Just because

[FrankXS]

Tbolt is gonna kick serious butt!!!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yes Sir! It definitely is!

-Frank

 

[dragonsamus]

I love this phone and love it more because of the developers. This phone has issues but all phones do, so what? The grass is not always greener.

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

To the OP...

I don't disagree with any of your points.

None the less, when buying a new device, especially if you are of the majority that prefer to buy subsidized phones, then you have to also consider the ramifications of that purchase 2 years into the future as well.

Is the Thunderbolt an awesome device? In my opinion, yes.
Does it standup against against even the newest models available today? Yes
Do I regret having purchased one? Nope, not in the slightest.
Is the dev support of this device beyond amazing? Oh yeah!

Here's the thing though, 1 year from now, when I personally will be up for an upgrade, that second statement will not be true. At least 2 more iterations of phones will probably have been released, and in terms of both hardware and software, the Thunderbolt will be lagging behind. Once ICS is released, this gap will be even more evident (since I doubt the TBolt will get an "official" ICS update).

I'm not saying that after only 8 months I'm ready to just toss my Thunderbolt in the trash heap. Far from it. In fact, I'm pretty glad I like this phone as much as I do, because it makes having to keep it for the duration of 2 year contract that much easier to bear. I'm neither surprised nor do I really care that it probably won't get ICS (because I'm rooted and will probably be able to get it anyway). What I am saying is that *if* I were shopping for a new device right now, there's no way that I would consider an 8 month old phone. It's just too far behind the pace of development and even though it may hold up against today's models, I wouldn't want to be stuck with it months from now when its shortcoming are more obvious. That's how I think. When I upgrade to a new phone, I prefer to pay a little more $$$ to get one of the newest models because I know it's "relevance" will last that much longer...or at least that's what I hope.

 

[waker]

I'm neither surprised nor do I really care that it probably won't get ICS (because I'm rooted and will probably be able to get it anyway).

/does happy dance

I agree though, dont get hung up on hardware, i bought my wife a bionic and it is fun. Why people hate on different handsets is beyond me. If I wanted them all, I would just buy them all. i am very happy with my thunderbolt.

The dev community for the Tbolt really sets it apart though. The bionic is so meh for development so far. There are a few good roms out there (thus far) but nothing like the tbolt.

 

[Mortiel]

/does happy dance

I agree though, dont get hung up on hardware, i bought my wife a bionic and it is fun. Why people hate on different handsets is beyond me. If I wanted them all, I would just buy them all. i am very happy with my thunderbolt.

The dev community for the Tbolt really sets it apart though. The bionic is so meh for development so far. There are a few good roms out there (thus far) but nothing like the tbolt.

I am just gun shy of Motorola from their update bug fixes... they still have not fixed the keyboard bugs on the Droid 2s (A955, A956, A957). Yes, the Thunderbolt had some rather painful updates with updates, but they worked to fix them. More comparable to the Droid 2, the Incredible had update bugs going to Gingerbread, and HTC fixed them.

However, that may change with Motorola being bought by Google. No, I do not think Motorola will get special treatment from Google, however I do think they will get better with legacy software support and fixing bugs.