Need some input from Droid X the Tbolt..

[Dante8205]

My uncle bought a thunderbolt a couple months ago and hates it. I offered to buy it off him for a hundred bucks. I currently have a droid X with the leaked GB update and am an advanced android user. I always wanted an HTC android phone. I read a lot of problems with the thunderbolt but I feel as if most of them are because people are stupid. Is the battery really thaaaaat bad?? Should I look into purchasing the extended battery? Also what other accessories should i look into purchasing? Should I stick with sense or use launcherpro? And most importantly, is it worth the switch?

 

[dpham00]

Battery issues are real, i have issues even when I had no market apps on the phone and with bt, wifi, and Gps off. 4g is fast though, if you can live with the short battery life. HTC sense is pretty snappy, but launcherpro is faster. You may get lucky and get a phone without idle problems. Whether or not the extended battery is good for you depends on your usage.

 

[Dante8205]

thanks for the reply..im debating getting a second battery or the extended. I feel like launcherpro is always the best experience. I wouldnt be able to use my HTC widgets with launcherpro though would i?

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

My uncle bought a thunderbolt a couple months ago and hates it. I offered to buy it off him for a hundred bucks. I currently have a droid X with the leaked GB update and am an advanced android user. I always wanted an HTC android phone. I read a lot of problems with the thunderbolt but I feel as if most of them are because people are stupid. Is the battery really thaaaaat bad?? Should I look into purchasing the extended battery? Also what other accessories should i look into purchasing? Should I stick with sense or use launcherpro? And most importantly, is it worth the switch?

I assume you'll be rooting your device pretty much immediately?

I have mine rooted, running DasBAMF 1.6.3 (with the kernel it loads with and the newer radio), and I LOVE my Thunderbolt.

It seems folks having the most issues are those who are not rooted and running the stock OS with the OTA update.

Battery? Well it's kind of a mixed bag. I am able to connect to WIFI at home and work, and when on wifi, the battery is excellent. I'm talking 24+ hours on a single charge. Running on 4G, however, is a different story...running on 4G, when idle*, I'm usually losing 4-6% battery per hour. In other words, 4G is definitely a battery hog. If I turn 4G off and force a 3G connection, I do notice the battery is much better, so I'll do that sometimes when I know I'll be away from a charger for a while, or I just carry my extra battery with me.

Long story short, battery life shouldn't be a deal breaker when considering Thunderbolt...and if you plan on rooting it anyway, there are a lot of ROMs and custom kernels that do much better than the stock OS when it comes to power consumption.

*By "idle", I mean not really using the device at all, save for responding to incoming messages, checking email or twitter occasionally, etc, stuff like that. No heavy browser or app usage, no phone usage.

 

[dpham00]

thanks for the reply..im debating getting a second battery or the extended. I feel like launcherpro is always the best experience. I wouldnt be able to use my HTC widgets with launcherpro though would i?

well, the difference is only $10 between the stock and extended battery, plus, some have been able to get the extended at 50% off, so you can try to call in for that.

you can't use htc widgets with launcher pro, but most widgets they offer, there are market equivalents anyways.

 

[Cyber Warrior]

Had my DX overclocked on low voltage and use to get about 8-10 hours. Now I have my Bolt with 4G and undervolted and get about 8-10 hours. The Bolts running just as smooth and fast as my DX was so I would say battery life is the same with both phones running at about the same speeds. Only difference is I'm liking HTC a lot better. Its a solid device unless you fall into the category of people having problems..... which I agree with your reasoning.

 

[eishas#AC]

I Came from X as well. yea battery life is bad, but its so much better than X i can overlook tha battery part...........its alot faster ,and smoother. and 4G is SICK!

 

[Dragonblade]

I dont know if you've already swapped phones, but I did a similar deal, and swapped phones with someone, I Traded my DX for a Thunderbolt. and all was well, then the update came and the phone went to $hitt with all the reboots and connection issues.
When i called CSR they told me that Even though the phone was a couple of months old. they could not honor the 1 year manufacture warranty on the phone, because it was not originally assigned to my account. so i could not claim the warranty. That the only way i could go about getting a new phone was to have "Lost or Broken" my phone and pay my 100 deductible.

then I asked to talk to someone in technical support And i told them that I didnt aggree with their Policy but regardless I was still having technicall issues, so i still needed help,
I told him that not once did the CSR Rep at the Store mention to me or the guy that i was swapping phones with, that if we swapped phones we were effectively voiding our warranty.
how i thought that should be communicated cuz it might detter people from doing it in the 1st place. He had me do a reset and he tried to boost the signal strenght i was getting (what ever that means). since he couldnt get it fixed. he checked with his mngr and he got my new phone approved.

Sorry this turned in to a novel.
But Its something people should really consider if they are considering trading phones.

 

[akira751]

I dont know if you've already swapped phones, but I did a similar deal, and swapped phones with someone, I Traded my DX for a Thunderbolt. and all was well, then the update came and the phone went to $hitt with all the reboots and connection issues.
When i called CSR they told me that Even though the phone was a couple of months old. they could not honor the 1 year manufacture warranty on the phone, because it was not originally assigned to my account. so i could not claim the warranty. That the only way i could go about getting a new phone was to have "Lost or Broken" my phone and pay my 100 deductible.

then I asked to talk to someone in technical support And i told them that I didnt aggree with their Policy but regardless I was still having technicall issues, so i still needed help,
I told him that not once did the CSR Rep at the Store mention to me or the guy that i was swapping phones with, that if we swapped phones we were effectively voiding our warranty.
how i thought that should be communicated cuz it might detter people from doing it in the 1st place. He had me do a reset and he tried to boost the signal strenght i was getting (what ever that means). since he couldnt get it fixed. he checked with his mngr and he got my new phone approved.

Sorry this turned in to a novel.
But Its something people should really consider if they are considering trading phones.

Great info, I had no idea.

 

[the one and only M]

LTE makes it definitely worth the switch in my opinion, even if that means craptacular battery life.

Coming from the DX myself I'll say this. With the DX I ended the day with about 15-20% battery remaining. The thunderbolt it's dead by 7:00 with the same usage. Depending on which rom I'm using, battery life can be better or worse.

 

[Red261]

I live in an area without 4g and coming from an X, I am happy with the switch. So far battery life has been about the same as my X running gingerbread. I will change from stock and see how that is when I get some time, but with stock the only complaint is with the random reboots, but I had those on stock X as well. I've been using sense over launcher-pro and likely will until the rewrite is done. Otherwise I feel the graphics are better on the tb and the screen is less elongated, which I prefer.

 

[dhendriksen]

I had the Droid X as my last phone before the Thunderbolt. I love the Thunderbolt. I get as good if not better battery life, and the phone is just much smoother/faster, and Sense blows Motorola's "Ninja Blur" out of the water.