• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

List your biggest complaints about Thunderbolt

So I went and exchanged my TB today, and good news. This device doesn't have the screen distortion problem that my other one did, it actually looks like they seated the glass on right and not slightly crooked. That is my guess as to why it was happening, maybe being on there wrong was causing pressure at the corners. It was kind of like when I first tried using my body glove case for my Droid X without the extended battery door on it. If you put any pressure on the screen it would create a rainbow effect. This one doesn't do that at all. Also, it has ALOT less light leakage at the bottom. I got lucky and didn't get any dust under the screen like some people have been complaining about. I also luckily didn't get any dead pixels. There is some light leakage, but it is bare minimum, maybe two spots at most. And they are small. I must have gotten a lemon before, now this one feels much much better. I still don't agree with the kickstand/charge port location. It's dumb and irritating. However, it is something that is easy to live with.
 
Upvote 0
My BIGGEST COMPLAINT is that mine keeps asking me to pick a default launcher. Almost every time I exit an app it asks me this. I'm getting very annoyed by it and can't seem to make it stop. I've gone into my launcher settings and cleared defaults and then selected ADW the next time it came up, but it still keeps popping up.

Any reason why this keeps happening??
 
Upvote 0
I'm sure battery life is an issue for many people, also no skype video chat. Is there anything else you don't like about this phone? I'm on the fence on this phone right now, and wanted to hear out people's complaints on this phone before i pull the trigger.


If you take a poll on any phone you'll get enough people bitching about it. The only thing that I would like is better battery life, and for the Skype, I will just get the update when it comes out. The phone has the front facing camera so I don't know why that would put anyone on a fence over it. I have been bump charging the battery, and that seems to help with the battery life, along with the studio extended battery. I wouldn't trade this phone for anything at this point, it's blazing fast.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jms493
Upvote 0
HTC must have been sleeping when they did this, but you can't use the kickstand and plug the power cord in at the same time because the power slot is on the bottom when using the kick stand. How elementary of a design flaw is that. Other than that, I am loving it so far.


It's designed to be placed into a media dock, on a desk or car version that charges while in the dock just like the Droid X. The quicksand isn't ment you be used to watch full length movies with, and I use the kickstand all of the time to watch YouTube.
 
Upvote 0
So I apparently spoke too soon. There is a glaring stuck pixel right in the middle of the screen. I don't think its really anything to take back the phone over, since I really only see it on a black screen, and there aren't a lot of those that I see on a daily basis. I heard though that you can fix stuck pixels. About how long does it take to fix them?
 
Upvote 0
So I apparently spoke too soon. There is a glaring stuck pixel right in the middle of the screen. I don't think its really anything to take back the phone over, since I really only see it on a black screen, and there aren't a lot of those that I see on a daily basis. I heard though that you can fix stuck pixels. About how long does it take to fix them?

I've got a green one. I used some pixel fixer app from the market for around 15 minutes but no luck. I'm not sure how long is necessary, but I plan to give it an hour or so a little later.
 
Upvote 0
My BIGGEST COMPLAINT is that mine keeps asking me to pick a default launcher. Almost every time I exit an app it asks me this. I'm getting very annoyed by it and can't seem to make it stop. I've gone into my launcher settings and cleared defaults and then selected ADW the next time it came up, but it still keeps popping up.

Any reason why this keeps happening??

Clear the defaults again. Next time it asks you to select a launcher, check the box "Use this selection as default"/"Remember this selection" (or something like that - can't remember the exact wording) and then click on ADW Launcher. It should not ask you again.
 
Upvote 0
It's designed to be placed into a media dock, on a desk or car version that charges while in the dock just like the Droid X. The quicksand isn't ment you be used to watch full length movies with, and I use the kickstand all of the time to watch YouTube.


So you're saying the kickstand is used only when in the car dock? I think it was just poor design. With the battery life this phone has, it NEEDS to be plugged in when watching full length movies.
 
