Seriously you guys, what is wrong with the Thunderbolt?

[Deeko]

Amazon does this all the time. They had all of their WP7 phones for a penny right after launch, Galaxy S too. They must get solid kickbacks from the carriers for the contracts.

 

[shortylickens]

Amazon does this all the time. They had all of their WP7 phones for a penny right after launch, Galaxy S too. They must get solid kickbacks from the carriers for the contracts.

If they charge even 5 dollars more per month then its not worth it.
The problem is carriers arent honest about their prices. If I set up the plan I want right now they'll say it costs 70 dollars. But when the bill comes it will be closer to 85 with all their bullshit fees.
If its 90 cuz of Amazon, over two years it will be 120 more, which brings it back up to normal price.

 

[destrekor]

Amazon does this all the time. They had all of their WP7 phones for a penny right after launch, Galaxy S too. They must get solid kickbacks from the carriers for the contracts.

Now the question I have: if I'm already on a family share plan, but my contract is up, can I grab a new discounted phone on Amazon and renew my contract that way? Without changing anything, simply re-upping as if I were in a Verizon store doing the same?

 

[notposting]

I stopped by the VZW store the other day...Tbolt still suffers from the Android stutter...about as smooth as Launcherpro on my OG Droid. Of course the LG Revolution, wow what a joke. Literally a 3-5 second delay in seeing all the homescreens. Xoom was meh...I checked out the Trophy though.

Suffice to say that if there is a Mango running Nokia phone by the holidays I'm switching (or another brand with a decent camera). So buttery smooth running. Google just doesn't understand polish...always moving onto the next thing while leaving a trail of half baked ideas behind.

 

[Deeko]

Now the question I have: if I'm already on a family share plan, but my contract is up, can I grab a new discounted phone on Amazon and renew my contract that way? Without changing anything, simply re-upping as if I were in a Verizon store doing the same?

I'm pretty sure they do upgrades like that - although I've only ever done new contracts.

If they charge even 5 dollars more per month then its not worth it.
The problem is carriers arent honest about their prices. If I set up the plan I want right now they'll say it costs 70 dollars. But when the bill comes it will be closer to 85 with all their bullshit fees.
If its 90 cuz of Amazon, over two years it will be 120 more, which brings it back up to normal price.

I've never seen any additional fees attached. Its just a standard contract with the carrier.

 

[Bman123]

my bolt has 0 lag when switching screens, no stutter at all

 

[MotF Bane]

The only problem is the battery. I curse the battery every day, but I love every other aspect of the phone.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Battery is good for me on 3g. If I leave 4g running all day it won't last through the day though. I got an app that lets me toggle it so that works fine for me till I bother to get the extended battery.

 

[Fire&Blood]

LTE aside, the Thunderbolt is 2009 phone, sold as a 2011 high end $$$ phone and that's why the price dropped.

Never mind that Thunderbolt's SoC (or any other) simply isn't capable of taking advantage of LTE speeds. Run browsing tests at 2, 3, 5 Mbps and you will see that the CPU bottleneck prevents faster site rendering, advantage of fast connection is negated by the SoC.

If you have deep pockets and can afford the tethering charge, Thunderbolt can be used as a hotspot but financially it isn't wisest path to choose.

 

[Munky]

Yeah being here in NOVA, you gotta go with the 4G Shorty. No reason to go with anything 3G. I'm wondering if there's a way I could get my family plan revamped through amazon so I could get this $99 phone. Could I just do a new 2 year contract through amazon w/out paying an ETF?

3G is enough for me, considering I'm getting it ultra cheap w/ no contract on my old T-Mobile SIM card and a new phone.

 

[BigDaddyD]

I love my TB. I would buy it again. I was getting insane battery life with 4g only close to 20hrs at a shot, before I would plug it one with 50% battery life left..just to go just to be safe. That was before the update. Things changed and I am not sure what, but it is now becoming more stable again. I have never loved a phone more.

 

[Bman123]

I didn't do the ota update, I'm having no issues at all. If it ain't broke don't fix it

 

[_Aurel_]

Im using the thunderbolt now and having switched from the incredible, the battery is actually slightly better. I'm pretty deep in LTE coverage so I run it on LTE only. It seems to do fine at picking up calls and browsing the web. Also it feels much faster than the incredible by a good margin. I had the incredible rooted with stock gingerbread and the thunderbolt unrooted feels snappier. With gingerbread right around the corner things will only get better.

 

[Reliant]

Battery life is a big one for me, and it's a bit bigger/bulkier than I'm used to so having that in my pocket is a bit uncomfortable. I'm hoping I'll get over it, otherwise I might need to go for a smaller phone next refresh.

 

[_Aurel_]

LTE aside, the Thunderbolt is 2009 phone, sold as a 2011 high end $$$ phone and that's why the price dropped.

Never mind that Thunderbolt's SoC (or any other) simply isn't capable of taking advantage of LTE speeds. Run browsing tests at 2, 3, 5 Mbps and you will see that the CPU bottleneck prevents faster site rendering, advantage of fast connection is negated by the SoC.

If you have deep pockets and can afford the tethering charge, Thunderbolt can be used as a hotspot but financially it isn't w

There were phones with 1800 quadrant scores, capable talking and surfing simaltaneously while downloading at 10 mbps (on Verizon) sold in 2009? Oh which phone did that??

