Let’s face it… if you’re a smart-phone user (and the way things are going, everyone soon will be), things have never been better.  The industry’s leading manufacturers, together with the various service providers, appear to be committed to a consumer friendly strategy of extreme one-upsmanship – rolling out more and more capable and powerful devices nearly every week. Recently, we got our hands on one of the most impressive of these hot new offerings – the HTC ThunderBolt (for Verizon Wireless) and did our best to see if it could live up to the hype.  Join us as we take a closer look at HTC’s newest entry in what is quickly developing into the “Ultimate Smart-phone Wars.”

First Impressions

We know, we know.  It’s wrong to judge a book by its cover or allow first impressions to sway our opinion… especially after being let down so many times by great-looking, but poor performing products – but we hope you’ll forgive us when we tell you that in the case of the HTC ThunderBolt, we were hooked virtually from the start.  Arriving in an almost sinister, but extremely elegant matte black box and sleeve, the ThunderBolt exudes an understated and powerful sense of quality even before you open it… a moment which doesn’t disappoint as the all black theme is broken in impressive fashion with the eye-opening reveal of the HTC ThunderBolt proudly displayed in the middle of a Verizon-red interior.  Once past this high impact introduction to your new toy – I mean powerful communication device – you’ll find key product literature, a glossy black USB wall charger, and a micro-USB cable thoughtfully stored underneath the phone.   Finally, as we completed our initial set-up and familiarization, we were happily surprised to find that our review unit came with both the battery and 32GB microSD card already installed (more on that later).

The next surprise comes with your first touch of the phone. Removing the HTC ThunderBolt from the box immediately reveals what may be its most distinctive ingredient… it feels as if it might have been carved from a single billet of some exotic metal – it’s just that substantial and solid feeling in your hand.  And while I know it may simply be judged as “really heavy” by some users, for me, that heft translated to a greater sense of quality and precision than I’ve ever found in another phone or similar device.  Just as importantly, after several weeks using and carrying the phone for extended periods, I have to say I never found the weight bothersome or obtrusive – nor found myself wishing for a smaller, lighter phone.  That being said, I think that just as when shopping for any new device, it’s important to swing by a store and spend some quality time assessing whether this is the phone for you.

Design

Looking at the HTC ThunderBolt design reveals that it is an evolution of a number of earlier HTC designs, and features several of the details and quality touches that have made HTC phones so popular.  Measuring 4.75 inches tall by 2.44 inches wide by 0.56 inch thick – and weighing in at a robust 6.23 ounces – the HTC ThunderBolt is a substantial phone which, thanks to its elegantly tapered back and soft-touch finish, is exceedingly comfortable to hold and use. Dominating the front of the phone is HTC’s best 4.3-inch WVGA (800×480 pixels) touch screen, which delivers vibrant images and easy-to-read text.  As we’ve found in tests of previous HTC phones, the touch screen was responsive and straightforward to use, allowing us to easily navigate and enter text–and together with the responsive and accurate proximity sensors and built-in accelerometer, seamlessly changed screen orientation when we rotated the phone.   Just above the screen is a metal grated speaker and, just to the right, is the front facing camera.  Sitting below the display you’ll find the subtly labeled (and for all intents and purposes, standard) home, menu, back, and search navigation buttons.

The back of the ThunderBolt is dominated by two key elements; first, is the flush mounted 8 megapixel cameras lens and dual-LEDs for its flash.  Second, is the ThunderBolt’s trademark kickstand, designed to allow users to position the phone to more easily watch videos, conduct speakerphone calls, or view pictures. We found this arrangement surprisingly useful and a good deal less gimmicky than expected.  Underneath the ThunderBolts “Google” engraved kickstand, users will find a metal grating concealing the surprisingly good loudspeaker. While volume is somewhat muted with the kickstand closed, it’s obvious that HTC believes users will likely want maximum volume when they’d most likely have the kickstand is deployed… and we can’t help but agree with them.

It’s also worth noting, as we did earlier, that we’re guessing most users will be quite happy to find the included 32GB microSD card pre-installed, as we found the battery cover unexpectedly difficult to remove – so challenging, in fact, that we nearly gave up for fear of breaking or damaging it.  Once removed, you’ll find a somewhat (at least in our minds) undersized 1400mAh battery, the microSD slot underneath, and a LTE SIM card tray.  Fortunately, with the pre-installed 32GB microSD card already providing so much storage capacity, it seems unlikely that users will ever need to delve so deep.  Chock this up as another example of HTC’s understanding of its customers and their needs.