Upvote 0
For those of you complaining about battery life how many days have you had the phone for? How many times have you charged it? And have you had other android devices before your thunderbolt?

The reason I am asking is because I still have my Eris. I am not due for a new phone until July. But when the Eris came out absolutely everyone complained about the battery life. And just like I am seeing now a few people were trying to be the voices of reason letting everyone know that you should temper your expectations for battery life when you have a phone that is capable of so much. Obviously all of the features are going to eat up battery.
But when all the dust settled, pretty much everyone was happy with battery life. Not because everyone got used to sucky batteries, but actually after a few days, and maybe 3-5 charges the battery life improved tremendously.

My phone went from not lasting 1 day to giving me 3 sometimes even 4 days depending on usage.
Now I dont use my phone for business. There are definitely people who will use their phone much much more than I do and obviously those people wont get 3 days.

But Id be surprised to find out you guys with terrible battery life have had the phone since the day it was released.
Id imagine if you had it for 5 days now you should be seeing improvements. No?
 
Upvote 0
I think that's an unfair comment. I love this phone, but people are entitled to their opinion, and it's nice to be aware of potential problems.



Well there are the helpful threads, but then there are the "THIS DAMN PHONE WON'T LET ME PLAY ANGRY BIRDS FOR 12 HOURS STRAIGHT, WTF?!?!" And no it doesn't have to be Angry Birds, but expecting a solid 12 hours worth of heavy usage is a little silly. The helpful threads and the unrealistic expectation threads aren't the same.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kb8sbw
Upvote 0
So you're saying the kickstand is used only when in the car dock? I think it was just poor design. With the battery life this phone has, it NEEDS to be plugged in when watching full length movies.

No, he is saying that the USB port is for using the docks. The kickstand is there to allow you to prop it up and use it as a desk clock at work, or to watch some Youtube videos. If you are going to be watching full length movies (don't know why you would chose to do it on your phone if you are actually somewhere that you can charge though) you would be better off using the media or desk dock.

I'm not sure where you got that the kickstand is used only when in the car dock from.
 
Upvote 0
My biggest complaint is Sense. It's far better than Blur, in my opinion, and even better than I expected it to be, but there are just a few quirks about it that HTC messed up that bother me (e.g., the messaging notification sound set via Personalize doesn't actually work, the browser only lets me open 4 or 5 windows, the main Messages text box is set up wrong so Swype can't auto-space...)

I came from an LG Ally which, though it was a low-end smartphone, came with near-stock Android. It had an LG launcher, but it also came with the stock Android launcher, and they didn't go out of their way to dink with all the included apps, and I liked it that way.

I know there are third-party replacements, but I think Google's done a great job. Though I understand the need to create a brand presence, I feel like these full system "skins" (which are really just full replacements of apps) are a little silly at times.

I make it sound worse than it is, but I'll definitely be trying more AOSP-ish ROMs when they come out.
 
Upvote 0
If you take a poll on any phone you'll get enough people bitching about it. The only thing that I would like is better battery life, and for the Skype, I will just get the update when it comes out. The phone has the front facing camera so I don't know why that would put anyone on a fence over it. I have been bump charging the battery, and that seems to help with the battery life, along with the studio extended battery. I wouldn't trade this phone for anything at this point, it's blazing fast.

Whats bump charging?
 
Upvote 0
CONS (like dessert, eat icing last)

- Shameful small battery, smaller than EVO, designed to upsell the extended battery. Will not do more than 2-3 hours 4G max, will need charge during day. I bought the big extended battery. Not as bad as I thought but I shouldn't have to spend $50. Battery will last for some who don't have heavy usage.

- What happened to that huge 8GB of internal memory or did someone try to pull a fast one in the marketing department? I was told this issue will be "fixed" with an upcoming software update. We'll see. It's not even accessible yet from a PC.

