Help Thunderbolt is dog slow

[OnlineIdentity]

My Thunderbolt had been slowing down as we approached the ICS update. Now that it's here, the thing horrible and sometimes barely responsive:

• Opening Go SMS Pro can take up to 20 seconds.
  • I have maybe 2700 messages, with 2600 of those being from just one person (girlfriend, obviously lol). The others are distributed between maybe twenty other contacts.
• Opera takes up to 10-20 seconds to start and become usable. I have bookmarks.
• I frequently drive long trips and use the phone for GPS and Music at the same time. I also keep it charging during this time also, since it murders the battery. The phone gets crazy hot doing all of this and it gets even slower. Sometimes Google Navigation has crashed somehow.
• Data connectivity goes in/out regardless of where I am. I can have full bars sitting at home then the phone drops data and refuses to bring it back up again, even when applications are asking for internet access.
• Maybe related to the data issue, but more consistently MMS/Picture messages take like 1 minute or longer before they begin downloading. Sometimes much longer, even with 4G clearly active. And it's not like the connection is slow, it's not even trying -- the data icons are inactive, no data is moving in or out yet I have an MMS that needs it's picture downloaded to my phone.
  • I thought it was Go SMS Pro, but the Stock message app is waiting on the data also. Been through both applications' MMS settings twice looking for possible tweaks. I know I haven't touched the MMS settings before so by default there should be no problems.

I have already tried resetting the phone to factory settings since the ICS update. That only helped a little bit and only for a very short time. I keep feeling like the problem is Go SMS Pro but... I am not sure that it is, plus I don't like any of the other options for SMS.

Anyone seen similar issues and how did you fix?
Diagnostic suggestions?



I can't wait for my New Every 2, but it's a few months out. Are the newest 4G VZW phones having these same issues still? I acknowledge that the Thunderbolt was VZW's FIRST 4G phone, so mmaaaybe some bugs. MAYBE.

 

[skeet43169]

If you have the best insurance call Verizon tell them your phone is piece of crap since ice cream Sandwich update is out they should offer you a droid DNA or the HTC Windows 8 phone for $99 no matter what your upgrade date

 

[OnlineIdentity]

How slow/fast is the Droid DNA?

Good tip

 

[N9nestein]

The DNA is a great phone, I've had mine since feb after 4 tbolts, 4 rezounds and a Motorola razr maxx. Its super fast with the quadcore processors. One con is the storage but the battery is great, on a good charge i can get 18 hours with heavy music, game and camera usage.

 

[Funderbolt]

ICS made the thunderbolt dog slow.

 

[OnlineIdentity]

If you have the best insurance call Verizon tell them your phone is piece of crap since ice cream Sandwich update is out they should offer you a droid DNA or the HTC Windows 8 phone for $99 no matter what your upgrade date

What is 'the best insurance' ?

Do they force you to renew your contract if you accept a replacement phone? I am eligible for a discounted upgrade already but if I can avoid a contract renewal or using that upgrade by going the route of having them replace this phone with the DNA, I'd like to do that. Otherwise I will get a Samsung Galaxy

 

[Whatstreet]

I had the same problem. The TB was extremely slow after the Ice Cream Sandwich update. It would sometimes take minutes for the dialer to respond to a call number selection.

I avoided doing the factory reset for awhile because I didn’t want to be bothered restoring all my stuff. Finally I accepted that I couldn’t be sure what was causing the problem and tried the factory reset.

I did not backup the applications to an external storage and so downloaded fresh copies from google for installation on the TB. The unresponsive TB is back to it’s old self and I’m satisfied with the performance.

It did take some work to install the apps that I need, reload the contacts, setup email, establish wifi connectivity to all the places I go and make countless settings changes, but it was worth it.

 

[Funderbolt]

I think it's just inevitable that you will lose your unlimited data package. Unless you want to pay $300 EXTRA dollars for your phone. According to Verizon I average 1GB/month, which is less than a 2GB plan. The only thing that would make me use more is Netflix on my phone. So I'm not sure being a diehard unlimited data fanatic is worth it.