Alright, background story first and foremost. I am a 21 year old who loves technology. If I can afford it, I want it. Needless-to-say, I love Phandroid and hearing about rumor phones. 2 years ago, I bought a HTC Droid Eris, which I loved, I rooted it and was into the Android scene for life. Jumping ahead to today, I was planning on keeping my beloved Droid X until Verizon would come out with another ASOP phone (I had my eye on the Targa). Until I went in to my local Verizon dealer, to talk about some changes to my folks family plan that I am on. Long story short, I ended up walking out with a Thunderbolt and have a cheaper plan and locked into 4G pricing (hopefully).
Now that you know where I come from, and you realize that I loved the Droid X, lets get onto the review. Although I will do this different, I would hope. Coming from the perspective of a bias Droid X owner!
First Impressions:
In the store when I first started logging into the phone with my Gmail, the first thing that I noticed was the vibrancy of the display. I know that it has a lower resolution than the Droid X (TB=480x800 X=480x845) but the colors just JUMPED out of the screen at me. It was like I was looking at totally different applications with actual color to them. The next thing that I noticed, when I actually picked up the phone was the beautiful form factor, and how it feels in my hand. If there is one thing HTC gets right, it’s the way their phones feel in your hand. I think it’s the most beautiful phone that I have owned. It just feels “right” sitting in your hand.
User Experience:
The second that I picked up this phone, I knew I was going to have a learning curve towards holding it and not pressing buttons. As most of you know, the volume up/down button is one large bar on the phone. Now this is very aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but it is very simple to bump and change the volume on your phone. When I was rooting it I actually bumped it while picking it up which caused the phone to cancel the root update, 100% my fault, but very simple to be repeated by others.
There is one thing that I absolutely loved about the Droid X, and that was the lock button. It was large, easy to press, in a accessible place for either hand, and was relatively a simple task to lock my phone with. With the Thunderbolt, that lock button is on the slightly right side of the phone(still on top, thankfully), and more flush with the side of the phone. Thus making it harder to reach with your left hand if you carry your phone with one hand. The button is also smaller than the button on your X, and takes a little bit more strength to push in. I am sure that I will be able to get used to it, but right now it actually takes me holding the phone in way that hurts, and I feel I could possibly drop my beloved new toy.
Hard button vs Soft touch:
First thing you will notice, obviously, that there are soft buttons on the Thunderbolt, unlike the nice hard buttons on the X. The next thing you will hopefully notice is that the home and menu buttons are switched around between Motorola and HTC. This is currently a problem for me, but I will obviously learn to adapt. Most of the times I would say I prefer to have hard buttons, but on this phone the soft keys are definitely the way to go. Nothing better than soft key with haptic feedback.
I will briefly talk about Sense:
Since I have once before owned a phone that had Sense on it, I knew exactly what I was getting into. Once again I was not surprised, except for the fact that this phone makes the Sense run FLAWLESSLY. Seriously, I have not seen a skinned phone run smoother. I would say that it is on the same plane, if not higher, than the iPhone in the fact that it almost knows what I am going to click. If you have played with an iPhone, you would understand what I mean. Overall, if you are going to stay stock in the Droid X vs. Thunderbolt. Go with Sense. Motoblur is just too damn sluggish, Sense is really beautiful, just not my style.
Call Quality:
One of the many problems that you hear with HTC Phones almost all the time is along the lines of “Call quality is horrid! HTC only cares about what the phone looks like, not how you actually sound on the phone! I can’t hear anyone if it starts blowing 10 MPH outside!” In my experience of owning the phone for 3 days now and pretty much only calling on it, I think that most of those people had a bad phone, or were in a place where no phone would have worked. 10+MPH gusts aren’t exactly perfect for any phone, from what I have heard in my experience. I would give credit to Motorola for making a phone that just plain works, in the term of being able to hear people. But I see no reason for call quality of the Thunderbolt to detract you from this gorgeous phone.
Form Factor:
Lots of people tell me that they love the feel of their Droid X in their hand. I was someone who didn’t agree with that statement, and I still do. The Thunderbolt just seems to fit perfectly in my hand, and feels right. Minus the fact that I dislike where the unlock button is located, I do like the way the phone just feels, looks and conforms in my hand. I definitely prefer it to my old X. The X has one clear advantage to the Thunderbolt, in my eyes: the slim factor of the phone. If you own a Droid X you know exactly what I am talking about. It is so incredibly thin. Which was such a building point for me from the beginning of when I owned the phone.
