Great phone. Terrible OEM battery life April 13, 2011

Reviewer:  CB "Pal" 

First phone - Had headphone jack issues with crackling and cutting out music. Took it back to Verizon and got a replacement, new one works fine.

Now onto the phone that works. 4G is very fast, phone works and looks great. OEM Battery life sucks and frankly I'm surprised this ever made it out of the labs at HTC.

Otherwise no issues.

Love it... but.... April 4, 2011

Reviewer:  L. Massaar "Len Massaar"  (Vancouver, WA) -

Am glad I splashed out on this... the screen is big but not as big as my iPad. ;)

The only real disappointment is the battery life... it drains pretty fast. And when I looked up the cause, it said most % was due to the screen. Which is weird, because I have brightness down to about 40% to the point I can barely read it outside in the sunlight. And I only turn it on about five or six times per day. So... go figure.

Sound quality is very good. Camera is awesome...

Just a few things needing correcting! March 22, 2011

Reviewer:  No keyboard, don't buy it! 

Just a few things:

1) Love the phone - in my house in Phoenix I was getting 227kbps download speeds on Verizon on my Droid X, now I'm getting 5900kpbs download speeds in the morning and around 19,500kbps speeds late at night. That's 25 to 85 times faster. It's amazing.

2) Speaker is good, could still be better.

3) NO STRAP HOLE for me to attach a wrist strap... fail! fail! fail! I ended up using a wii-mote strap and just looping it through the headphone jack hole - it totally works, but I'm still going to have someone drill a small hole in the corner of the case to make it so that the strap is on the corner closest to where I use the phone.

4) Kickstand is AWESOME, but yet another failure in design - with the phone plugged in, the phone cannot sit on the kickstand! This is a major fail. I'll try to submit pics above. The kickstand should also work to hold the phone in portrait mode, just my two cents.

5) Battery life - they should have made it double the battery storage by making the phone 1/8" thicker, and 1/8" wider and 1/8" deeper. And the back covers of all phones should be solar. And if you want to get really crazy, turn that kickstand into a crank so you can just crank-charge your battery in a few minutes... now that'd be awesome.

6) Those are my only issues. The 4G speeds are AMAZING... the benchmarks on this phone put it 20-25% faster than my droid x as far as processor speed. But that's not what matters - what matters is that amazing 4G speed. One day soon I will drop cable-internet at my home, just like I drop-kicked home service to the curb and never looked back. Next to boot out of my house: cable tv / satellite TV - soon my bills will be lower than ever before in my life!

Ben

Criticism of the activation process with Amazon and Verizon April 8, 2011

Reviewer:  Tom 

Amazon and Verizon have a seriously broken activation process. As I write this I have no working phone. Verizon cut off my existing account with ATT and they botched the activation of my sim card. I have to wait 4 days before I get a sim card in the mail.

What bothers me is me is Amazon blames Verizon and Verizon blames Amazon and when there's a glitch in the system nobody knows what is going on.

HTC Thunderbolt - DO NOT BUY!!! November 26, 2011

Reviewer:  J Shumway 

I bought this phone for myself and my wife. We couldn't believe how terrible it is! The problems we noticed were these:
1. Ringtone problems - No matter what my default or personalized ringtones are, whenever my phone rings a random ringtone plays
2. Video play issues - some video is stretched, sound continues but video freezes, including netflix
3. Phone screen goes black when the phone rings, so there's no way to answer the call
4. Data connection drops randomly, so I can't connect to send email or anything else
5. Text messages got diverted to other people, random contacts from my contact list

I even sent the phones off for repair (which took a month and I didn't get a replacement in the mean time!). When the phones came back the company said there were no issues found!

I've even spoken to Verizon employees that say they won't sell this anymore because customers always come back with complaints about it.

This is the only review I've ever written on Amazon, and I'm writing it because of my strong feelings that I was ripped off! This phone is JUNK!

my 1st 24-hrs w/ the ThunderBlunderbolt March 28, 2011

Reviewer:  MICHAEL S MCALEENAN  (LONGWOOD, FL USA) -

I have only had the phone for 24-hours and here are the flaws I have found thus far:

Has a built in kickstand to keep phone up when using it to view TV/video/etc. Seems like good idea right? However, the dummies who designed it didn't think to flip the kickstand the other way, so you could access the micro USB. One would think it would be a good time to charge/power the phone when one is watching video w/ the kickstand out. Seems that is pretty important since viewing videos/TV runs the battery down quick. Duh?