- HTC pulled out the vibrate/silent options from the power button and stupidly put them in a widget. Was this taking up too much of the internal memory to leave it there?

- Kickstand over speaker (not so bad as sound reflects) but I find ringer is only mid-volume

- Placement of microusb on wrong side since kickstand won't allow view and power at the same time (bought 2 right angle cables and can run under phone. Not ideal.)

- No HDMI out. Inexcusable. Very few use DLNA.
- Lack of HD recording... why? Is this a software issue that can be remedied?

PROS

- I like the standard size. Fits nicely in the hand, big enough to make typing on a screen much easier.

- It's very fast. 4G is blazing fast. No lag in apps and when online is amazing. Rather have this than burn my battery even faster with a dual processor.

- It's well made. Some may have light leaks and other problems but build seems solid, at least mine is.

- Front camera is something I wouldn't use. When skype comes out, could be a great fun feature to use with the kids/family who aren't nearby, also conferencing remotely. Sufficient resolution to make it worthwhile (unlike Droid Bionic.)

- Camera is *stellar*. Moto cameras are terrible, despite the MP rating. We'll see about the bionic. If HTC does one thing right it's this.

- Included 32GB microSD card -- class 4, not class 2. May be fast enough for video, although class 6 is recommended for HD video for 1080 (which is why internal memory is important.)

- HTC Sense - Blur is weak. Sense has a lot of improvements (other than the stupid profile widget) and the voice recognition and placement within certain areas is excellent.

OK

- The screen could be better. Very poor in sunlight. Vivid colors indoors. Can only use autobrightness. Can't use the old 10% brightness via Incredible since not viewable outdoors at all.

- Extended battery is not as bad as thought - with case around it, the "hump" in the middle fits into the palm space. Still, larger and heavier and should NOT have been necessary
 
Upvote 0
So you're saying the kickstand is used only when in the car dock? I think it was just poor design. With the battery life this phone has, it NEEDS to be plugged in when watching full length movies.

The dock design could have been a sidesways "L" and the usb be at the side- then you would slide the device into the dock. Just a loose thought.

Seems a tunnel vision approach for the design and the Inc has the same issue, but no stand. The irony is neither device is known for long battery, so folks are more sensitive to the design. HTC & Verizon's answer would be to buy more docks :) Heck, does the Inc even have a dock??
 
Upvote 0
Here are my complaints:
Size That's what she said. I am a guy with small girly hands and this thing is too big. I didn't realize this before I bought it, how would I have known? I like to wear skinny hipster jeans and this phone doesn't even fit through the pocket hole!
Weight It is heavy and feels like a brick! Lifting it feels like a workout! I am a heavy guy (mostly fat, no muscle) and it feels painful to hold sometimes!
Not dual core I don't even know what that means or how that will improve the phone but I want it because it sounds cool! I heard my friend say that the youtube videos load up faster on his Atrix by about 0.5 seconds. That is 0.5 seconds of my life that I'm not getting back.
Screen It's not a retina display! I heard those are made by apple and they look like a retina or something cool like that.
It's not an iPhone I thought it would be an iphone but it's not an iphone.

/s

I can honestly say that I just registered for this forum to say that I died laughing at this. #awesome :D
 
Upvote 0
My biggest complaint is the kickstand is positioned such that you can't charge while the kickstand is in use (well you can, it just defeats the purpose). This is more a minor annoyance than anything though, as I don't really need the kickstand ever.

Actually I would consider this a major design flaw. These devices chug power like it were beer at a college party so being able to charge while in "kickstand mode" seems pretty vital.

I have a DIncredible at the moment and was checking out the Thunderbolt for about 10 minutes as an upgrade option. On the TB I found that kickstand issue, the fact the screen touch was a bit unresponsive and that the speed was no better compared to the DIncredible as three items that make me think it's better to wait for the next round of phones rather than jump to the TB.

Just my $0.02.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones