Features are awesome. Battery & Blue Tooth need improvements. .

The HTC Thunderbolt is by far an extraordinarily well-thought-out piece of mobile equipment. Its open architecture allows you to apply apps that are better-performing and non-proprietary, unlike Apple's iPhone.

As a phone it functions well. It has a built in mobile wifi hotspot capability which is enormously helpful in that it combines the ease of a cell phone with the convenience of having internet support and VPN support on the road.

Unknown to many people, and not touted by Verizon, the phone is capable of hard-wire tethering. This IS important because if you're in a 3G spot rather than the Verizon LTE 4G network, your connection speeds are very, very fast. I had the ENvTouch 1100 touch screen phone and it was faster on 3G than the ENv 9900 that preceded it. This phone on 3G is much faster since you connect direct without the use of intervening software which was the Verizon wireless manager program.

You can play games, and if you're a gamer this phone's out of this world. You can digitize movies and with the right apps you can watch MP4s in HiDef which is incredible. Gone are the days of worrying about syncing audio and visual tracks because the technology now lets you display your video files in non-compressed, native file formats (again with the right apps).

Apps are cheap and easy to purchase. You don't need the iTunes connection to get your apps delivered to your phone. One less headache to contend with.

Reception is good to better than my ENv Touch 1100.

Problem areas:

1. Blue tooth earpiece connections. I get audio but not duplex operation unless I go through a complex series of steps. The blue tooth works well with non earpiece devices such as data devices or cellular gateway devices to allow direct fax.

2. Battery life. The puny 1400 mah battery that Verizon/HTC gives you with this phone does it an injustice! Aftermarket batteries are available from Seidio in 1600 and 1800 mah configurations that fit in the slim design of the phone. However this phone is a power monster. Its dual core snapdragon micro-processor EATS power voraciously! In order to conserve you have to turn off blue tooth and internet when not in use. When the internet is in "always on" mode it will keep you on webpages all day. So you can't close out your browser. And being on the net will eat the puny battery in a matter of 4 to 6 hours before the phone shuts it off to conserve power.

Cold boot time is extraordinarily faster than iPhones of the past.

Common Fixes: Best Blue Tooth earpiece devices are available through Jawbone. They're recommended and use digital connections rather than audio/microphone duplex operations. Jawbone actually has downloadable apps for their earpieces too. Battery: If you're a gamer or like watching streaming video, or both, order the Seidio 3400 mah battery. Its bulky but comes with a battery door. They also sell a case that takes into account this very issue and the case is almost as rugged as Otter Box.

Verizon/HTC sells a 2800 mah battery for this phone, but its more expensive, and for less money, Seidio's battery gives you a full 8 or more hours between charges if you use the net or gaming all the time.

Another solution to add on is to get a Seidio combo external charging pack and spare trays for batteries. This way you can always have a fresh battery on tap provided you have extra batteries.

A lot of bang for your buck.

I want to qualify this review by saying I have owned a litany of smartphones. Anyone who has, knows that the term smartphone is largely a misnomer. I have owned the Motorola Droid, HTC Incredible, Droid X, Droid X2, Iphone 4, virtually every blackberry ever produced, and this is my 2nd Thunderbolt (the first I sold due to poor battery life). To clarify, I backtracked after selling the first thunderbolt to the Droid X2. Let's be clear: dual core and phones aren't like dual core and computers. It is much like its counterpart, the Droid X, only SLOWER.

The next burning question I know you have is 'why did you leave the Iphone 4?' I'm glad you asked! I, much like other technophiles, felt I had to give it a try. Nice phone. Nice features. BUT, I had owned the Droid X prior to buying the I4. What sold me? The front facing camera, and the fact I am a mac guy. What switched me back? The Thunderbolt has a front facing camera, and as a cost conscious consumer, nothing says love and customer appreciation like FREE APPS. Yea, all the ones I would have paid for on Iphone. FREE on droid. AND, a steady stream of duplication of apps formerly found only on Iphone.

As far as my experience goes with the Thunderbolt, the PROS: solid built, smooth operating system, good cameras (front and back), and fairly simple and intuitive. Plenty of memory with the added 32gig micro sd card, and has been the only phone that totally synced my contact list without losing a few dozen people. The snapdragon 1ghz processor seems to be holding its own with the newer Droid phones. The Droid OS seems to have a nice lifespan ahead of it, so updates should continue to be forthcoming. All said, I don't think we have to worry about these phones being fly-by-night items that aren't going to be supported for updates, etc anytime soon. Gingerbread, Icecream Sandwich...