I personally love a big physical keypad for easy of use for male hands. i don't like touchscreen only cause I find myself always cursing at the constant mistouch while typing etc. Even though the large screen makes the keyboard bigger, it is still very easy to hit the wrong key.

Why are we going back to the old to school days of using the letters on the numberpad of the phone to spell names? If I want to type an 'R' I prefer to press the letter 'R' on a keyboard. I do not need to search around a number pad to figure out which number corresponds to the letter 'R'. At least give us an option in settings to pick how we find contact names when we want to use the phone.

Word suggest and completion is horrible. 90% of the time it does not suggest the right word up until I have typed the entire word. Example: If I want to type the word 'message'. I type the first four letters "mess' and it's suggested words are 'Less' 'Mead' and Ness'. I must be missing something cause that makes no sense. It does this whether I have spell check on or off. Many of us who text like to abbrieviate. It is very annoying that 'word complete' inserts a completely wrong word after you abbreviate a word and press space. If you don't catch it your sentance makes no sense. Example: If I abbreviate the TV show "Man Woman Wild" into "MWW", the word complete automatically inserts 'MOW' instead. What does capitol 'MOW' mean anyway? Not sure why it inserts it automatically without me choosing it to?

It has a lot of Icons for Apps that they want to sell you or are include with the phone(i.e. Blockbuster video,Peep,Let's Golf, etc)that you can not delete from the phone. If I don't use an app I don't want it taking up space in my App list. Also many of them don't even explain what they do.

The 'Clock/Weather'app on the home screen is huge. It takes up half the screen. I like to see the time and weather but I also like to have the app icons I use the most on the home screen too. It has this huge screen and only allows you 8 additional app icons on the home screen. If there is a way to reduce the size of the clock on the screen I haven't been able to find it.

I've been doing a lot of setup on the phone today and I have been flying through the battery life. I am not sure how it will last during normal use, but I am not impressed with the battery life thus far. Maybe if I was to only use it occasionally throughout the day as only a phone it might last me the whole day. But that is not the point of a Smart Phone.

I am by no means a tech wiz I am just an average user. So, maybe there are apps to solve some of these issues or settings to fix some of these issues, but should I really have to waste all that effort correcting design flaws of the phone?

Give me another 24-hours and I am sure I will have more to complain about. I don't mean to be a pesimist, but common sense is important to me and this phone has a lot of common sense issues. Hopefully I can find ways to fix most of these issues cause I am stuck with this thing for 18-months now

This. phone. is. amazing, Seriously. April 13, 2011

Reviewer:  Keith Alcantara 

I am a Verizon owner since 2006. Had a Moto Droid (which was a great phone) before this phone and upgraded since sister broke my phone but here is my review.

Yea yea yea of course people are going to look at the negatives first like "battery sucks" or "cannot switch off 4g" or "too heavy".
First of all, yes it uses a lot of battery, it is 4g, enough said but for others calm down there is solutions like maybe an extended battery or possibly a car charger? So yea, not a problem for me.
Second of all, I don't understand why you would want to shut off 4g, ITS 4G and is FREAKIN FAST. Yes it uses battery but yea, get a car charger and stop crying me a river, Justin.
And lastly, are you people really going to get mad that a phone is TOO heavy? so its not as light as a feather but people are acting like its 10 pounds. Lift some weights, see how heavy those are.

Since thats off my chest, let me tell you why I love this phone =)
I usually get really excited when I get a new phone but seriously I didn't think I'd be this excited. My brother has an iPhone 4 and I am not a hater and I am going to say that phone is amazing. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars just since it is limited inn many areas. I bring this up because the TB was next to the praised iPhone. I actually thought about getting it but for some reason when the Verizon employee asked me which phone would you like, I automatically said Thunderbolt, didn't even have to think about it. I was playing around with it and seriously, I just loved it. I am a dude who loves big screens (got a 60" HDTV next to my 42" TV as my monitor haha) and this device blew my mind. I know it is not big new, the whole 4.3" screen but damn, its just plain nice. So far the phone runs really smooth, already got over the no keyboard aspect, the speaker was louder than i anticipated and the look of it is just nice. Usually phones look weird with a case but yea even with the case this phone looks like heaven.

Trust me, do not be afraid to go from apple OS or even any OS to Android, it is fun, flexible, creative, beautiful and works like a charm.