One thing that scared me quite a bit when I was playing with the phone in the store, was the weight. I thought that I would dislike the difference completely. But then I realized that the Droid X(5.47) only weighs .76 oz less than the Thunderbolt (6.23 oz). Thankfully that is not a huge difference, and as humans we can't detect that weight difference.
In closing on form factor, I take the Thunderbolt for the beauty of the way it is. I really like how HTC’s phones are all symmetrical with rounded corners and smooth sides. The brick feel of the Droid X always turned me off, it was the hardware inside that I liked so much.
In conclusion:
I am very happy with the purchase of my HTC Thunderbolt, but there were only two reasons why I bought this phone: The chance of locking in grandfather status for 4G unlimited plans and unlocked bootloader. If you have an upgrade and really want to have the chance of locking in, go for it. You will not be disappointed. If you just want to have a phone with full-unlocked bootloader, be happy with your Droid X. You have root and ROMS; there is no need to come to this phone. I see this phone as the last of the single-core phones. Just like how the HTC Eris was the last of the ARM6 processor phones, this phone may be the last Single Core. I do not have 4G up in my area until September at the earliest, (Fargo, ND) but if you will be getting it sometime this year, I would say go for it.
TL;DR – If you want 4G phone, Get it. If you want unlocked bootloader, Get it. If you are waiting for the next big phone that will BLOW your Droid X out of the water – Pass.
Edit: Root Review
If anyone keeps up with Android news, you obviously know that this phone is not like the DRoid X and you can't simply press "ROOT ME" or "Make it Rain" or the likes. You must go into the phone through adb (Android Debug Bridge). In short, what ends up happening is you push 3 exploits to your phone, run one of them, which allows you to have root acces, you then end up flashing two updates to your phone, which turn S-OFF (Security Off, I think, in the bootloader) and give you perm root. This is relatively simple, and I would recommend all users familiarize themselves with adb. The actual hardest part about rooting this phone is getting the correct drivers onto your computer. You cannon download them through the Android SDK, so you must install HTC Sync onto your computer (annoying!). Once you get that started and you are able to use adb, it is just a few quick 10 steps, with lots of flashing. But once you are rooted, HELLO BEAUTIFUL Un-LOCKED bootloader, Long has this nerd missed you! The ability to flash custom kernels is what makes this phone oh so worth it. In the end, rooting this phone is a must, because the newest updated radio will allow the phone to sleep correctly, thus giving you better battery life! HURRAY! and even though the rooting process at first looks hard and a killer, it is great experience.
Now that you know where I come from, and you realize that I loved the Droid X, lets get onto the review. Although I will do this different, I would hope. Coming from the perspective of a bias Droid X owner!
First Impressions:
In the store when I first started logging into the phone with my Gmail, the first thing that I noticed was the vibrancy of the display. I know that it has a lower resolution than the Droid X (TB=480x800 X=480x845) but the colors just JUMPED out of the screen at me. It was like I was looking at totally different applications with actual color to them. The next thing that I noticed, when I actually picked up the phone was the beautiful form factor, and how it feels in my hand. If there is one thing HTC gets right, it’s the way their phones feel in your hand. I think it’s the most beautiful phone that I have owned. It just feels “right” sitting in your hand.
User Experience:
The second that I picked up this phone, I knew I was going to have a learning curve towards holding it and not pressing buttons. As most of you know, the volume up/down button is one large bar on the phone. Now this is very aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but it is very simple to bump and change the volume on your phone. When I was rooting it I actually bumped it while picking it up which caused the phone to cancel the root update, 100% my fault, but very simple to be repeated by others.
There is one thing that I absolutely loved about the Droid X, and that was the lock button. It was large, easy to press, in a accessible place for either hand, and was relatively a simple task to lock my phone with. With the Thunderbolt, that lock button is on the slightly right side of the phone(still on top, thankfully), and more flush with the side of the phone. Thus making it harder to reach with your left hand if you carry your phone with one hand. The button is also smaller than the button on your X, and takes a little bit more strength to push in. I am sure that I will be able to get used to it, but right now it actually takes me holding the phone in way that hurts, and I feel I could possibly drop my beloved new toy.
Hard button vs Soft touch:
First thing you will notice, obviously, that there are soft buttons on the Thunderbolt, unlike the nice hard buttons on the X. The next thing you will hopefully notice is that the home and menu buttons are switched around between Motorola and HTC. This is currently a problem for me, but I will obviously learn to adapt. Most of the times I would say I prefer to have hard buttons, but on this phone the soft keys are definitely the way to go. Nothing better than soft key with haptic feedback.