CONS: This is the short stack...battery life (unless you have the camel hump battery), and the inability to remove bloatware (those pesky apps Verizon put on your phone that you could care less about, nor will ever open). Of course, you can 'root' your phone...but most of the software is bogus, and you can honestly do more harm than good to your phone if you don't know exactly what you are doing. Folks do root phones every day. Some end up with bricks, though. Just sayin'.

Now, if you aren't going to grab up the Thunderbolt, a few words of advice:

I have owned almost everything these money leeches...err..Verizon offer, HTC truly rises to the top. If it is the front facing cam you like (I know I do), go after the new improved Incredible. These guys make a heck of a phone, and (I know I'm gonna catch it for saying this...) their phones run circles around the Iphones. Blackberry: A thing of the past. People want compatibility. The Thunderbolt has it. It is, in my humble opinion, the most bang for your buck.

Great phone with battery life of less than 5 hours with normal usage.

4G speeds are amazing, could get anywhere from 10mbps up to 29mbps depending on area. HTC Sense is user friendly with vast selection of widgets, much better than my previous phone the Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate. This beast is power hungry and battery life is unbelievable poor since there is not built in option to toggle between 3G/4G or turn off 4G. You can manually turn off 4G and switch to CDMA, no option to switch to 3G only. For a full day of usage you must either get an extended battery or have one or two standard batteries ready for swap. Phone doesn't have some of the features I liked in the Fascinate so I highly recommend installing custom rom such as BAMF 1.7 to add those missing features.

Worst Smartphone I have ever owned

The WORST phone I have EVER owned next to the original Motorola Razr.

I got the thunderbolt june 24, 2011. Plenty of time after the inital release date to work out kinks, bugs and the like.

Well, from day one I had nothing but problems.
Between July 2011 and August 2011 my thunderbolt was replaced SEVEN times!

Every single phone had a physical defect, and some had software problems as well.

HTC really dropped the ball on this one.

I actually just cancelled my verizon service after ten years because they refused to do anything about my eighth broken Thunderbolt.

I had everything from light leaks to keyboard lag, broken speakers and broken power buttons to phones that would randomly shut off and restart (even though they fixed that bug) and would constantly turn its own data connection OFF. (Whats the point of having a 4g smart phone with NO DATA?)

On this last one which has been in a case with a screen protector since day one, the screen came OFF on one side and the housing cracked next to the volume button.

The battery life STINKS. If you buy one be sure to have a car charger, a charger at your home, one at your office and a wall charger to tote around if you stay somewhere more than a few hours.

The kickstand is a GREAT feature, except for one thing: its flipped wrong. With the kickstand you can NOT use it and plug in your phone at the same time due to the kickstand/charge port being on the wrong side.

Hard to stream or watch anything with a phone that dies constantly that you can't charge!

I for one, will never purchase another HTC product and Verizon Wireless has lost not just one customer but SIX (family plan) due to this AWFUL phone and their awful service in dealing with it!

Get a Bionic!

I'm AM happy with it. But, GPS is bad and you NEED an extended battery.

Verizon's 4G LTE just went live for me and I wanted to get a 4G capable phone. At the time There were only two phones available The HTC Thunderbolt and Samsung Droid Charge. I came from a Droid 1 and a Droid 2 Global. After holding the two options in my hand the Thunderbolt feels more substantial (like the Droids I owned). The Samsung is very light and plastic-y. I just thought I might break it somehow. A friend of mine also owns the HTC Incredible which is arguably the best of that generation of Android phones. I know HTC makes very high quality phones.

I love the build quality both hardware and software. The in-call speaker (the one by your ear) is loud and clear compared to my Droids.

IMPORTANT: If you use GPS on a regular basis I cannot recommend this phone. I have read that people get the GPS to work, but mine doesn't. I was just on vacation for two weeks and the GPS was worthless the entire time. Luckily my wife has a Droid 1 which has a fantastic GPS. She would pick up twelve satellites in 60 seconds and I would pick up two in ten minutes (then lose the signal).

I abhor the stock battery life. When I first got the phone I could get 5 hours before needing to charge. That is completely unacceptable. However, I did need/want the 4G capability. I bought an aftermarket extended battery. I can now make it through the day 8-10 hours. That is still pretty pathetic, but is becomes "acceptable." Future software updates should help extend the battery life some. There are also tricks like turning off the 4G when you don't need it.

The HTC Thunderbolt is also fairly expensive. At $699 full retail MSRP it's VERY pricey. However, these "phones" now have so much technology packed into them that a high MSRP is likely to become the standard.

Likes:
- 4G LTE!!!
- Aesthetically pleasing and intuitive interface (HTC Sense).
- Solid build quality
- Includes (if bought new)32GB micro-SD card ($60-$100 value)

Dislikes:
- Stock battery life is ridiculously bad.
- GPS is unusable (for me).
- Not many cases for the extended battery.
- Pretty expensive.