Locked to Hell April 22, 2011

Reviewer:  djc263 

Honestly this thing is a complete mess of locked up APs, Blockbuster movies, peep, random golf games whatever nonsense threw HTC a dollar is completely locked in place so at best you have to scroll past it every time you do almost anything (so if you prefer netflix, blockbuster shows up first anyway, day after day, use after use).

HTC also went out of the way to make the phone difficult to root on a level far beyond previous android phones, you risk bricking your phone but then it comes pretty much bricked anyway.

Bottom Line: Get an Iphone, although I bought this trying to avoid apples dictates to it's users, now that I've seen this, Apple is the much more customization friendly, open to development option.
And whatever speed you save on LTE you waste at least as much with the clunky inefficient interface (great concept but too cluttered with locked unremoveable apps to get to what you really want)

buy extended batteries & chargers for home, work & car April 17, 2011

Reviewer:  BAM "BAM"  (San Diego, CA USA) -

The miserable battery performance makes this an essentially non-functional device. Using 4G and searching the web I get very little more than 2hrs. That would be ok if it were a portable computer, but I also bought this to use as a phone. When the battery is dead it is just a brick, and a pretty big one at that. The location services/maps also run the battery down very quickly. It is nice to have fast internet connection, but it is meaningless when the battery is dead. The fact that verizon loads it up with non-removable useless apps aimed at selling services that further degrade battery function is insulting. And there are also the laughable service reps in the verizon stores, who just parrot the verizon party line (which I suspect is written by their legal department). Why doesn't verizion adequately train staff on the devices? If you are thinking about this device, go into verizon and ask them if there are problems with the battery life. Then go on line and see what the droid forums say on the battery issue.

From reviewing the posts online and talking to verizon and htc reps, the issues seem to be 1) phone searching for 4G network runs battery down. 2) Large screen drains battery 3) Apps running in background. There are alot of fixes that the verizon techs will tell you to do. But the phone is a high-end expensive device that is supposed to work as advertised. If you cannot keep getting emails in real-time for more than two hrs, then it is not functioning as advertised. Be aware that you only have 14 days to return to verizon! One final thing, verizon will try to sell you a large and bulky extended life battery (49$). And of course you will need to buy a new silicone protector and belt case because the ones you already bought don't fit the large and heavy extended life battery. That is the verizon answer - spend more money!

My very strong recommendation is to wait for the next batch of phones for 4G and let this one pass. Hopefully there will be improvements in the future.

WTF? September 22, 2011

Reviewer:  Kylie 

I love the phone there is nothing wrong with it, its a fast device and the batter once you change the settings lasts just fine!!!

ON THE OTHER HAND I AM VERY ANGRY WITH AMAZON WHEN I ORDERED THE DEVICE IT WAS THE PROMOTION "Buy a device with a new line of service from Verizon at AmazonWireless and get a $50 Amazon.com Gift Card. Learn more" AND I GET A $15 PROMOTION THAT TELLS ME WHAT I HAVE TO SPEND IT ON, THIS WAS NOT THE PROMOTION I ACCEPTED!!!

Updated Review--the FIRST "Best Phone I've Ever Had!" March 22, 2011

Reviewer:  Tony ""Medic Ricci""  (Yucaipa, CA) -

Update 01 April 2011:

I have to say that I just LOVE this phone! The battery life, with stock battery, has been fine since I used the application to make 3G dominant: it certainly matches the battery life I had with my two Blackberry phones. The phone is smooth and has worked flawlessly for me. The editing text interface (using a little bar to find where your cursor actually sits) is a very handy and thoughtful upgrade for when you want to place the cursor in an exact spot. Again, it's only been two weeks but I have no regrets. After having had four types of Blackberry, the HTC Incredible (screen sucked in bright light), the Droid X (crummy interface), etc., this is THE FIRST phone I've had which--after two weeks--I can honestly say is THE BEST PHONE I'VE EVER HAD!

Update 25 March 2011:

Very happy with my Thunderbolt! As other reviewer have noted some engineering type things (kick stand that in one position affects micro-usb jack) and a small power on/off switch stand out. I just LOVE the HTC Sense UI much more compared to the crummy one on the Droid X. The contacts manager function is much better and HTC's "Footprints" function is extremely handy as I drive to dozens of different fire stations.

As another poster wrote to me, there is an easy free application that gives you access to the phone's functions and allows you to control if you're 3G of LTE. The link to the application is: [...]

