Saturday 11 June 2011

SPECIFICATION OF BATTERY LIFE IN HTC THUNDERBOLT

The ThunderBolt’s battery is obviously a major point of discussion. How does the Verizon Wireless’ first 4G LTE smartphone do in the real world? Well, not that great to be honest — especially with a 1400 mAh battery. Over 3G, the ThunderBolt can easily power through a normal workday. On 4G, however, I couldn’t get more than around 4.5 hours of usage at best… a figure that is not at all acceptable to me.

What makes matters worse is the fact that 4G can’t be switched on and off by the user. There is no widget to disable LTE and there’s not even a menu setting you can check on and off to enable or disable 4G. While there is a method floating around to do this by entering into the phone’s field test mode, this doesn’t even come close to cutting it. While enthusiasts might be comfortable with a “hack” like this, the average consumer will never even know the option exists. Other 4G smartphones like the HTC EVO 4G and the Google Nexus S 4G have a simple widget that disables 4G, and it really helps with battery life. When users don’t have a need for speed, they should definitely have an easy way to turn LTE off and stretch out that puny battery.
                     
Verizon has an extended 2750mAh battery that will effectively double the battery life of the ThunderBolt. To be honest, the extended battery adds so much extra thickness and weight to a phone that’s already way too thick and too heavy, there’s no way I would even consider using it regularly. Most people will likely feel the same way and a widget to disable 4G would have been a much cheaper and more user-friendly way to fix the battery life problem. I get that Verizon wants to deliver a consistant user experience that showcases its beastly new 4G network, but I don’t think a 4G widget would have detracted from that experience or confused anyone.

The HTC ThunderBolt is a phone from the future in many ways. It delivers the fastest internet speeds of any device I have ever tested (at least 2-3 times faster than anything else, in fact), and it runs on a very fast (and customized) version of Android to deliver great performance. In many ways, however, the ThunderBolt resembles phones from a year or two ago — in styling and in thickness and heft.

I’m not a fan of any smartphone that features a display beyond 4-inches, and the sheer thickness and weight of the ThunderBolt makes it a non-starter for a role as my daily driver. In addition, the poor battery performance makes it a tough sell. It’s awesome that I can use the ThunderBolt to email presentations, download files and and stream video at ridiculous cellular data speeds, but all that means nothing if my battery dies after just a few hours of usage. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the HTC ThunderBolt isn’t the right device for you, however.
                              
My advice is to definitely play with one in person at a Verizon Wireless store to see if the device is your perfect Android match. If you can look past the poor battery life — or if you don’t mind reinforcing your pants pockets so that the added weight and size of the extended battery doesn’t rip right through them — then you’ll find yourself with an amazingly fast smartphone packed with all the bells and whistles you need.

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