 

[Pliablemoose]

Also, this is one of the hardest phones I've owned to keep running smoothly, it's real sensitive to the radio & roms you have installed... Currently I have it pretty well sorted out, but it's a lot of work. I think the 3G stuff is pretty sorted out, but keeping the 4G up and fast is interesting...

Am running the latest leaked radio and a rom to match it... Am getting a better 4G connection (more stable) and the GPS is actually functional now, I was getting pretty bummed about the GPS...

 

[Ksyder]

Have to take issue with Shorty's statement that navigation is useless over wifi. If you set the destination while on wifi it will cache the maps in advance. It will only download data over 3g if you deviate from the original directions. For page plus users this minimizes 3g data usage. Just sayin, wifi isn't worthless for nav.

 

[Bateluer]

LTE aside, the Thunderbolt is 2009 phone, sold as a 2011 high end $$$ phone and that's why the price dropped.

Never mind that Thunderbolt's SoC (or any other) simply isn't capable of taking advantage of LTE speeds. Run browsing tests at 2, 3, 5 Mbps and you will see that the CPU bottleneck prevents faster site rendering, advantage of fast connection is negated by the SoC.

If you have deep pockets and can afford the tethering charge, Thunderbolt can be used as a hotspot but financially it isn't wisest path to choose.

Few problems with your statements. The SoC in the TB is a second generation Snapdragon/Adreno 205. Qualcomm didn't become sampling these until mid 2010. The first phones to use the 1st gen snapdragon were the Nexus One(Jan-2010) and Incredible(April-2010). Not exactly a 2009 phone when its silicon didn't get minted until mid-2010 and didn't launch in phones until early 2011. The TB isn't a top of the line phone, but its hardly a 2009 device.

Your second statement about the SoC being bottle necked with the LTE speeds was also proven false in the Galaxy S2 thread. Web browsing on 3G vs LTE is considerably faster and very noticeable. The only bottle necking that might occur would be in loading an 'intense' website, flash heavy, etc.,

 

[Pliablemoose]

Few problems with your statements. The SoC in the TB is a second generation Snapdragon/Adreno 205. Qualcomm didn't become sampling these until mid 2010. The first phones to use the 1st gen snapdragon were the Nexus One(Jan-2010) and Incredible(April-2010). Not exactly a 2009 phone when its silicon didn't get minted until mid-2010 and didn't launch in phones until early 2011. The TB isn't a top of the line phone, but its hardly a 2009 device.

Your second statement about the SoC being bottle necked with the LTE speeds was also proven false in the Galaxy S2 thread. Web browsing on 3G vs LTE is considerably faster and very noticeable. The only bottle necking that might occur would be in loading an 'intense' website, flash heavy, etc.,

I was going to post something similar, The TB is a very fast phone.

Tweaking a high performance phone is a bit of an art...

Am using this leaked radio: http://rootzwiki.com/showthread.php...r-Thunderbolt-versatile-for-GB-Leak-and-Froyo

And this rom: http://rootzwiki.com/showthread.php?176-Flyweight-Final-by-b16-and-birdman&p=1759

Add launcher pro or another launcher and it's even faster...

 

[Pliablemoose]

Double post, sorry

 

[Bateluer]

I was going to post something similar, The TB is a very fast phone.

Tweaking a high performance phone is a bit of an art...

Am using this leaked radio: http://rootzwiki.com/showthread.php...r-Thunderbolt-versatile-for-GB-Leak-and-Froyo

And this rom: http://rootzwiki.com/showthread.php?176-Flyweight-Final-by-b16-and-birdman&p=1759

Add launcher pro or another launcher and it's even faster...

I'm not a fan of Sense roms, have to go as close to stock as possible. The MR2 radio leak will work its way into various ROMs before too long though.

Still, depending on when the SGS2 US versions launch and AOSP, and the state of AOSP for the TB, I could just as easily sell the TB for an SGS2.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Yep, I was having connectivity problems with 4G, this seems to be the current best set up. It switches back & forth from 4G to 3G pretty quickly in poor 4G reception areas rather than the manual switching I've been trying to do...

Will know for sure when I go to work, the building mass kills 4G, but we have a 3G booster that should help when the 4G signal fades. I've been losing all connectivity at work, pretty frustrating...

Am getting a much faster GPS lock now too...

A lot of times performance changes are pretty negligible, or in your head, this seems to be a significant improvement...

Bateluer, just noticed your thread on the leaked radio, I need to follow your posts more closely...

 

[s44]

The first phones to use the 1st gen snapdragon were the Nexus One(Jan-2010) and Incredible(April-2010).

Wrong. Those were the first *Androids* to use Snapdragon.

HD2 = 2009. HTC had been coasting on that hardware platform between then and the Sensation.

Anyway, the answer to the original question is that you can get the Droid Charge for $50 more. Note that an OTA this week corrected the 3g/4g issues some Charge users were having and further improved the already-much-better battery life.

 

[Bateluer]

Wrong. Those were the first *Androids* to use Snapdragon.

HD2 = 2009. HTC had been coasting on that hardware platform between then and the Sensation.

My bad, forgot about the HD2. September 2009, but still a first generation Snapdragon. The TB is a second generation Snapdragon, 45nm vs the older 65nm, and the Adreno 205 GPU.

 

[Bman123]

I love my bolt, no reboot at all. Rooted, custom Rom. Running at 1.4ghz this thing screams. I hit 2,800 on quadrant today too