I downloaded it and it works quite well! Apparently doing the above will enable HTC Thunderbolt users to conserve battery life 4-fold and gain up to eight hours on a full charge with regular usage when not using a battery efficiency app.

So there you have it, give it a go and feel free to let us know how you get on and whether you experience better battery life from your HTC Thunderbolt by posting to our comments area.

Big fan of this phone June 29, 2011

Reviewer:  Bel & Mike 

We did a careful review of the iphone versus android phones, and thought that the android phone on the 4g network from verizon was the best overall. A big leap for us from the qwerty physical keypad to the screen touch pad, but the phone offers so many neat features. We've had this phone since March 2011 (when it first came out). I like the fact that you can call, text, play music, screw around on the internet - all at the same time if necessary. This has bluetooth on it as well, which works great for my wireless headsets, handsfree in the car and wireless headset when working out at the gym. I'd have to say that it's drastically reduced the amount of time I spend on the laptop at the end of the day, because its essentially a mini-laptop. Keep that in mind when it comes to power. The battery has lasted all day for me when I am not using the phone or lightly using it. Otherwise, expect to get about 4 hours when you are jamming or using it non-stop. We had our last phones for about 8 years, and already got used to plugging it into a power source either at work, in the car or immediately when we got home. So, that could be a switch for some people. Finally, the phone and getting apps for it are awesome and very simple. A lot of very good apps out there, too. I've downloaded a bunch of kids games and kids books and full Dora videos for my daughter (the phone comes with a 32gb memory card that you can take out and put into your laptop if necessary). Plus 8 gb internal memory. I mean, this thing is seriously fantastic. I've learned to 'stream' whenever possible - for instance - taking advantage of the Amazon MP3 cloud player rather than putting the songs on my own smartphone. Pandora Internet radio is another favorite app. Both of these are free, too, and works fantastic on the Thunderbolt.

The Thunderbolt is just to look at June 12, 2011

Reviewer:  Randall P. Hodge  (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma United States) -

As long as the HTC Thunderbolt is constantly charging, and provided I don't want to use it for anything, it is great. If it isn't plugged in, it will lose about 70% of its charge in two hours, and that's if I'm not using it for anything. I have an application killer, which I constantly use to turn off the many programs that insist on turning themselves on, and which drain the battery. Doesn't help.

Unlike most people, I rarely make or receive phone calls, so that isn't the problem. I often use the Thunderbolt to read newspapers at lunch. When I get back to the office after less than an hour, the battery is noticeably drained. There are also many applications and programs which the owner cannot remove or disable, my favorite being the hideous Blockbuster Video application. Accidentally touch the BB icon, and you will enter an endless update matrix.

If you have heard bad things about the battery problems with the Thunderbolt -- BELIEVE what you have heard. It is the suck. It isn't mobile if it must be plugged in at all times. I'm going back to Blackberry.

AWESOME PHONE!! May 21, 2011

Reviewer:  User 

very good phone with killer LTE speed. i also have LTE usb modem from VZW, and that is super awesome as well. i bought this over the white iphone 4 and I'M HAPPY ABOUT IT! battery life is not as bad as some say - i can last a day, using the phone judiciously (i.e. not watching youtube on my phone excessively) .

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Insanely fun, but has major flaws May 13, 2011

Reviewer:  bob 

Pretty fun phone until you factor in the reception and battery problems. It will drop at least 1-2 bars anytime I grasp the bottom half of phone, which means cut outs and hissing during calls unless I have a perfect singal. I thought it was only my phone but I verfied it occurs on a fair amount of thunderboltts. It seems to be similar to the Antennagate problem with the Iphone. Battery life seems to drain completely within half a day with playing games and minor web surfing and im in a 3G area. Im hoping the verizon firmware update will fix these issues soon. I was considering returning the phone but the 4g internet is insanely fast when I travel. I gett about 3MB per second on 4G which is 10X faster than my high end DSL service. Nothing compares with its speed at the moment so I have to bite the bullet.

Great iPhone challenger May 12, 2011

Reviewer:  Eye Yelp  (Calif) -

I've had the Thunderbolt for over a month now and just have to start with a warning: I saved alot of dough getting the phone from Amazon but it took a few hours to activate!

