So frustrated with the Thunderbolt

[cwescapexlt4x4]

So 3 days into the TB and honestly, I am about to return it.
- battery life (i knew coming into it, it was less than idea - but by 3pm (not heavy use) it was needing charge and then shortly was critically low.
- Bluetooth pairing (or lack there of..) with my vehicle. It's not the car, had ZERO issues with my Motorola Droid and having to turn off the BT, then turn back on and then telling the car to pair (the only way the TB will pair after the 1st pair after re-boot) is unacceptable and really for as pricey of a phone ... come on.
- Ring tones aren't loud enough and when I have downloaded others I can't seem to use them.

Today is the make or break for the TB with me, if you have advise on these issues i would love to hear and maybe help keep the TB. Man I wish the Bionic hadn't had the troubles and was due anytime.....

 

[Nate1861]

The upcoming update will help with battery life. If you are also in a 3G area, near a 4G area, it helps a LOT to turn off the 4G radio till it rolls out to your area. As far as the Bluetooth pairing, it connects to my Infiniti just fine the time every time. I don't have any complaints about the volume of the ringtones personally.

 

[broadwayblues]

Take it back to the store, with your complaints, they might offer you an extended battery at a reduced price.
It really is a good phone, it just needs a couple of things ironed out, which I am sure will be taken care of an update soon.

 

[FrankXS]

Best bet is to not keep it just because someone here soothed your fears with a "everything will be alright" speech. Really, 2 years is a long time for a contract - even 1 year if you got a 1 year contract.

With that said, here's my story...

-It's the only 4G phone on VZW. I wouldn't buy anything else. I'll hang in there for the growing pains as I'm confident they'll be addressed.
-I bought the Extended Battery so I never have to worry about that.
-Although I personally have not yet paired with my car (not very important to me) there have been no noteworthy complaints about that. Hopefully you can solve any issues there.
-No one has had any undue issues with the native phone ringtones. Some imported ringtones have been reported to be lower volume, but most of these folks were able to fix the volume by modifying the ringtone.

I think it's the best phone VZW has right now.

-Frank

 

[PsYcHoNeWb]

Battery life I have found gets better over time. I can basically use mine all day with pretty much moderate to heavy use from texting. As far as the ringtones and bluetooth goes, I think the ringtones are loud enough I mean how loud do you need them to be? I agree they aren't as loud as the Droid was, but its loud enough to get your attention. Bluetooth I have not had the time to play around with but honestly I could be the car too. I have a MB C300 and the bluetooth in the car HATED my DroidX but loved my BlackBerry and Incredible. Haven't had time to link this phone to it but I will give it a try today and let you know.

 

[JakesPrePlus]

I would suggest giving it a few more days. Battery life has gotten so much better over time that it's now perfectly acceptable for me. I don't know what to tell you about the bluetooth issue but my ringer is at half volume and I don't have any trouble hearing it.

That being said, if the Thunderbolt isn't for you, then it's just not for you. But, when you have 14 days to try it, it's best to take advantage of all the time you have just to make sure.

 

[PsYcHoNeWb]

The other thing that you need to consider for battery life is the use of apps like task managers. If you phone is stock (unrooted) and you use an app killer, you will actually waste more battery by using it. Every time you kill tasks, the bloatware apps verizon puts on the phone automatically load back up and that actually wastes more battery than just letting them run idle.

One suggestion that I will recommend is root your phone (if you decide to keep it of course) and follow the guides on this forum how to remove the bloatware and I have noticed a good improvement in battery life.

One thing I want to ask is what are your setting in regards to screen brightness, timeout, and apps being used during the day?

Edit: Also, you mentioned the Bionic, as much as this battery life is bad, how good do you think a phone with a dual core tegra2 processor will be? I mean I know Motorola is better when it comes to making batteries but in my current experience, my Thunderbolt only has slightly less battery life than the Droid X did. So take the Droid X, add 4G and a dual core CPU and I have a feeling battery life may be just as bad if not worse than the TB.

