I have had my Thunderbolt for 2 weeks. I had a HTC Eris Droid before this. I was disturbed to read so many problems when I first got it. I loved my other phone for everything except being a phone (I coukd never get calls or make calls without it freezing for periods of time). But it did everything else beautifully. I have an iPad but didn't want a mini iPad so I didn,t want the iPhone. I went with the Thunderbolt. I read all the forums after the first day and did every battery saving thing I could do. Last night I checked and was at 40:33 hours of up time with about an hour of awake time and I was at exactly 50% battery. during that time I made calls, used GPS, manually updated mail, etc.
I think the the things that make thr biggest impact are:
-Dimming the screen as far down as is comfortable. Mine is set for 12% and I only turn it up if I am in bright light.
-I keep mobile off most of the time and still get calls and texts and turn it on as needed
-I use wifi whenever possible
-I update everything manually when i need it
I also did the calibrate battery thing (a weird turning on/off thing with charging) and a I also bump charge but not every time. I also turned off vibrations, animations, etc.
It all depends on what your goals are. I want a reliable phone that I can also use to check mail, surf, GPS as needed. If you need To be fully connected all the time the battery will suck.
I don't think we should have to settle for a phone that doesn,t do all the things promised however we are the victims of our own need to do everything right away and be connected 24/7 so the companies push out products to make the sale because of the demand and then we are unhappy with half assed products but it's sort of the American way at this point.
For the record I haven't done the most recent update because, thanks to the forums, I knew I would lose my hot spot and I had one day where the phone did a few random reboots but it has been fine ever since. And I had one bad day with the GPS but it has been fine ever since. Now that it seems to have settled down I really like this phone and it is blazingly fast when I need it and makes a perfect call every time.