which is why I'm reluctantly putting up with this phone. For now.

It's kind of a weird situation. I love the iPhone for just simply working but hate the lack of widgets and Google Maps. I love the Thunderbolt for the awesome live wallpapers, customizability and Google Maps but completely hate the resets and force closes from poorly developed apps.

If you're still having rebooting issues after the latest update, I would get a replacement phone. The update fixed reboots for most folks so yours may have a hardware issue that the update cannot fix.

 

[FrankXS]

If you still having rebooting issues after the latest update, I would get a replacement phone

+1

The phone is broke. Don't mess with it anymore.

-Frank

 

[ronshane#AC]

I love my Thunderbolt after having a bb storm. it's like a breath of fresh air

 

[sloan31]

I love my Thunderbolt after having a bb storm. it's like a breath of fresh air

I think just about any phone would be a breath of fresh air after the storm. I really don't miss those days of daily battery pulls.

 

[MikeGeer]

frank i must say im a fan of ur posts, very informative and so far, everything u post is extremely accurate. i agree with all of ur points. my best friend got this phone at the end of june after returning the Charge(by samsung i think) and one week later he made me go buy it, saying the thunderbolt is a MUST OWN. i know everyones experience differs, but i read a lot of forums (never posted until today) and people say 'this dont work' or 'that dont work' and i dont understand. i have rediculously minor complaints (like where the ':' colon key is) but nothing major like these other people. i will say i upgraded to 2.2.1 one week after owning it and it seems a bit slower, but also could be all the stuff i have on it now. and i also MUST SAY THIS: the google/navigate/gps service is FREAKING AWESOME. so good its scary!! i took a road trip from virginia to alabama last weekend and got PERFECT step by step directions. i put the 'Traffic layer' on google maps and it was DEAD ON accurate. i told my friend "i think there is a quarter-mile back-up up ahead, but i dont know if this thing really works". this was in BFE alabama, and sure enough, we sat in bumper-to-bumoer traffic for 45 minutes. i was like "never again" and i trust that traffic layer 100%. we used it to avoid 2 traffic back-ups on the way home. i even used it yesterday in the car with my mom telling her to use an alternate mall entrance cuz the one was 'red' a.k.a. a traffic jam. we get into the mall parking lot (just fine) and across at the other entrance there is 17 freaking cars trying to get in the one entrance. me and my mom were both like holy crap thats an amazing feature on my phone. AND NO, i dont work for verizon, google, htc, or whoever. this phone is a freaking incredible piece of technology. and one more note, i live in Richmond virginia, not even in the top 100 largest cities in america (i dont think) and all these features work so well, its not like im in a big city like new york, chicago or atlanta. this phone does more than a laptop, cellphone, gps, ipod, and encyclopedia Britannica COMBINED!! I love it!!!

-mike

 

[MikeGeer]

oh and as far as battery life its just fine. my best friend who got it first said he gets 8-10 hours with heavy use (calls, email, internet, games), and i get about the same. DAFS if you havent to improve your batterly life drastically. turn off 4G if ur not in a 4G market and battery goes WAY up. set Advanced App Killer to execute every time the screen is cut off (if u dont have this app, again DAFS, geez). anyone only getting 2-3 hrs something is seriously wrong. someone said something about need 2 days on a charge. if you go 48 hours without seeing a power outlet or USB in 2011 in the USA, you got more to worry about than ur phones battery life. and since i got the phone i check it multiple times a day, the number one battery drainer is the screen itslef, my advice is keep the brightness as low as u can without hurting ur eyes just my 2 cents again. I <3 My Thunderbolt. got the t-shirt and bumper-sticker to prove it

-mike

 

[Wildside]

-I bought the extended battery and basically I never even think about the battery. I just use the phone and whenever it's convenient I charge it. How many phones don't even give you the OPTION of fitting a huge 2750mAh extended battery. Way to go HTC!
-Frank

+1 on the extended battery.

That really changes the experience with this phone.

 

[sloan31]

DAFS if you havent to improve your batterly life drastically.
-mike

What is DAFS?

 

[MikeGeer]

What is DAFS?

DAFS = Do A F_ing Search

when i searched to improve tbolt battery life, i found 100+ quality suggestions