 

[dd0yl3]

Whatever works best for you

I agree with FrankXS, if the phone doesnt work to you likings then return it. two years is to long to be with a phone you just dont like. I have had the thunderbolt for two weeks now. I had take my first back because of signal issues, but second works like a champ. it definitly is the best phone on VZW right now. I would wait at least until right before the return deadline to make your finally decision. once you tweak everything to the way that works for you, it might make like it.

 

[damule6666]

Aside from the expected batt life shortage i am absolutely loving mine!!
And im finding the batt life gets better with a few charge and discharges..

But by no means hang on to a device that your not happy with, just use the 14 days to make up your mind..

 

[h2opoloplyr_11]

So 3 days into the TB and honestly, I am about to return it.
- battery life (i knew coming into it, it was less than idea - but by 3pm (not heavy use) it was needing charge and then shortly was critically low.
- Bluetooth pairing (or lack there of..) with my vehicle. It's not the car, had ZERO issues with my Motorola Droid and having to turn off the BT, then turn back on and then telling the car to pair (the only way the TB will pair after the 1st pair after re-boot) is unacceptable and really for as pricey of a phone ... come on.
- Ring tones aren't loud enough and when I have downloaded others I can't seem to use them.

Today is the make or break for the TB with me, if you have advise on these issues i would love to hear and maybe help keep the TB. Man I wish the Bionic hadn't had the troubles and was due anytime.....

As the others have said, this is truly an awesome phone!!! There will be issues with it, every phone that is released always have had issues for the first couple of months. But here's my 2 cents.

- 4g will eat up your battery, and if you only live in 3g area, its even worse, as the phone is constantly searching for 4g signal. Turn off 4g if youre only in a 3g area. (apps available in marketplace for this). And i have the extended battery as well. Not as bad on the looks department.....and it does add a bit of weight, but to me now it seems like a quality phone, instead of a light toy feeling. And i am a heavy user, gps on at all times (mobile recovery app with 30 min refresh for gps location), heavy texter, browsing throughout the day to this forum and other sites, FB refresh at 1 hour, etc. usually unplugged for 15+ hrs with awake time of around 9+ hours, and before going to bed im usually hovering at 30% - 50%

- I have it paired with my car and my bluetooth dog tag stereo headset, both works well. what i do is turn on bluetooth on the phone first (through the power widget), wait until the icon shows up, and then turn the bluetooth on my dog tag. and it works. For the car, as soon as i get in, turn on, while warming up, turn bluetooth on, and it connects.

- Stock ringtones are definitely not loud.....on my DX i could never hear the "Drooooiiidddd" text tone.... usually ringtones on the web are much better with volume. I currently have the power rangers ringtone, and at half volume, its still stupid loud! and have one of my mp3 songs as a ringtone and is equally loud. So its definitely the stock tones.

Also, make sure when you download ringtones, you can play it with the music player > hit menu > more > set as ringtone.

I can understand your frustration, but its ultimately your choice whether you want to keep it or not. If it frustrates you that much, then by all means its not for you. IMHO, this is by far the best VZW phone, and ever since using 4g, i wont ever change to a 3g phone. And HTC and VZW are working on the updates for phone, and have heard that they are usually fast in pushing that out. Unlike other phone manufacturers.....samsung.... lol

 

[Accrete]

first i hope things work out for you in whatever decision you make.

My wife and i are on day 5 of having our Tbolts. Both still stock.

As a test I turned off all gps/location and blockbuster type stuff on mine. Kept hers exactly as VZW gave it to us off the showroom. 5 days in and mine has at least double the useful battery life doing just about the same _stuff_ as she is doing on her phone. We are both very happy with the phone.

 

[Daniel0418]

So 3 days into the TB and honestly, I am about to return it.
- battery life (i knew coming into it, it was less than idea - but by 3pm (not heavy use) it was needing charge and then shortly was critically low.
- Bluetooth pairing (or lack there of..) with my vehicle. It's not the car, had ZERO issues with my Motorola Droid and having to turn off the BT, then turn back on and then telling the car to pair (the only way the TB will pair after the 1st pair after re-boot) is unacceptable and really for as pricey of a phone ... come on.
- Ring tones aren't loud enough and when I have downloaded others I can't seem to use them.

Today is the make or break for the TB with me, if you have advise on these issues i would love to hear and maybe help keep the TB. Man I wish the Bionic hadn't had the troubles and was due anytime.....

As for the bluetooth thing, that sucks and it sounds to me like your SOL unless someone has a fix. HTCs stance is that Bluetooth manufacturers make peripherals to work with hardware, not the other way around.

As for battery, the first whole week is bad. The phone needs to die and fully charge some 5-10 times before it is usable. My first week I hated the battery but now I get through a day with 4G on.


Ringtones not being loud enough sounds like a hardware issue. Might want to replace the phone for that one. My phone ringtones almost seem too loud at times I keep it around 50% when indoors and only 75% when iutdoors. So I think this is a hardware defect for you and you might want to replace it.

 

[tekhna]

I'm getting fantastic battery life. If you're getting abysmal battery life, it's probably improper tweaking. They could, and should have put a bigger battery in, but there's a way to make it work. If you signed a 2-year contract, return it. If you've got a one-year, figure out ways to make it work. This is a fantastic phone for a year. In two years it'll be painful.

 

[skinnytoo2]

The extended battery is a small price to pay to be able to utilize the full potential of the TB. I absolutely love mine!

 

[Groucho]

Why would you start a thread like this? It has been done over and over. Take it back and try something else. Despite thus being an amazing device and the best I have owned in ten years of smartphone use it us not for you.

 

[DroidXcon]

Why would you start a thread like this? It has been done over and over. Take it back and try something else. Despite thus being an amazing device and the best I have owned in ten years of smartphone use it us not for you.

+1 take it back i completely agree, thats what i plan on doing asap. very underwhelmed.

 

[chuckh0308]

Hmmm, don't know why you would have trouble connecting via BT. I have a Pioneer HU in my car and it took me just a couple minutes to get the TB setup with it and since then it has connected reliably and solidly every time. In contrast, my BB's before took over an hour to get all happy with the HU and then they would get confused or something and sometimes have trouble connecting. Not to mention it took a lot longer for the connection to take place when it did work...lol!

Anyway, it sounds to me like maybe you might have a bad TB? You might tell us what kind of stereo/car it is and maybe someone else has experience with that specific model? Otherwise, I would see if you can exchange it and try another unit.

As for ringtones, I got mine loaded and they work fine. I make my own though and I loaded them directly from my computer.

 

[anon(247108)]

So 3 days into the TB and honestly, I am about to return it.
- battery life (i knew coming into it, it was less than idea - but by 3pm (not heavy use) it was needing charge and then shortly was critically low.
- Bluetooth pairing (or lack there of..) with my vehicle. It's not the car, had ZERO issues with my Motorola Droid and having to turn off the BT, then turn back on and then telling the car to pair (the only way the TB will pair after the 1st pair after re-boot) is unacceptable and really for as pricey of a phone ... come on.
- Ring tones aren't loud enough and when I have downloaded others I can't seem to use them.

Today is the make or break for the TB with me, if you have advise on these issues i would love to hear and maybe help keep the TB. Man I wish the Bionic hadn't had the troubles and was due anytime.....

HAve paired both my wife and my car and have not experienced the issue you are having. There is a window that comes up at the end of the pairing process that asks if you want to accept the connection. there is a check box for always accept or some such. Have you checked that? If you do, then the phone will automatically pair once you get in the car. Works great with both our phones on both our cars.

Sounds like these are a bunch of hardware issues and I would return for a new phone or a different one.

 

[sammy303]

You haven't provided us enough information to help you. What have you done to improve battery life? Did you remove live wallpaper? Do you have al the radios on all the time? What sync schedule do you have set up? How many emails, applications, etc...

What car are you trying to pair with?

BTW, my battery will last all day and I only needed to pair with my car once.

 

[anon(3653)]

I am loving my Bolt! I knew about the battery issues going into it and have bought the extended battery. I found that to be the best decision.

Sent from my Thunderbolt.