Upgrade before July 7th, Charge or Thunderbolt?

[Dr. Gero]

I'm looking to upgrade a LTE phone on Verizon very soon, so I can get the $30 unlimited plan before they get rid of it. Only problem is I can't decide between the Thunderbolt or the Droid Charge. Personally I'm leaning towards the TBolt a little bit, partially because the dev community seems larger. I'm currently using a rooted Droid X with Liberty 2.0.1.

So what does everyone think? I've never had an HTC or Samsung phone so either way will be a new experience for me, but I'm just not sure. Is one easier/harder to root or flash than the other? How about the build quality?

Any help would be great

 

[DroidXcon]

I'm looking to upgrade a LTE phone on Verizon very soon, so I can get the $30 unlimited plan before they get rid of it. Only problem is I can't decide between the Thunderbolt or the Droid Charge. Personally I'm leaning towards the TBolt a little bit, partially because the dev community seems larger. I'm currently using a rooted Droid X with Liberty 2.0.1.

So what does everyone think? I've never had an HTC or Samsung phone so either way will be a new experience for me, but I'm just not sure. Is one easier/harder to root or flash than the other? How about the build quality?

Any help would be great

I wrote the autoroot script posted in the Thunderbolt section , that phone is a pain as far as rooting and maintaining root ., and its a heavy brick of a phone, im so happy i got rid of it. i dont have much good to say about the thunderbolt. so ill leave it at that

 

[Dr. Gero]

Hmm. Thanks, I'll take that into consideration. I don't really mind the size of the phone, but that does bother me if it's harder to root.

 

[DroidXcon]

Hmm. Thanks, I'll take that into consideration. I don't really mind the size of the phone, but that does bother me if it's harder to root.

at the very least it takes about 15 to 20 mins to root the thunderbolt not including the time that it takes to download the files.

i can have the charge rooted in under 3 mins including downloads well maybe 5 mins including boot up time of the phone

 

[halbinath]

I was in the same position but I dove in when I heard they were gonna change pricing at the beggining of summer. Bought the charge mainly for the screen and the battery life, plus I had not seen anything really negative about it. Also this was my absolute first android as I came from blackberry and I was able to follow directions and rooted the phone with no trouble at all. Plus I see thunderbolt users at work sporting that big lump extended battery, not a fan!

 

[rescueswimmer]

Play with both side by side. I had my mind made up when I went to the store. I wanted the Thunderbolt. I was leaving with a thunderbolt. After all Samsung's don't get updates etc etc. Wow this thunderbolt is kind of big, like the kickstand. Sense is pretty cool. Wow the screen is kind of hard to see outside with the brightness turned up. It must be a touchscreen thing since my crappy LG has the same problem. Sales guy, "Have you checked out the CHARGE" Nope. Brought it over to me and it was perfectly readable even with 100% sun shining on it. Wow that is nice, but I came here to buy the TB.

So back inside I went and fiddled with both phones. They both do the same thing, The display on the Charge is like I had ever seen on a phone. It was like watching HD tv for the first time. With the Charge brightness at 40% The TB had to be set at 100% and still could not match the brightness. It was so much lighter and skinnier. Oh did I mention it gets 2-3x the battery life of the TB.

So I picked up the charge and I can say that I have been more than delighted. XCon and Keljar have put out some sweet roms etc. I had never hacked my phone before and after about an hour's worth of reading and rereading. I feel as far as using ODIN and CVM I can do what ever needs to be done.

Pick up the charge play with it. It is far superior to anything that is offered in VZ's line up as of today.

Like I said I wanted the TB and damn well I ended up with the CHARGE.

 

[richardpandy]

Had 6 thunderbolts, went to the charge, won't look back.

 

[s14tat]

Build quality is not even the same for both phones. You hear a lot of smack talk from HTC owners saying how Samsung phones feels cheap and plasticky and how their phones feels so expensive and well built. Well Samsung phones have a lot less issues. The HTC phones usually get light leakage due to screen seperation, or flaking kick stand, dead pixels on screen, dust build up under the screen. Samsung has non of those problems. Yeah samsung are cheaply built *sarcasm*

 

[MaxBuck2]

I'm glad I got the Charge. Display quality is so important for my 60-year-old eyes, and nothing compares to the Charge's screen. It performs well in every other way, also.

 

[jpog]

Went with the Charge and love it...at first I was leaning towards the TB because of RAM sense and the metal case but after reading a crap load of reviews the math showed the Charge was just better..less problems and so on. Its actually a pretty amazing phone.

 

[Dr. Gero]

Wow thanks everyone. I'll have to do some more research and compare side by side to see which I like more. At you guys responded. I put this same question in the Thunderbolt forums and only got 1 reply

 

[Anderain]

Wow thanks everyone. I'll have to do some more research and compare side by side to see which I like more. At you guys responded. I put this same question in the Thunderbolt forums and only got 1 reply

Probably because everyone who had a Thunderbolt now has a Charge, so there is no one left to post in that forum!

 

[testt]

Probably because everyone who had a Thunderbolt now has a Charge, so there is no one left to post in that forum!

I'm curious if that's gonna happen to the Charge. Also, I'm worried about Samsung updating this phone, as we've heard nothing about Gingerbread. Touchwiz 4?

 

[NickA]

I'm curious if that's gonna happen to the Charge. Also, I'm worried about Samsung updating this phone, as we've heard nothing about Gingerbread. Touchwiz 4?

I can tell you that waiting for updates was one of the most frustrating things with the Fascinate. Maybe they both (vzw and sammy) learned something from it. I thought I read a chart a while back that said HTC was the quickest to update the OS on their phones.

 

[Halcyon]

I can tell you that waiting for updates was one of the most frustrating things with the Fascinate. Maybe they both (vzw and saImmy) learned something from it. I thought I read a chart a while back that said HTC was the quickest to update the OS on their phones.

Charge's had 2 updates it's been out I'd say it's doing good on updates.

 

[jkeene81]

I just dont understand these reviews saying that Sammy phones feel cheap, what the heck do these guys do with their phones that they need to be this tough??? I love this phone, the screen has to be seen to be believed and everyone that has messed with it is blown away. Not to mention not one person has said, wow this phone feels cheap!! After all the reports of reboot, screen, update, battery, and 4g issues why would anyone want the thunderbolt? (Someone with a thunderbolt is going to be trolling and spot this post )

 

[I Peench]

Just snagged the Charge from Costco on sale for 180. Absolutely pumped. Total smartphone newbie so I'll be figuring this thing out all weekend. Wanted to get that unlimited data before the 7th. I'll have 90 days as per Costcos return policy to swap it out for another phone.

 

[thejson]

definitely charge with the screen.