The HTC Thunderbolt Review

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“4G” has become the new marketing buzzword in the American telecommunications industry. Each of the four major carriers are now offering their own brand of 4G. Many regard Verizon’s 4G LTE network as the only “true” 4G currently being offered in the United States. That’s well and fine – but what about the phone? We’ve had time to take Verizon’s first 4G phone, the HTC Thunderbolt, for a test drive. How does the “Tbolt” fare?

The HTC Thunderbolt is a solid phone. Most likely due to the size and weight added by the LTE chipset (something we saw in common across all the LTE phones at CES this year), the Thunderbolt is a bit heavier and thicker than most modern Android phones. Not that the Thunderbolt is a big phone by any stretch, or too thick – but the phone does carry a bit of heft to it.

It has the popular 4.3-inch screen size. HTC’s official tech specs are seemingly intentionally vague about if it’s a regular LCD screen or an OLED screen. It doesn’t matter though; it’s a great, crisp display with brilliant color depth. It’s with an OLED screen or a “Super LCD” screen. The Super LCD screen technology is manufactured by Sony, and considering HTC’s supply issues with getting enough OLED panels, I suspect that they’ve gone with Sony’s LCD tech.

If you’re used to a regular LCD display on another smartphone, then the screen in the Thunderbolt will shock you with its quality. It doesn’t have the pixel density of the retina display in the iPhone 4, but I maintain that the OLED/Super LCD displays have better color depth and crispness to the retina display in the iPhone 4.

When I was at CES this year in Las Vegas, immediately after the four Verizon 4G phones were unveiled, the “spec queens” (technology fans obsessed with having the latest specifications) started complaining about the lack of a dual-core processor in the Thunderbolt. And it’s true, the Qualcomm MSM8655 isn’t a dual-core system like you’ll find on other upcoming phones and tablets. But, it is a second generation Snapdragon core and I think for the most part, users will find the phone powerful enough for their needs. In my time with the Thunderbolt, I did notice a few times when the phone lagged, but the phone is generally quick and responsive.

Software-wise, it was running Android 2.2. After having seen Android 2.3 on a number of phones and personally having used Android 3.0 when I reviewed the Xoom, Android 2.2 feels a bit old. Regardless, both Verizon and HTC have a good track record of providing Android updates, so it’s possible this phone will receive later updates.

For a user interface, it’s running HTC’s Sense UI. Generally, these custom Android UIs are horrible and regular TFTS readers will know that we aren’t fans of them.  The exception is HTC Sense, which is just about the only one of these customer user interfaces that isn’t a pain to use. I think you’ll find HTC Sense looks great, has a better keyboard than stock Android 2.x and has a few useful widgets and apps. If you’re an Android purist however, be advised that it will require some doing to get the stock UI back, and it’ll take a bit to get Android updates as HTC will have to port them to the HTC Sense user interface.

My only complaint with the HTC Sense on the Thunderbolt is that the speed dial page in the dialer app is a bit confusing. The entries listed in the speed dial are per phone number, not per contact. (Meaning, if you have John D’s cell phone number and office number, the speed dial screen will have them in two separate entries, and one could be off the “front page”. This is a minor nitpitck, but could be a pain if you have multiple numbers for friends, as one number will likely be off the front page – okay, obscure rant over).

Regarding 4G – yes, it’s real and it’s fast. My own experiences with Sprint/Clear’s 4G WiMAX network weren’t good. Even in supported cities, reception can be awful and I never saw it go above 2Mb/s in speed tests. But, testing the 4G LTE network of Verizon, I was easily able to get 10+ Mb/s speeds on the device, with 15Mb/s being the maximum. The upload speeds were even more incredible; with me routinely recording 30-35Mb/s upload speeds (This is amazing if you’re a Qik video uploader.) You could consider setting up a web server with upload speeds like that, although I’m sure Verizon wouldn’t like that.

I was told by Verizon reps at CES that customers can expect speeds of 7-10Mb/s on the 4G LTE network at first. At that show, people with LTE data cards were getting speeds of 20Mb/s and the Verizon reps themselves told us that from their headquarters in New Jersey, they were pushing 30Mb/s on the network before anybody outside the company had LTE devices. That being said, they insisted then that 7-10MB/s will be what people can expect on a network with a regular traffic load – so it’s possible that my 10-15Mb/s speeds were just a result of the unloaded LTE network (remember that compared to 3G phones, a vast minority of people are using LTE phones and data modems). Your mileage will vary, but it seems at this early stage, Verizon’s LTE network is WAY faster than anything else faster out there. It may even be faster than your home DSL/cable connection.

(Watching Rebecca Black in HD from YouTube is a perfect way to use a 4G LTE connection.)

The HTC Thunderbolt comes with an 8MP back-facing camera (with LED flash) and a 1.3MP front-facing camera. The camera has an autofocus, and the camera quality was very good. It wasn’t anything like the near-SLR quality of the iPhone 4 camera, but I feel comfortable assuming that the HTC Thunderbolt’s camera will be in the 98^th percentile of phone cameras.

A minor nitpick with the phone and the camera – as far as physical buttons go on the side, there are only the volume buttons. Other Android phones have usually had a smaller, lower button (where your pinky finger would go if you held a smartphone in your left hand). This button has been perfect for the shutter button on many Android phones. The Thunderbolt lacks that lower right-hand physical button, forcing you to use the on-screen touch shutter button. A minor nitpick, granted, but it makes the phone’s camera inconvenient to use when you hold it sideways (like a regular point-and-shoot camera).

Check out a sample picture comparing it to the Motorola Droid X’s camera and the Canon G12 as a comparison.

Regular TFTS readers will know that I took the Motorola Xoom to task in my last review for its high price, and unfortunately for Verizon, I’m going to do the same thing. We’ve come to expect $200 on-contract/$600 off-contract as the de facto standard pricing for a top-notch Android phone across all carriers. Yet, Verizon is asking $250 for the Thunderbolt. Yep, I’m complaining about $50. It just seems a bit excessive for a phone that, aside from the 4G LTE, is a fairly run of the mill top-end Android superphone (as mentioned, no dual-core processors or anything excessively advanced). I have no doubt that the on-contract price will drop in a few months with price cuts and rebates and somesuch.

So, in conclusion, what do I think of the HTC Thunderbolt? It’s a great phone and is everything we’ve come to expect from top-notch Android phones. I’m disappointed with some aspects of HTC Sense and the lack of a physical lower-right button on the side of the phone. The price is also mildly offensive considering that the phone is fairly typical as far as top-end Android phones go. But overall, the HTC Thunderbolt is a great phone, with a fast network, and you can’t go wrong with one in your pocket.

(Disclaimer: Verizon provided us with a loaner HTC Thunderbolt for this review.)