Well guys and gals, February 14th has come and has almost gone with some major disappointments because of no word on the HTC Thunderbolt. I have been waiting and waiting on this phone and have been very excited about it. However, after saying this, I have grown somewhat weary and have been asking myself, "Why not wait for the Bionic now?" The longer we wait for the Thunderbolt, the closer the "big, bad" Bionic gets to being released to Verizon customers. I wasn't a fan of the way the Bionic looked nor Motoblur. (I like the HTC Sense user interface much more) and this is the reason I chose the Thunderbolt over the Bionic. After saying all of this, have you had any thoughts of going after the Bionic now that you've waited this long on the release-dateless Thunderbolt? (Which will be outdated hardware-wise by the time Bionic hits stores).
Reason for not waiting for the Bionic?
- Thread starter Eleer
- Start date
I'd rather have the phone now, rather than later.
What I've heard about motoblur hasn't been good.
What I've heard about sense is great.
I don't particularly care about the performance differences of the two, since I've never even had a smart phone, so the Thudnerbolt will seem absolutely amazing, and I wouldn't be able to truly enjoy a dualcore phone for that reason.
What I've heard about motoblur hasn't been good.
What I've heard about sense is great.
I don't particularly care about the performance differences of the two, since I've never even had a smart phone, so the Thudnerbolt will seem absolutely amazing, and I wouldn't be able to truly enjoy a dualcore phone for that reason.
Locked bootloader.
I'm a ROM flashing, custom theme addict. But Moto's locked bootloader prevents this. And when questioned about it, Motorola's whole demeanor was inexcusable:
http://www.androidcentral.com/moto-employee-confirms-locked-bootloaders-and-bad-attitude
If you have a Moto phone and want to flash a custom ROM, run cyanogenmod (or any other "stock" AOSP ROM), or just want to get rid of Motoblur, you're SOL. As such, there is very little development behind Motorola products when compared to HTC's
I'm a ROM flashing, custom theme addict. But Moto's locked bootloader prevents this. And when questioned about it, Motorola's whole demeanor was inexcusable:
http://www.androidcentral.com/moto-employee-confirms-locked-bootloaders-and-bad-attitude
If you have a Moto phone and want to flash a custom ROM, run cyanogenmod (or any other "stock" AOSP ROM), or just want to get rid of Motoblur, you're SOL. As such, there is very little development behind Motorola products when compared to HTC's
No one was ever really confident about the 14th until a handful of stupid Verizon chat reps said that it might come out today and that was last night. The 24th is still the date to watch.
Also don't like motorola phones. The droid 1 is an exception but i didn't own one so i don't know how much i would have liked it.
I'd be interested to see what the lg revolution is like, or a galxy s2 device, tho. But i'll probably suck it up and use my upgrade on the bolt.
I'd be interested to see what the lg revolution is like, or a galxy s2 device, tho. But i'll probably suck it up and use my upgrade on the bolt.
I'm in the same boat with you guys. Thunderbolt seems to be so much more user friendly and "prettier". I'll end up going Thunderbolt I'm sure, I was just curious to hear what people's ideas are now that the Thunderbolt seems to be some kind of imaginary phone.
1) coming out in months, not a week or two
2) dual-core might not be ready for primetime yet (OS not optimized either)
3) not really a gamer anymore
4) plastic build, not metal unibody
5) Blur
2) dual-core might not be ready for primetime yet (OS not optimized either)
3) not really a gamer anymore
4) plastic build, not metal unibody
5) Blur
-no cyanogen mod/ less developer support. I mean look at the the locked forums at the top of the thunderbolt page you can see this phone is going to have very large developer support.
I've waited this long with my Storm, and I'm now 1 1/2 months past my upgrade date, which is about 21 1/2 months too long to be on this phone. The Bionic will be really cool, but since I don't game much at all on a phone I wouldn't even be utilizing the dual core.
Honestly, the spec sheet (in my opinion) favors the Thunderbolt in many ways.
Dual Core is virtually a non factor in the comparison at this point, and probably 6-8 months into the Bionic's life which means almost a year into the Thunderbolt's life
Thunderbolt has more RAM, which is a HUGE factor when considering speed, dual core processor or not.
HTC, in my opinion, has a better rep as far as quality. Moto seems to have great physical quality in every product (strong build, etc) but HTC building is a lot more... "friendly" I guess. I can't really explain that one to be honest.
The UI.
I want to root my smartphone. I love the idea, and like the features you can unlock from doing it.
Oh, and another not-so-major thing. According to what I've read, the Bolt has an FM radio. Which like I said isn't major, but I HATE Pandora immensely ("Thunderstruck radio" doesn't mean I want to listen to "Tangled up in Blue"... cmon). There's a radio station out of Chicago that I get in my area that I love. Classic rock; from the Hendrix, Stones, and Beatles, up to Nirvana and Pearl Jam. And you never hear the same song within a couple of days apart.
I will be sticking to the Thunderbolt until at least half way through my contract (which will be two years) and maybe, MAYBE, I'll try and eBay it to upgrade at full retail if something seriously takes my breath away. Which I doubt, but will be open to.
Dual Core is virtually a non factor in the comparison at this point, and probably 6-8 months into the Bionic's life which means almost a year into the Thunderbolt's life
Thunderbolt has more RAM, which is a HUGE factor when considering speed, dual core processor or not.
HTC, in my opinion, has a better rep as far as quality. Moto seems to have great physical quality in every product (strong build, etc) but HTC building is a lot more... "friendly" I guess. I can't really explain that one to be honest.
The UI.
I want to root my smartphone. I love the idea, and like the features you can unlock from doing it.
Oh, and another not-so-major thing. According to what I've read, the Bolt has an FM radio. Which like I said isn't major, but I HATE Pandora immensely ("Thunderstruck radio" doesn't mean I want to listen to "Tangled up in Blue"... cmon). There's a radio station out of Chicago that I get in my area that I love. Classic rock; from the Hendrix, Stones, and Beatles, up to Nirvana and Pearl Jam. And you never hear the same song within a couple of days apart.
I will be sticking to the Thunderbolt until at least half way through my contract (which will be two years) and maybe, MAYBE, I'll try and eBay it to upgrade at full retail if something seriously takes my breath away. Which I doubt, but will be open to.
Think of it this way: the LTE phones for 2011 are announced so no surprises there at least until 2012. By then a 1yr contract will be up so you don't even have to sell and buy full retail. You can sell and get a new phone for nearly free
.Just remember, you'll still be able to root Motorola phones and install, er, "unapproved" apps... but that's about as far as development goes for Moto phones. You won't be able to install custom unsigned ROMs, however
Just remember, you'll still be able to root Motorola phones and install, er, "unapproved" apps... but that's about as far as development goes for Moto phones. You won't be able to install custom unsigned ROMs, however
And rooting won't happen for a while either on Moto and will likely be a painful process. Just depends on what you want.
Bionic will have a PenTile display. PenTile is what currently is in the Galaxy S, and it makes text seem very jagged and not smooth. I am really not a fan, and prefer the regular RGB LCD on my wife's Droid X to my PenTile Fascinate.
I dont play games on the phone, so having a screen that displays text very well is extremely important.
Also, Tegra2 seems to have rather dubious battery life. Anandtech did a bit about battery testing on the Atrix, and it managed 5.25h of 3G browsing time on it's 1930 mah battery. The closest relative of Thunderbolt (mytouch 4g), which has same 1400 mah battery and same 45nm Snapdragon managed 4.88h on battery that is 29% smaller in capacity.
The Motorola Atrix 4G Preview - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
I dont play games on the phone, so having a screen that displays text very well is extremely important.
Also, Tegra2 seems to have rather dubious battery life. Anandtech did a bit about battery testing on the Atrix, and it managed 5.25h of 3G browsing time on it's 1930 mah battery. The closest relative of Thunderbolt (mytouch 4g), which has same 1400 mah battery and same 45nm Snapdragon managed 4.88h on battery that is 29% smaller in capacity.
The Motorola Atrix 4G Preview - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
The experience that the Bionic will give is a bunch of waiting to finally use the dual core's full capabilities.
LG Optimus 2X & NVIDIA Tegra 2 Review: The First Dual-Core Smartphone - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
This is hardly a scientific comparison, but I think it's pretty clear that the Bionic will have similar performance to the LG Optimus 2X, and I think it's pretty clear that the Thunderbolt will have similar performance to the MyTouch 4G. In both cases, the hardware is similar enough to draw some comparisons.
You can clearly see that pre-2.4, the performance of nVidia's Tegra is a bit ahead on average... but other than a couple of outliers, the performance appears to be no more than 20-30% higher. Now, that sounds impressive, but not 2x the power kind of impressive. That's what you get to wait 4 months for. Depending on the device you have now, this could be a pretty tough wait.
When 2.4 comes out this summer (let's assume pretty soon after the launch of Bionic), you get to wait for it to come out. Experience has shown this wait could be 2 months. So 6 months from now, your 2nd core will become better equipped to handle multiprocessor situations (and apparently a lot of multithreading specific APIs will open up).
Now, the 2nd core will certainly provide some benefit by taking care of background tasks while allowing your primary core to focus on foreground tasks. However, this is not where the majority of the benefit of dual core will show itself. You have to wait for app developers to begin implementing multithreading in their apps. Many app developers won't bother. Some new apps may come out with multithreading. In these apps, though, you can't expect any more than a 50% performance boost. Developers probably won't have apps for the phone that sport multithreading until at least a few months after 2.4 comes out.
So, you're left waiting for the phone, to wait for the next version of Android to come out, to wait for apps to come out to fully support your additional core. It could be 9, 10, or even 11 months from now!
While, if you choose the Thunderbolt, you get the still impressive power of Snapdragon immediately. Maybe you'll be itching to root, so that's a little bit of waiting. Once root happens, if you absolutely must have extra power, you can easily overclock the processor to 1.3GHz (and beyond) and nearly catch up to the power of the Bionic... before it's even released. And then the Bionic will have seemingly no advantage other than its higher resolution screen. It's very unlikely Bionic will have an unlocked boot loader, so the future of overclocking that processor does not look good.
One extra benefit of immediately(-ish *sigh verizon* ... release it already! ) getting the Thunderbolt is that you'll be eligible for an upgrade sooner than if you waited for the Bionic. And it just turns out that the second generation dual cores will come out 1H 2012... right when you're eligible for an upgrade from a 1-year contract. The second generation dual cores will be faster, significantly more energy efficient, and, best of all, will almost definitely sport Ice Cream. Not only that, but the multithreaded apps will be out there and useful.
It just seems to me that if you get a Bionic you will just experience the pains of being an early adopter. Of course, as long as you don't mind the locked bootloader (I do, very much so), the Bionic is going to still be a great phone. I expect it to have better battery life than a stock Thunderbolt and it will still be as fast as or faster than even overclocked Thunderbolts.
I guess I weigh getting a new phone NOW and enjoying it NOW as being more important than dual core. And the last thing I want is to have a locked down phone after I've been spoiled by how awesome a rooted phone is.
(wow, that got a lot bigger than I thought it would) ... inb4that'swhatshesaid. >_>
LG Optimus 2X & NVIDIA Tegra 2 Review: The First Dual-Core Smartphone - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
This is hardly a scientific comparison, but I think it's pretty clear that the Bionic will have similar performance to the LG Optimus 2X, and I think it's pretty clear that the Thunderbolt will have similar performance to the MyTouch 4G. In both cases, the hardware is similar enough to draw some comparisons.
You can clearly see that pre-2.4, the performance of nVidia's Tegra is a bit ahead on average... but other than a couple of outliers, the performance appears to be no more than 20-30% higher. Now, that sounds impressive, but not 2x the power kind of impressive. That's what you get to wait 4 months for. Depending on the device you have now, this could be a pretty tough wait.
When 2.4 comes out this summer (let's assume pretty soon after the launch of Bionic), you get to wait for it to come out. Experience has shown this wait could be 2 months. So 6 months from now, your 2nd core will become better equipped to handle multiprocessor situations (and apparently a lot of multithreading specific APIs will open up).
Now, the 2nd core will certainly provide some benefit by taking care of background tasks while allowing your primary core to focus on foreground tasks. However, this is not where the majority of the benefit of dual core will show itself. You have to wait for app developers to begin implementing multithreading in their apps. Many app developers won't bother. Some new apps may come out with multithreading. In these apps, though, you can't expect any more than a 50% performance boost. Developers probably won't have apps for the phone that sport multithreading until at least a few months after 2.4 comes out.
So, you're left waiting for the phone, to wait for the next version of Android to come out, to wait for apps to come out to fully support your additional core. It could be 9, 10, or even 11 months from now!
While, if you choose the Thunderbolt, you get the still impressive power of Snapdragon immediately. Maybe you'll be itching to root, so that's a little bit of waiting. Once root happens, if you absolutely must have extra power, you can easily overclock the processor to 1.3GHz (and beyond) and nearly catch up to the power of the Bionic... before it's even released. And then the Bionic will have seemingly no advantage other than its higher resolution screen. It's very unlikely Bionic will have an unlocked boot loader, so the future of overclocking that processor does not look good.
One extra benefit of immediately(-ish *sigh verizon* ... release it already!
) getting the Thunderbolt is that you'll be eligible for an upgrade sooner than if you waited for the Bionic. And it just turns out that the second generation dual cores will come out 1H 2012... right when you're eligible for an upgrade from a 1-year contract. The second generation dual cores will be faster, significantly more energy efficient, and, best of all, will almost definitely sport Ice Cream. Not only that, but the multithreaded apps will be out there and useful.It just seems to me that if you get a Bionic you will just experience the pains of being an early adopter. Of course, as long as you don't mind the locked bootloader (I do, very much so), the Bionic is going to still be a great phone. I expect it to have better battery life than a stock Thunderbolt and it will still be as fast as or faster than even overclocked Thunderbolts.
I guess I weigh getting a new phone NOW and enjoying it NOW as being more important than dual core. And the last thing I want is to have a locked down phone after I've been spoiled by how awesome a rooted phone is.
(wow, that got a lot bigger than I thought it would) ... inb4that'swhatshesaid. >_>
Well I have owned quite a few Motorola products over the years.
When I dumped by BB and went to Android I got the original Droid. I loved it and with all the custom developers I loved it even more.
Then the Droid X came out and of course I had to have it. Then found out about the locked bootloader and the inability to run unsigned custom rom kernels. Yeah, we have some good ROMS out there but no where near what they could be.
And then when they updated the bootloader on their OTA update and bricked a buttload of phones just because they could, turned me off on Motorola.
And with the Bionic, Motorola has had more time to lock it down even more.
Having said that, unless they completely do a 180 and make it easier to customize the phone instead of locking it up like Fort Knox, the Droid X WAS my last Motorola phone.
Some of the motoblur was good and some wasn't. Don't know much about the HTC Sense but from what i have seen on my family and friends phones, doesn't look too bad. And with HTC phone openess, I am sure it won't be long before we have custom ROMS with or without Sense. Oh the choices.
Motorola makes a rock solid product, but until they get rid of their corporate arrogance, I just can't justify supporting them any longer.
That's my 2 cents!
When I dumped by BB and went to Android I got the original Droid. I loved it and with all the custom developers I loved it even more.
Then the Droid X came out and of course I had to have it. Then found out about the locked bootloader and the inability to run unsigned custom rom kernels. Yeah, we have some good ROMS out there but no where near what they could be.
And then when they updated the bootloader on their OTA update and bricked a buttload of phones just because they could, turned me off on Motorola.
And with the Bionic, Motorola has had more time to lock it down even more.
Having said that, unless they completely do a 180 and make it easier to customize the phone instead of locking it up like Fort Knox, the Droid X WAS my last Motorola phone.
Some of the motoblur was good and some wasn't. Don't know much about the HTC Sense but from what i have seen on my family and friends phones, doesn't look too bad. And with HTC phone openess, I am sure it won't be long before we have custom ROMS with or without Sense. Oh the choices.
Motorola makes a rock solid product, but until they get rid of their corporate arrogance, I just can't justify supporting them any longer.
That's my 2 cents!
The 24th will be here soon enough. I know people have been anticipating it with great anxiety, but geeze people it is a phone ! You are going to have it soon. Just think about it for a minute. You have a phone right? and it is working for you right? there are many people out there who don't even have a decent phone or a job for that matter. Feel good about what you have, be be thankful for what you HAVE. I have a great phone, but I have lost my job....and am trying to be thankful for what I do have and hope I find a job soon so I don't LOSE everything I have. Sorry, but am really tired of seeing the whining about a phone not being released yet. It is ridiculous. It will be here and it will be awesome.
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