After 2 weeks I have returned the thunderbolt and exchanged it for an iPhone. Coming from an AT&T iPhone 3g I had great hopes for the Thunderbolt! The fast LTE network, simultaneous talk/data, Android flexibility and better VZ network. Based on the reviews I expected to have to do soma power management, but thought that a bit of power management would be an acceptable tradeoff. Here are my conclusions:
Issues (in rough order of criticality):
• Battery life – after spending way to much time trying to optimize the battery, including dropping back to 3g and 20% screen brightness, all I could get was about 6 hrs standby and 2 hrs usage. This is simply not acceptable and the one thing that can’t be overcome as it seems to be due to a power hungry screen.
• Stability – I had issues with exchange sync, mail crashes, weather channel crashing and wifi/4g switching. Overall I am concerned about the stability
• Application quality – overall I found the Android applications to be of lesser quality and functionality that the iPhone. i.e. CNBC application.
• Visual voicemail quality – very poor, and they charge you for it
• Speakerphone quality – poor
• Operation is not quit as smooth as iPhone and at times the touch seems to have a mind of its own
• It is a bit large
Good stuff:
• LTE is very fast and available in my area (DC)
• Talk and data at the same time works well {and is important to me}
• Overall I liked Android
• The screen is very nice
• Reception is very nice – clear and large
• Voice quality good, but not quite as good as the iPhone
• There are a lot of applications available
So, I am an iPhone user again- upgraded to iPhone 4. I spent way to much time trying to accommodate and debug the Thunderbolt and am not sure I would be happy with it even with some of the great features. I’m sure some of these issues could be overcome, but the weight of the evidence seemed against it. I am technically savvy and have used smart phones for years. I post this for information only – it is my personal experience.
Issues (in rough order of criticality):
• Battery life – after spending way to much time trying to optimize the battery, including dropping back to 3g and 20% screen brightness, all I could get was about 6 hrs standby and 2 hrs usage. This is simply not acceptable and the one thing that can’t be overcome as it seems to be due to a power hungry screen.
• Stability – I had issues with exchange sync, mail crashes, weather channel crashing and wifi/4g switching. Overall I am concerned about the stability
• Application quality – overall I found the Android applications to be of lesser quality and functionality that the iPhone. i.e. CNBC application.
• Visual voicemail quality – very poor, and they charge you for it
• Speakerphone quality – poor
• Operation is not quit as smooth as iPhone and at times the touch seems to have a mind of its own
• It is a bit large
Good stuff:
• LTE is very fast and available in my area (DC)
• Talk and data at the same time works well {and is important to me}
• Overall I liked Android
• The screen is very nice
• Reception is very nice – clear and large
• Voice quality good, but not quite as good as the iPhone
• There are a lot of applications available
So, I am an iPhone user again- upgraded to iPhone 4. I spent way to much time trying to accommodate and debug the Thunderbolt and am not sure I would be happy with it even with some of the great features. I’m sure some of these issues could be overcome, but the weight of the evidence seemed against it. I am technically savvy and have used smart phones for years. I post this for information only – it is my personal experience.
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You had some correctable issue that was eating battery. Look at mine. Display is consistently 4-5 hours with 20-22 hours up. Bummer you're done.
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