HTC ThunderBolt Review

The very good: The HTC ThunderBolt provides extremely quick 4G information speeds. The Android 2.2 smartphone also supports simultaneous voice and information more than 3G and boasts a sizable four.3-inch touch screen, ample storage, and a great camera.

The undesirable: Battery life will take a huge hit when making use of 4G. There's no method to toggle involving 3G and 4G.

The bottom line: The HTC ThunderBolt lights up with blazingly rapid information speeds, but these who want 4G now need to be conscious that it will take a major toll around the smartphone's battery life.

Introduced at CES 2011, the HTC ThunderBolt is Verizon's initially 4G LTE, and it really is lastly readily available for $249.99 using a two-year contract. The Android two.two smartphone could not provide the most recent and greatest (e.g., dual-core processor), but using the carrier promising regular download speeds of 5Mbps to 12Mbps and upload speeds of 2Mbps to 5Mbps, it really is no surprise why quite a few are clamoring to acquire their hands on this gadget. This contains us, that is why we had been so excited to take the HTC ThunderBolt out for any test-drive. The lightning-fast smartphone delivers on a lot of fronts, nonetheless it also comes at a price for iPad 3 release date.

Style
The HTC ThunderBolt is cut from exactly the same cloth because the HTC Evo 4G plus the HTC Wish HD, so if you have ever handled these devices, you then possess a pretty great thought of what to count on from the ThunderBolt.

At four.75 inches tall by two.44 inches broad by 0.56 inch thick and six.23 ounces, the ThunderBolt is not for all those who favor dainty devices. The smartphone is big and truly slightly thicker and heavier than the Evo, but it really is manageable and also the tapered back and soft-touch finish make it cozy to hold within the hand. As we've come to anticipate from HTC, the mobile phone is solidly constructed and includes a good, premium really feel to it iPhone 5 release date.


The HTC ThunderBolt includes a related style for the Evo 4G.

On front, you have got exactly the same four.3-inch WVGA (800x480 pixels) touch screen because the Evo. You will discover higher-resolution displays available, like these around the Motorola Atrix 4G or iPhone four, however the ThunderBolt's screen nevertheless holds up, with clear and vivid image top quality. Text was simple to study, and Net pages and video looked beautiful around the significant screen.

The touch screen can also be responsive. Apps launched as we tapped them, and we have been capable to smoothly navigate by way of the house screens and menus. The show also characteristics a proximity sensor and built-in accelerometer, which was rapid to alter screen orientation when we rotated the mobile phone.

The front-facing camera sits proper above the screen around the appropriate; beneath the show are the house, menu, back, and search navigation buttons. Meanwhile, the 8-megapixel camera and flash are positioned on back, but we genuinely want there was a devoted camera button around the telephone. As an alternative, you will must use the touch screen to snap images.

Around the brilliant side, the ThunderBolt features a sturdy kickstand so you are able to prop the cellphone on a desk to view movies, conduct speakerphone calls, as well as the like. There is a Micro-USB port around the left side, along with a volume rocker occupies the best side. Lastly, on top rated from the gadget, you will discover a power/lock button and three.5mm headphone jack.


The ThunderBolt capabilities a built-in kickstand that lets you location the mobile phone on a table and view movies, slideshows, and much more.

The HTC ThunderBolt comes packaged with an AC adapter, a USB cable, a preinstalled 32GB microSD card, and reference materials.

4G capabilities and functionality
Ahead of we get towards the phone's more-basic characteristics, we believed we'd deal with the HTC ThunderBolt's complete raison d'etre, and that is 4G assistance. As talked about earlier, the ThunderBolt will be the very first smartphone to function on Verizon's LTE 4G network, which guarantees common download speeds of 5Mbps to 12Mbps and upload speeds of 2Mbps to 5Mbps.

Offered the impressive benefits we got utilizing Verizon's LG VL600 LTE USB modem, you'd consider we'd be slightly far more ready for what we knowledgeable around the ThunderBolt, but we had been nonetheless blown away by what we saw. It really is rapid. Genuine quickly HTC thunderbolt review.

Operating Ookla's Speedtest.net app around the handset yielded some erratic and suspicious outcomes (upload speeds have been registering as much as 39.79Mbps), so we also measured speeds utilizing the telephone as a mobile hot spot and as a tethered modem. With all the ThunderBolt linked to our MacBook Pro as a mobile hot spot right here in New York, we have been in a position to obtain common download speeds of 7.41Mbps and upload speeds of six.56Mbps.

By comparison, the HTC Evo 4G from Sprint averaged three.42Mbps down and 0.93Mpbs up; the Samsung Galaxy S 4G on T-Mobile averaged four.17Mbps down and 1.68Mbps up; plus the HTC Inspire 4G on AT&T averaged 1.75Mbps down and 0.31Mbps up.

We got even better outcomes when we had the ThunderBolt tethered to our Lenovo T61 ThinkPad. We averaged download speeds of 15.58Mbps and upload speeds of three.44Mbps. (See example speed check beneath.)