Hey guys,
LOVE THIS PHONE!!
Just wanted to say a few things as I am sure you may have glanced by a thread in which I stated that I was returning my 2 Thunderbolts. I figured I would share my experience with the device to help some people on the fence of returning or buying this phone, and maybe answer some questions to boot.
I'm quite sure I'll get a "cool story bro" out of this post so "up yours" in advance
Anyway, let me start by saying that I am in an extended 4G area and went to bed one night with the battery at around 60% and woke to about 4%. After this, I only gave the phone a day or so, and was unhappy with a few things mainly the battery. I didn't like that the power button did not stick up too far, and also didn't care for the engineering whereas its easy to hit the volume rocker when trying to hit the power button. Also didn't care for the fact that it could not be put on the kickstand while charging. (i will state the pro's and the things I like later on in this thread - which FAR outweigh the con's).
OK, so.... I was so determined to return the phone due to these things that I actually called 611 and had both phones shut off and activated my old Droid X's. Then THANKS to this great forum and people here I learned about the *#*#4636#*#* trick, and decided to give it a try. I QUICKLY learned after calling 611 again that once a SIM card is deactivated it can not be activated again.... SHEESH! Back to the store to get 2 SIM cards to reactivate and try this 3G trick. Charged them both back up and put them in 3G. Standby and usage times both increased dramatically, and 3G actually seemed faster than on my X's. After a couple days I kept seeing better and better battery life as the battery I guess got broken in and "conditioned" to my usage style.
This basically brings me to today where I had 15 hours of uptime and still 52% battery. Granted ALOT of this was idle time, but under load the phone still has a great battery life. Compared to my X with an 8 month old battery anyway. I got used to my current battery time with the X so anything similar or above is fine for me. I don't expect anything more.
I did alot of tests (none of them technical) now that its been a few days. I charged my X and the Tbolt up and let them both sit on WIFI overnight. Woke up and the X was at 92% while the Tbolt stayed at 99%.
I used both devices exactly the same for an hour and I have to be honest, I do not remember the exact numbers but the Tbolt came out ahead by at least 5-8% greater battery life than the X. I just remember that I was impressed.
Now as far as the pro's go, the negatives mentioned above are mainly all hardware and will never change, but the pro's in my opinion are:
Speed (blows anything I have used away) Very "snappy" phone.
Sense (my first sense/HTC device) love it!
Construction and feel in the hand
Battery (yes i said it!)
Screen (so vivid it looks fake)
KICKSTAND (never realized how much I would use it till getting it)
4G (my work area is covered)
Copy/Paste/Text selection implementation is ABOVE AND BEYOND Motorola's
4G hot spot
And a few more that I'm sure is eluding me at the moment.
It is beyond me why HTC, or Verizon did not include a 3G/4G toggle at launch. This would have saved me a big headache, and I hope I'm wrong, but would have saved them coulntless returns of this beast as well....
Like I said, Just wanted to give back to this community and express my experience with the Tbolt.
Your mileage WILL vary and this is just my opinion/experience. GET THIS PHONE, you will not be disappointed. I was WORRIED big time that the bionic would come out and I would be upset that I used my upgrade on this phone.... Now, I could care less. As long as I love my current phone I really don't much care what comes out, and this is the case here.
Sorry so long, thanks for reading!
LOVE THIS PHONE!!
Just wanted to say a few things as I am sure you may have glanced by a thread in which I stated that I was returning my 2 Thunderbolts. I figured I would share my experience with the device to help some people on the fence of returning or buying this phone, and maybe answer some questions to boot.
I'm quite sure I'll get a "cool story bro" out of this post so "up yours" in advance
Anyway, let me start by saying that I am in an extended 4G area and went to bed one night with the battery at around 60% and woke to about 4%. After this, I only gave the phone a day or so, and was unhappy with a few things mainly the battery. I didn't like that the power button did not stick up too far, and also didn't care for the engineering whereas its easy to hit the volume rocker when trying to hit the power button. Also didn't care for the fact that it could not be put on the kickstand while charging. (i will state the pro's and the things I like later on in this thread - which FAR outweigh the con's).
OK, so.... I was so determined to return the phone due to these things that I actually called 611 and had both phones shut off and activated my old Droid X's. Then THANKS to this great forum and people here I learned about the *#*#4636#*#* trick, and decided to give it a try. I QUICKLY learned after calling 611 again that once a SIM card is deactivated it can not be activated again.... SHEESH! Back to the store to get 2 SIM cards to reactivate and try this 3G trick. Charged them both back up and put them in 3G. Standby and usage times both increased dramatically, and 3G actually seemed faster than on my X's. After a couple days I kept seeing better and better battery life as the battery I guess got broken in and "conditioned" to my usage style.
This basically brings me to today where I had 15 hours of uptime and still 52% battery. Granted ALOT of this was idle time, but under load the phone still has a great battery life. Compared to my X with an 8 month old battery anyway. I got used to my current battery time with the X so anything similar or above is fine for me. I don't expect anything more.
I did alot of tests (none of them technical) now that its been a few days. I charged my X and the Tbolt up and let them both sit on WIFI overnight. Woke up and the X was at 92% while the Tbolt stayed at 99%.
I used both devices exactly the same for an hour and I have to be honest, I do not remember the exact numbers but the Tbolt came out ahead by at least 5-8% greater battery life than the X. I just remember that I was impressed.
Now as far as the pro's go, the negatives mentioned above are mainly all hardware and will never change, but the pro's in my opinion are:
Speed (blows anything I have used away) Very "snappy" phone.
Sense (my first sense/HTC device) love it!
Construction and feel in the hand
Battery (yes i said it!)
Screen (so vivid it looks fake)
KICKSTAND (never realized how much I would use it till getting it)
4G (my work area is covered)
Copy/Paste/Text selection implementation is ABOVE AND BEYOND Motorola's
4G hot spot
And a few more that I'm sure is eluding me at the moment.
It is beyond me why HTC, or Verizon did not include a 3G/4G toggle at launch. This would have saved me a big headache, and I hope I'm wrong, but would have saved them coulntless returns of this beast as well....
Like I said, Just wanted to give back to this community and express my experience with the Tbolt.
Your mileage WILL vary and this is just my opinion/experience. GET THIS PHONE, you will not be disappointed. I was WORRIED big time that the bionic would come out and I would be upset that I used my upgrade on this phone.... Now, I could care less. As long as I love my current phone I really don't much care what comes out, and this is the case here.
Sorry so long, thanks for reading!
Last edited:
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