I tried to activate it around 11pm and it couldn't call out to self-activate. I called Verizon customer svc and they tried to help but did not know what was wrong. Then I went to the Verizon store the next day. They swapped out my sim card because they said it had a scratch on it. This took a while, as they are new to sim cards and the managers were asking the associates if they knew how to do it! This did not activate the phone either. I went home and called Amazon, very nice people and they admitted that Amazon's systems don't talk to Verizon's so well. Both Verizon and Amazon said I had to digitally agree to a new 2-year plan or else the Verizon computers would halt the activation. Trouble is, neither of them knew why it wasn't accepting my agreement.

Finally, a higher level Verizon phone tech (my 2nd one in two days) suggested I reset the phone to factory settings and try again to activate as if I just unboxed it. This, along with the new sim-card, and some technical fiddling on his part worked! Buyer beware!

The phone itself: terrific! All my friends have iPhones and I even was using my partner's iPhone on the home wifi. The iPhone is a great device. The Thunderbolt is just as good! The great apps, fast processor (no lag), touch screen are excellent. My iPhone friends were jealous about the voice-guided navigation that was included, the Google Voice app that transcribes your visual voicemails for FREE, the voice search, etc. Feels good to have some apps/features that the "great" iPhone does not.

The Cons are as noted by other reviewers. Get an extra external battery (I got a great solar one from Amazon) and be prepared to charge the phone by early evening because the battery will run out. I have a mix of 3G/4G and it lasts until 9pm on limited use throughout the day. When I'm in a 4G area and I'm using the phone it has run out by 2pm! The only other cons are that Verizon locked out the HTC website so you can't download new skins, etc. The voice-activated nav sometimes takes 5-6 minutes to load (but you can still use regular Google maps in the meantime). It is heavy but I upgraded from a tiny LG Versa and don't feel weighed down by the phone in my pocket. I wish it had a physical keyboard but the android keyboard gives you options if you spell wrong, unlike the crazy iPhone auto-correct.

Get this phone now!

Awesome phone so far, but has one major flaw? April 18, 2011

Reviewer:  tashakitty 

I got my Thunderbolt--just released 1-2 hours before, at midnight that Thursday, on Amazonwireless.com, a brand new Amazon store for cell phones only I discovered. They have many "penny" phones, including the Incredible, my original choice, and the Droid X. They didn't show the price for the Thunderbolt, but I went into "Checkout" mode & ended up buying it for $179--no ship, no tax--totally $179!! Got in 2 days.

Had to send it back a few days later due to it heating up sometimes when charging and using + freezing and force closing...truly defective. But they were great & I got another new one right away (AmazonWireless & Best Buy have 30 day return--Verizon now only has 14 days!).
So, I was/am so blownout by this awesome phone/camera/computer, & more. I guess a lot of it is because I never had a data phone or good camera & other things. So, getting used to it was/is difficult, I got it much more down now.

I love the size & feels really good in my hand. It is a little heavy, but that makes it feel sturdy, which it is & I got used to that right away. The screen is brilliant--almost hard to tell difference from iPhone.
The call quality is excellent--sounds like talking directly to person in same from from both ends. Really crystal clear and sounds natural.
I have light to timeout at 15 secs, which can be a drag because I have to touch the screen often to keep light on, but saves a lot of battery. The battery is less than my ENVTouch one was, but I also use my Thunderbolt for a lot of playing around with data part--learning. When I talk for an hour or more after a "full" charge(by what the phone batt bar indicator says), the battery almost runs out sometimes, but it depends on if I used it a little before that. It does run down quickly with Continual data use over a couple of hours (or more) & I have to recharge it. Overall, the battery life is no problem unless I am constantly using data for hours and hours. I haven't figured out how to stop the back apps from running & draining battery yet--if ALL of them could me shut down. (Seems some the company refuses to let stop running all the time--draining the battery--if they stopped that maybe the battery would be excellent)
Recharging seems slow maybe to get full charge-- red off/green light on(when hooked up to charge) Can have green charge- bar looking "full" on phone before then, but when fully charged(red light turns to green when charging) lasts a long time. The battery standby time is very good can go for a couple days with minor use--short phone calls, brief data use. I use it as an alarm clock all day & night and can totally count on it to be fully charged for that and even a day or so more with little use.
Also, I live in the country, so only get 3G--can't wait to try 4G!! But, 3G is still incredible, no wait or just a few secs--never a full min. I don't think.
Sometimes when I am using the phone long (like an hour+ phone call) or even sometimes shorter--the back seems to get warmer? Not often, don't know why.

