Intro
I upgraded to a HTC Thunderbolt not because I was tired of my Droid Incredible but because my mother was sick of her crappy Samsung feature phone and wanted in on Android goodness. As the family plan holder, she gets an upgrade every year. In the end, I gave her my DInc (she was perfectly happy with it) and got the new HTC Thunderbolt in return.
I have been playing with it for the past day or so and here are some impressions.
Design & Hardware
The Tbolt is, obviously, much heavier and physically larger than the Droid Incredible. Not only is it packing a 4.3 inch screen, but it has what feels like a partially metal body in addition to a pair of cameras, a larger ear speaker, and a kickstand. It feels a lot like the Evo 4G from the short time I have played with friends' Evos.
The overall build quality is very good and a step up from the all-plastic feel of the Droid Incredible. Having played with AT&T's HTC Inspire 4G, I would place it just below the Inspire's all-metal frame. If we consider the iPhone 4 to have a built quality of 10 (It honestly is an amazing solid piece of hardware no matter what you thing of Apple), the Thunderbolt is probably a 9 and the Droid Incredible a 8 or so. It isn't a massive difference but you will notice how much more solid the Thunderbolt is in the hand. Although I do kind of miss the DInc's love-em-or-hate-em sculpted ridges on the back...
The capacitive buttons on the front are similar to the Droid Incredible's, but they seem to be dimmer for some reason. But they are just as responsive and easy to use.
As for the power button, I was unhappy to see that HTC decided to switch the location of the headphone jack and the power button from the DInc. Not only is the button harder to hit based on the way I hold the phone in my right hand, it is also smaller and less raised from the body of the phone. It also lacks the satisfying "click" that the Droid Incredible has.
The volume rockers on both phones are about the same but again, HTC decided to but the Thunderbolt's on the opposite side. I am not sure why they made those design choices but it only serves to annoy users of previous phones who where used to a certain layout. At least they keep the order of the home-menu-back-search buttons the same.
Camera(s)
The Thunderbolt and Droid Incredible share a 8 megapixel rear camera but the larger frame of the Thunderbolt allowed HTC to put the face of the rear camera flush with the body. This is a welcome change as I was always worried about scratching the camera on the DInc when I didn't have a case on.
The Thunderbolt also adds a front-facing camera, but there aren't any bundled apps to use it. You can switch to the front camera from the Camera app itself, allowing easy self-portraits.
Kickstand
It's awesome, that is all you need to know.
Software
Verizon seems determined to bundle as many apps with their phones as possible. This would not be a problem if they let you remove them - but they don't. Using something like Launcher Pro allows you to hide the apps in your app tray, which is probably the best solution other than trying to remove them from the ROM which might be a bit over some user's heads.
One major frustration is that HTC removed many of the options that the Droid Incredible had in it's power off menu. Instead of having the ability to quickly toggle 3G, vibrate, and sound, the Thunderbolt leaves you with only 3 options: Power off, airplane mode, and restart. I had to quickly install Quick Settings to get the functionality back. Tisk, tisk HTC.
One nice thing about the notification bar is that it has a list of the most recently used apps at the top. This should be great for people who don't know to long-press the Home button for a similar list.
Overall Speed
The Thunderbolt feels just as snappy as the Droid Incredible once I had used it for a bit. The first couple hours it seemed a bit sluggish but that has since gone away. Using stock Sense on both devices is a joy as HTC has finely tuned their skin to perfection on Android 2.2 Froyo. I will leave benchmarks and the like up to other reviews -- the TBolt is plenty zippy.
A note on LTE and battery life
Sadly, I do not live in a LTE zone as of yet. Blacksburg will probably never get 4G love and Richmond is (according to the store employee that helped me) not due for LTE until this fall. As such, I will be using the phone mainly as a 3G device.
So far, battery life is about the same as the Droid Incredible. The massive screen uses the most power by far so I expect the battery life to be a bit worse over time because of that. Still, as a 3G phone, you can probably expect to get through the day with moderate use off a nightly charge. But you will probably want to keep an extra charger in the car or office just in case. If you live in a LTE zone and use it, having extra chargers (or an extended battery) is very likely a must.
Final Thoughts
The Thunderbolt is a solid upgrade for any Droid Incredible user and is especially attractive considering the LTE radio nestled inside. It may not be packing a dual-core processor like the upcoming Droid Bionic, but you will likely not notice any difference unless you are playing the most graphics intensive games on the Market. The fact that the Thunderbolt comes with a 32GB storage card makes the $250 on-contract asking price more than justified and the promise of unlimited LTE data for the life of your contract may be too good to pass up.
Make sure you check out some comparison pictures past the break.