I will briefly talk about Sense:
Since I have once before owned a phone that had Sense on it, I knew exactly what I was getting into. Once again I was not surprised, except for the fact that this phone makes the Sense run FLAWLESSLY. Seriously, I have not seen a skinned phone run smoother. I would say that it is on the same plane, if not higher, than the iPhone in the fact that it almost knows what I am going to click. If you have played with an iPhone, you would understand what I mean. Overall, if you are going to stay stock in the Droid X vs. Thunderbolt. Go with Sense. Motoblur is just too damn sluggish, Sense is really beautiful, just not my style.
Call Quality:
One of the many problems that you hear with HTC Phones almost all the time is along the lines of “Call quality is horrid! HTC only cares about what the phone looks like, not how you actually sound on the phone! I can’t hear anyone if it starts blowing 10 MPH outside!” In my experience of owning the phone for 3 days now and pretty much only calling on it, I think that most of those people had a bad phone, or were in a place where no phone would have worked. 10+MPH gusts aren’t exactly perfect for any phone, from what I have heard in my experience. I would give credit to Motorola for making a phone that just plain works, in the term of being able to hear people. But I see no reason for call quality of the Thunderbolt to detract you from this gorgeous phone.
Form Factor:
Lots of people tell me that they love the feel of their Droid X in their hand. I was someone who didn’t agree with that statement, and I still do. The Thunderbolt just seems to fit perfectly in my hand, and feels right. Minus the fact that I dislike where the unlock button is located, I do like the way the phone just feels, looks and conforms in my hand. I definitely prefer it to my old X. The X has one clear advantage to the Thunderbolt, in my eyes: the slim factor of the phone. If you own a Droid X you know exactly what I am talking about. It is so incredibly thin. Which was such a building point for me from the beginning of when I owned the phone.
One thing that scared me quite a bit when I was playing with the phone in the store, was the weight. I thought that I would dislike the difference completely. But then I realized that the Droid X(5.47) only weighs .76 oz less than the Thunderbolt (6.23 oz). Thankfully that is not a huge difference, and as humans we can't detect that weight difference.
In closing on form factor, I take the Thunderbolt for the beauty of the way it is. I really like how HTC’s phones are all symmetrical with rounded corners and smooth sides. The brick feel of the Droid X always turned me off, it was the hardware inside that I liked so much.
In conclusion:
I am very happy with the purchase of my HTC Thunderbolt, but there were only two reasons why I bought this phone: The chance of locking in grandfather status for 4G unlimited plans and unlocked bootloader. If you have an upgrade and really want to have the chance of locking in, go for it. You will not be disappointed. If you just want to have a phone with full-unlocked bootloader, be happy with your Droid X. You have root and ROMS; there is no need to come to this phone. I see this phone as the last of the single-core phones. Just like how the HTC Eris was the last of the ARM6 processor phones, this phone may be the last Single Core. I do not have 4G up in my area until September at the earliest, (Fargo, ND) but if you will be getting it sometime this year, I would say go for it.
TL;DR – If you want 4G phone, Get it. If you want unlocked bootloader, Get it. If you are waiting for the next big phone that will BLOW your Droid X out of the water – Pass.
Edit: Root Review
If anyone keeps up with Android news, you obviously know that this phone is not like the DRoid X and you can't simply press "ROOT ME" or "Make it Rain" or the likes. You must go into the phone through adb (Android Debug Bridge). In short, what ends up happening is you push 3 exploits to your phone, run one of them, which allows you to have root acces, you then end up flashing two updates to your phone, which turn S-OFF (Security Off, I think, in the bootloader) and give you perm root. This is relatively simple, and I would recommend all users familiarize themselves with adb. The actual hardest part about rooting this phone is getting the correct drivers onto your computer. You cannon download them through the Android SDK, so you must install HTC Sync onto your computer (annoying!). Once you get that started and you are able to use adb, it is just a few quick 10 steps, with lots of flashing. But once you are rooted, HELLO BEAUTIFUL Un-LOCKED bootloader, Long has this nerd missed you! The ability to flash custom kernels is what makes this phone oh so worth it. In the end, rooting this phone is a must, because the newest updated radio will allow the phone to sleep correctly, thus giving you better battery life! HURRAY! and even though the rooting process at first looks hard and a killer, it is great experience.
