HTC Thunderbolt Cell Phone Review

4G and Basic Functions

The HTC Thunderbolt runs the Android 2.2.1 operating system. The main screen is shown in Figure 7. In this Figure, you can see the ear piece strip and the 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera above the screen. This area also has a notification LED that flashes a green light when you have a pending notification and flashes red when the battery level becomes critical.

At the bottom of this screen, you can see the four standard Android touch icons: Home, Menu, Back, and Se
arch. Just above that are three icons that have been customized by the HTC Sense interface. These are: All Apps, Phone, and Personalize.  As usual, the Android operating system is very customizable. There are seven home screens that can be personalized with wallpaper, apps, widgets, shortcuts, and folders.

Figure 7: The main screen

The  large 4.3-inch TFT LCD is not as detailed as the Retina display on the iPhone or the AMOLED screens on Samsung’s phone, but it looks good and works well for text, photos or movies.  The touch screen is nicely responsive.

Our only complaint about the screen was that often, if an app had a long name, the last letter of the name was not entirely visible. For instance, “Voice Search” looks like “Voice Searcl” and “VZ Navigator” becomes “VC Navigato.” Although this is a minor complaint, it is consistently aggravating.

We were expecting the HTC Thunderbolt on the Verizon 4G LTE network to be fast, but were still blown away by its speed.  Everything that is Internet-related is faster than any other phone we’ve tested. It brings up web pages as quickly as a fast computer. Google Maps redraws quickly. Google searches are speedier than ever. Videos play smoothly and quickly.

In side by side testing, the HTC Thunderbolt accessed web pages two to three times faster than the Verizon Droid X on the older Verizon network. When tested next to the AT&T’s 4G Atrix, the HTC Thunderbolt was noticeably faster.

The HTC Thunderbolt is aptly named. It really is lightning fast. Verizon’s 4G LTE network is inherently faster than the HSPA+ network that AT&T and T-Mobile label as 4G. Although as more traffic is added, the Verizon network may slow slightly, right now it is excellent, and we expect it to remain so.

Another nice feature is that Verizon has already implemented 4G in more areas than we expected. Their 4G map is being constantly updated. You can check it at https://network4g.verizonwireless.com/#/coverage to see if they have implemented 4G in your local area.

The HTC Thunderbolt has only a 1 GHz single-core Snapdragon processor (Qualcomm MSM8655) and 768 MB of RAM, but it performs beautifully in all areas. Programs open with no delay, moving between screens is seamless, and games perform well.

Audio quality was also excellent with no dropped calls or glitches. The speakers were loud and clear. The volume control, shown in Figure 8, is a simple rocker on the side of the device.

Figure 8: The volume control

In Figure 9, you can see that besides the microphone on the top, the HTC Thunderbolt has another microphone on the bottom. These dual mics have noise cancellation that works very well in noisy environments.

Figure 9: The bottom

The HTC Thunderbolt has all the features that we have come to expect in a smartphone including text messaging, speed dial, accelerometer, GPS, compass, proximity sensor, and a light sensor.

The built-in DLNA connectivity lets you send the music, movies, and photos on your phone wirelessly to a DLNA compliant device like a television, but the HTC Thunderbolt lacks the HDMI jack that is found in the Droid X.

The HTC Thunderbolt, however, has WiFi Hotspot capabilities to run up to eight other devices (with additional monthly charges from Verizon).

One thing that we liked on this phone was the Smart Dial feature. This lets you find a person’s telephone number by simply entering the phone number or the first few letters of the person’s name. The Smart Dial searches through the contacts and call history to come up with the proper number.

We also loved the fact that this phone allows for simultaneous voice and data over 4G. So you can talk and surf at the same time.