I upgraded to a HTC Thunderbolt not because I was tired of my Droid Incredible but because my mother was sick of her crappy Samsung feature phone and wanted in on Android goodness. As the family plan holder, she gets an upgrade every year. In the end, I gave her my DInc (she was perfectly happy with it) and got the new HTC Thunderbolt in return.
I have been playing with it for the past day or so and here are some impressions.
Design & Hardware
The Tbolt is, obviously, much heavier and physically larger than the Droid Incredible. Not only is it packing a 4.3 inch screen, but it has what feels like a partially metal body in addition to a pair of cameras, a larger ear speaker, and a kickstand. It feels a lot like the Evo 4G from the short time I have played with friends' Evos.
The overall build quality is very good and a step up from the all-plastic feel of the Droid Incredible. Having played with AT&T's HTC Inspire 4G, I would place it just below the Inspire's all-metal frame. If we consider the iPhone 4 to have a built quality of 10 (It honestly is an amazing solid piece of hardware no matter what you thing of Apple), the Thunderbolt is probably a 9 and the Droid Incredible a 8 or so. It isn't a massive difference but you will notice how much more solid the Thunderbolt is in the hand. Although I do kind of miss the DInc's love-em-or-hate-em sculpted ridges on the back...
The capacitive buttons on the front are similar to the Droid Incredible's, but they seem to be dimmer for some reason. But they are just as responsive and easy to use.
As for the power button, I was unhappy to see that HTC decided to switch the location of the headphone jack and the power button from the DInc. Not only is the button harder to hit based on the way I hold the phone in my right hand, it is also smaller and less raised from the body of the phone. It also lacks the satisfying "click" that the Droid Incredible has.
The volume rockers on both phones are about the same but again, HTC decided to but the Thunderbolt's on the opposite side. I am not sure why they made those design choices but it only serves to annoy users of previous phones who where used to a certain layout. At least they keep the order of the home-menu-back-search buttons the same.
Camera(s)
The Thunderbolt and Droid Incredible share a 8 megapixel rear camera but the larger frame of the Thunderbolt allowed HTC to put the face of the rear camera flush with the body. This is a welcome change as I was always worried about scratching the camera on the DInc when I didn't have a case on.
The Thunderbolt also adds a front-facing camera, but there aren't any bundled apps to use it. You can switch to the front camera from the Camera app itself, allowing easy self-portraits.
Kickstand
It's awesome, that is all you need to know.
Software
Verizon seems determined to bundle as many apps with their phones as possible. This would not be a problem if they let you remove them - but they don't. Using something like Launcher Pro allows you to hide the apps in your app tray, which is probably the best solution other than trying to remove them from the ROM which might be a bit over some user's heads.
One major frustration is that HTC removed many of the options that the Droid Incredible had in it's power off menu. Instead of having the ability to quickly toggle 3G, vibrate, and sound, the Thunderbolt leaves you with only 3 options: Power off, airplane mode, and restart. I had to quickly install Quick Settings to get the functionality back. Tisk, tisk HTC.
One nice thing about the notification bar is that it has a list of the most recently used apps at the top. This should be great for people who don't know to long-press the Home button for a similar list.
Overall Speed
The Thunderbolt feels just as snappy as the Droid Incredible once I had used it for a bit. The first couple hours it seemed a bit sluggish but that has since gone away. Using stock Sense on both devices is a joy as HTC has finely tuned their skin to perfection on Android 2.2 Froyo. I will leave benchmarks and the like up to other reviews -- the TBolt is plenty zippy.
A note on LTE and battery life
Sadly, I do not live in a LTE zone as of yet. Blacksburg will probably never get 4G love and Richmond is (according to the store employee that helped me) not due for LTE until this fall. As such, I will be using the phone mainly as a 3G device.
So far, battery life is about the same as the Droid Incredible. The massive screen uses the most power by far so I expect the battery life to be a bit worse over time because of that. Still, as a 3G phone, you can probably expect to get through the day with moderate use off a nightly charge. But you will probably want to keep an extra charger in the car or office just in case. If you live in a LTE zone and use it, having extra chargers (or an extended battery) is very likely a must.
Final Thoughts
The Thunderbolt is a solid upgrade for any Droid Incredible user and is especially attractive considering the LTE radio nestled inside. It may not be packing a dual-core processor like the upcoming Droid Bionic, but you will likely not notice any difference unless you are playing the most graphics intensive games on the Market. The fact that the Thunderbolt comes with a 32GB storage card makes the $250 on-contract asking price more than justified and the promise of unlimited LTE data for the life of your contract may be too good to pass up.
Make sure you check out some comparison pictures past the break.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram