Upgrade before July 7th, Thunderbolt or Charge?

[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

 

[iLLusive]

Dev community is larger right now but Charge is a newer phone. I have tested both out and had Thunderbolt since release. Also far as Dev stuff goes one of the better Incredible devs is moving over to Thunderbolt who had a ton of amazing work you can see post on XDA forums.

That being said here is my weight points

1. Charge has better screen Samsung has more years experience in high end displays
2. They both get similar battery life. Charge forums will claim they get more , we will claim we get more / similar. If you look at numerous quality reviews you will see that both Thunderbolt & Revolution beat out by a large margin on battery life test.
3. Charge has physical buttons - Plus to some yet not to everyone
4. Charge has HDMI
5. Charge weights roughly 1 oz less but is Wider & Taller by a touch
6. Charge does not utliize DNLA
7. Charge has less ram 512mb compared to 768mb
8. Built in store is only 2gb compared to 8gb of TB which shows around 3-5gb after OS

Same quality cameras, same speed processor, same 720p video recording, both mobile hotspot. TB offers dual LED flash where Charge is only single.

So if you want a crisper / brighter screen with decent features go with Charge.

If you want a phone with company who is in processes of LISTENING to their customers and unlocking bootloaders to promote mods and rooting. As well as larger mod community right now with company in HTC who has much better history and track record of pushing OTA Android OS updates to phones you would want the Thunderbolt.

Both are great phones both have flaws and for what we know right now TB will be getting possibly GB and access to all that is GB as well as Netflix much sooner then Charge. Choice is up to you but if you don't take my word for it google some reviews they will tell you very similar information.

 

[Dr. Gero]

Thanks for the help. I guess I'll just have to do some research on the Modding of each and compare side by side at the store. Hopefully its easier than my DX to root and flash. This thing was a pain, especially compared to the OG Droid.

 

[Vance14]

FWIW, here is what I wrote when I bought my TB a month or so ago:

. . .

I should note that I bought my TB just recently, so I was fully aware of the battery issues and 4G issues, and was not blindsided by them (which I can imagine pissed a lot of you off). These negatives factored into my decision, and I still bought it over the DINC2, Charge, DX2 and even the elusive Bionic superphone. Here were my reasons:

1. Build quality. HTC just makes great hardware. My wife and daughter have DINC's, which have been great. The heft, the balance, the "fit and finish", all terrific.

2. I don't want physical buttons. Two of my other choices, the Charge and DX2 come with hardware buttons, not capacitive. I know it is a personal preference, but I prefer capacitive.

3. RAM. The extra RAM that comes in the TB was a MAJOR selling point. Coming from the cramped D1, I may be prejudiced toward more RAM, and maybe it is a placebo effect, but I just think it all moves more smoothly and will handle multiple tasks better.

4. Dual core not fully optimized. I decided that the extra RAM was more important than the dual core in the DX2 . . . for now. Maybe in a year or more when the firmware and apps are optimized for dual core it will be a deciding factor.

5. Sense UI over other skins. While I immediately put Launcher Pro on my TB, all of the "innards" of the UI are still going to be visible and if I can't have vanilla Android, I prefer Sense to the other two skins.

6. Battery life manageable. I did enough reading to know that with a few adjustments (such as the Blockbuster issue), I would likely be able to make the battery workable for me.

So, even with the known issues (including the reboot, of which I have luckily only had a few, and expect this to get fixed anyway), I could not be happier with my TB. I am sure I made the right choice for this time and place.

 

[z71kris]

Dev community is larger right now but Charge is a newer phone. I have tested both out and had Thunderbolt since release. Also far as Dev stuff goes one of the better Incredible devs is moving over to Thunderbolt who had a ton of amazing work you can see post on XDA forums.

That being said here is my weight points

1. Charge has better screen Samsung has more years experience in high end displays
2. They both get similar battery life. Charge forums will claim they get more , we will claim we get more / similar. If you look at numerous quality reviews you will see that both Thunderbolt & Revolution beat out by a large margin on battery life test.
3. Charge has physical buttons - Plus to some yet not to everyone
4. Charge has HDMI
5. Charge weights roughly 1 oz less but is Wider & Taller by a touch
6. Charge does not utliize DNLA
7. Charge has less ram 512mb compared to 768mb
8. Built in store is only 2gb compared to 8gb of TB which shows around 3-5gb after OS

Same quality cameras, same speed processor, same 720p video recording, both mobile hotspot. TB offers dual LED flash where Charge is only single.

So if you want a crisper / brighter screen with decent features go with Charge.

If you want a phone with company who is in processes of LISTENING to their customers and unlocking bootloaders to promote mods and rooting. As well as larger mod community right now with company in HTC who has much better history and track record of pushing OTA Android OS updates to phones you would want the Thunderbolt.

Both are great phones both have flaws and for what we know right now TB will be getting possibly GB and access to all that is GB as well as Netflix much sooner then Charge. Choice is up to you but if you don't take my word for it google some reviews they will tell you very similar information.

Many of the reasons I got my bolt...

 

[coolbreeze]

Many of the reasons I got my bolt...

Agreed. it is a great phone. A few quirks, but an awesome phone none the less.

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

Thanks for the help. I guess I'll just have to do some research on the Modding of each and compare side by side at the store. Hopefully its easier than my DX to root and flash. This thing was a pain, especially compared to the OG Droid.

It's not that difficult at all, thanks to some of the auto-root packages put together by the good folks here and over at XDA. The process does wipe all your data however, so if it's something you plan to do, better to do it sooner rather than later. Assuming you don't accidentally flash a non-rooted RUU after that, the process is permanent as well, so you only have to do it once.

Once you've done the process and obtained root access, flashing is easy, IMO

 

[RJSAdvisors]

FWIW, here is what I wrote when I bought my TB a month or so ago:

. . .

I should note that I bought my TB just recently, so I was fully aware of the battery issues and 4G issues, and was not blindsided by them (which I can imagine pissed a lot of you off). These negatives factored into my decision, and I still bought it over the DINC2, Charge, DX2 and even the elusive Bionic superphone. Here were my reasons:

1. Build quality. HTC just makes great hardware. My wife and daughter have DINC's, which have been great. The heft, the balance, the "fit and finish", all terrific.

2. I don't want physical buttons. Two of my other choices, the Charge and DX2 come with hardware buttons, not capacitive. I know it is a personal preference, but I prefer capacitive.

3. RAM. The extra RAM that comes in the TB was a MAJOR selling point. Coming from the cramped D1, I may be prejudiced toward more RAM, and maybe it is a placebo effect, but I just think it all moves more smoothly and will handle multiple tasks better.

4. Dual core not fully optimized. I decided that the extra RAM was more important than the dual core in the DX2 . . . for now. Maybe in a year or more when the firmware and apps are optimized for dual core it will be a deciding factor.

5. Sense UI over other skins. While I immediately put Launcher Pro on my TB, all of the "innards" of the UI are still going to be visible and if I can't have vanilla Android, I prefer Sense to the other two skins.

6. Battery life manageable. I did enough reading to know that with a few adjustments (such as the Blockbuster issue), I would likely be able to make the battery workable for me.

So, even with the known issues (including the reboot, of which I have luckily only had a few, and expect this to get fixed anyway), I could not be happier with my TB. I am sure I made the right choice for this time and place.

My neighbor just got the Samsung Charge and brought it over to compare with my Tbolt. I still prefer my Tbolt for a variety of reasons, but I have to admit the Charge's screen is gorgeous, and the Charge's battery seemed to last pretty well while we were playing around with it extensively for a couple hours.

I much prefer the Tbolt's shape with a straight line base rather than the curved rounded bottom on the Charge, but I absolutely love the Tbolt's Kickstand most of all. No other phone from HTC or anyone else has anything quite like it, and I use it almost every day at lunch when reading the news or email. Its also great for viewing videos. It looks like HTC is not putting similar kickstands on their new phones for some reason, perhaps because it cuts into space that would otherwise allow for a larger battery.

I also prefer the HTC sense over what the Samsung Charge has and the fact the Tbolt has a double flash for flash photos. I have not had any reboots at all, and my battery life is manageable now that I have made some adjustments. I also have chargers everywhere for it (home, office, car) and charge it whenever I can.