HTC Thunderbolt Review and Speed Tests
- Details
- Category: Mobile
- Published: Wednesday, 23 March 2011 16:33

But before we go any further let's get the bad news out of the way. The battery life, well, it sucks. With average use we can't even make it through an average work day. Now we know where the name comes form. The thunderbolt requries serious power to keep it going.
Yes you can throttle back the features, use 3G...etc., but what's the point? If you buy the Cadillac of smart phones you want to enjoy all the bells and whistles. The Thunderbolt reminds us of our test drive with the first electric car, the EV1, we were constantly paranoid of running out of juice.
Now the good part. We fired it up side by side with the ATRIX on the AT&T network and consistently got 4X plus speed. Kind of felt like the jump from dial-up to high speed access on the home network. It’s the kind of speed difference you instantly notice. Pop open a browser and bam, there’s your content. Fire up the hotspot and you don’t feel like you’re on a cellular network. It’s very impressive. Over 3 days of testing in Orlando, Florida we averaged speeds of 7.4Mbps for downloads and 25.79 Mbps for uploads. Yes, uploads are much faster. It's curious to note we've had Verizon salespeople point out the outstanding upload speeds even though most users care more about the download speeds. Although with the obsession of sharing experiences in real time and uploading photos this is becoming more important.
Okay, maybe we’re getting a little too excited because as more 4GLTE phones get activated this will surely impact the experience. But if you’re an early adopter and speed is your number one priority you’re going to love the HTC Thunderbolt
We’ll hit you with an update in a month or so to let you know if this experience holds up over time and around the nation. But if you're in the market and portability is not an issue check one out to see if the ergonomics agree with you. The specs are a no brainer.
Visit Verizon for more information on the HTC Thunderbolt.