Finally, HTC has managed to keep the sides of the ThunderBolt relatively clean… there’s a Micro-USB port on the left side, a nicely sized volume rocker switch on the right side and a simple power/lock button and 3.5mm headphone jack occupying the top.  All in all, we think that the HTC ThunderBolt is among the most attractively designed phones we’ve seen in a long time.

Phone Performance

As always, we place a premium on performance; as we’re sure you’ll agree that no matter what features or capabilities it might offer, if it can’t deliver on this basic level, nothing else really matters.  Happily, we can report that HTC has got it right again.  We tested the dual-band HTC ThunderBolt in and around Los Angeles using Verizon Wireless service, and found that call quality ranged from good to great.  Throughout the test period, we consistently heard callers clearly, while friends reported that sound quality on their end was excellent.

Furthermore, (and not surprisingly, given its creative and functional design) we found the Thunderbolt’s speakerphone performance particularly good – delivering crystal clear audio with great volume while at the same time ensuring that our friends heard us with great clarity and richness.  Finally, we can also report that we successfully paired the ThunderBolt with a number of different Bluetooth headsets from a range of manufacturers and were able to make calls and listen with ease.

Lastly, we come to the single challenge we had with the ThunderBolt… and the factor that is quickly turning out to be the Achilles heel of virtually every new smartphone we test… battery life.  While it’s worth noting that our relatively limited time with the phone meant we weren’t able to run many full charge / re-charge cycles with the ThunderBolt’s battery – something that we’ve been led to believe might help improve battery performance – our “typical use” test cycle (roughly 60 minutes of voice calls and two hours of heavy 4G LTE data usage) yielded a good deal less than 5 hours of run time – definitely not enough to comfortably make it through a full day.  While in-line with other large screen, high-data / high-power competitors, we’d hoped HTC would install an equally high-power battery.  As it is, we’d highly recommend carrying a portable battery-powered charger or a spare battery to ensure continuous, worry-free operation.

That’s Fine And All… But What About the 4G?

So… having found that it can easily handle all of the basic performance elements, it’s time to turn to the feature that really sets the ThunderBolt apart…namely, 4G support.  The ThunderBolt is the first smartphone to work on Verizon’s new LTE 4G network, which promises average download speeds of anywhere from 5Mbps to 12Mbps and upload speeds of up to 5Mbps.  Blazingly fast performance by anyone’s standards… and yet even prepared as we were, the reality was something else.  Simply put – the HTC ThunderBolt is FAST… I mean REALLY, REALLY FAST.

While we’ll leave the hard tech bench-testing and results to others, I can safely say that during my time with the phone – both directly and while acting as a mobile hot spot for other devices, the HTC ThunderBolt regularly out performed my home based DSL on both the download and upload sides.    More importantly, this performance translated to simply amazing real-world usage.  Whether over a mobile hot-spot connection or directly to the phone, mobile optimized sites downloaded in seconds while other image and video rich sites took only a little longer.  Apps downloaded and installed almost instantly and videos loaded in seconds, playing without stutter or interruption.  And while it’s worth noting that as of today Verizon’s 4G network covers just 39 markets (and more than 60 major airports), they are promising that they’ll blanket the entire county with 4G LTE service in the coming years.  We recommend that you check LTE / 4G coverage in your usage area before jumping in…

Features

The balance of the HTC ThunderBolt’s features easily equal or exceeds those of its higher-end smart-phone competitors.  As noted above, as a phone it offers a speakerphone, conference calling, voice dialing, and text and multimedia messaging along with stereo Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS already onboard.  One of the most unique features the ThunderBolt serves up is the ability to do simultaneous voice and data over both 4G and 3G… a handy trait we wish was more common. Befitting its “newest and bestest” feature set, the HTC ThunderBolt runs Android 2.2 (no Gingerbread yet, but stay tuned)) with the latest version of HTC Sense, which includes such improvements as new camera tools and speedier boot times .

Finally, in addition to the standard Google services pak and support for MS Exchange, POP3 and IMAP accounts and built-in social network integration, the ThunderBolt comes preloaded with a number of useful apps from HTC and Verizon, including;

• HTC’s Peep Twitter client
• Footprints
• Bitbop video streaming service
• Rock Band
• Let’s Golf
• TuneWiki (which allows you listen to Internet radio, view music videos, and more)