Has delightful, refreshing ringtones/alarm sounds that it comes with--the non "music" ones. But alarms and the regular ringer could be much much louder. It is really hard to hear the phone ring with volume way up using any ringtone, except "old telephone" one--that makes you jump up. These volume prob are really hard when in nearby room or phone in purse. It says that it is supposed to get louder ring when insdie something(like purse)--haven't experienced that yet.The ringer volume is medium--not great--acceptable, barely. Hope they fix that thru auto update. Which comes to my biggest, most frustrating problem with Thunderbolt...

ONLY MAJOR CON: The volume controls are located right where I naturally hold the phone all the time for calls & everything--top right side. So, anytime, even during a call, I accidently press the volume button down when I hold it naturally. Then, I can't hear other person on phone, feel cut off!--until I check volume. The only way I know the sound is really OFF is by remembering to check it and push it back up again or MOSTLY when it gets pushed down to "silent" and I feel/hear my vibrater going off and check & the volume is off!!! Often, I am not using the phone or sounds & I guess I pushed the volume down just above when the vibrater goes off(letting me know)...so when I put it aside I find out later that I didn't hear someone call (no ring!), which is a MAJOR flaw, but also my alarms are silent!! So, I don't wake up, or remember to do important things, etc. This is so sad because I LOVE this phone so much otherwise!! I haven't heard if anyone else has had this problem, but I am at a loss!

I think the camera is outstanding---much better than two 10mgb I tried. The 8 mgb is astounding to see, even compared to the same mgbs or 10 mgbs on a regular camera.I haven't used the video talk yet, but don't like the idea of front camera being only 1.3 mgb & back being the full 8 mgbs. Might be OK when talking to a computer webcam, but phone to phone video talk might be not so great. I haven't tried it, so this is just what I am concerned about.

I like pretty much all about the screens, controls, etc. I tried over and over to kill many of the pre-installed apps or at least move them to my 32G SD card, butcan't do it. Plus, when I tried to upload my first pictures from camera to computer there were 100's(seems like) of movie posters(like in the theatre lobby) for awful horror and D rated movies. At first, I was deleting them one by one-didn't want to delete everything--wanted my first few pictures--when I discovered that there were only about a dozen of my pictures and tons of these(!). I gave up & uploaded it all.

I am a Baby Tech Baby Boomer and never text (or can afford it, but want more & more to-have text & pics/videos blocked-can email/attach instead), so I'm not used to tiny keyboards. The calculator is wonderful with giant spacial numbers. The horizontal keyboard I can handle easily with bigger keys and will be just fine. But, the front upright keyboard is incredibly frustrating for me. It is hard to hit the key you want even when you think you are right ON it. I have found that it works a little better if I try to hit on the left side of the character key, but still I am so tired of misspellings. It wouldn't be so bad, if, ironically, the keyboard was much slower and less sensitive. But, that is a giant plus for it! It is incredibly sensitive--you even get the heat of your finger near--not even touching the screen & it types! I am thinking of having to get a stylus for this paricular front keyboard (a drag)because I can't make ALL screens with keyboards go horizontal.

I LOVE the Thunderbolt, but am feeling let down and very sad about that part about hitting the volume control buttons accidentilly--which is on the phone & can't be fixed. Unfortunately, that is involved in many things on it. Otherwise, the phone is AWESOME !(& I haven't even experienced 4G LTE yet!). It is unfortunate that someone put things like unremovable apps & horrible ads that make it bad, that's not the phone's prob.
The only true maybe incurable prob I see is the volume key probs. But, I might learn to get around that. And some things are probs with my being a Baby Boomer Baby Techy. Despite the volume control probs, which might be something I am doing wrong, so many other pluses make up for that. i will find a way around that. A lot of my probs might be because I am low tech and new to smartphones, so perceive some things as the phone.

Although I feel like I have a 5 star phone. I am not giving it 4 stars for the probs with the volume level, and the correctable battery life (only moderate prob) because of company keeping their apps running in the back draining the battery.or any other things that they can correct still--or my Baby Techy probs. The 4 stars I give it are ONLY because it has one major flaw that can't be corrected (unless I train myself) and that is the location of the volume control buttons.
(FYI: got a letter from Verizon--Verizon IS "phasing out" their "upgrade & NewforTwo" programs-this is my last "upgrade" they said.)

Don't waste money on a Thunderbolt! May 21, 2011

Reviewer:  mama mouse 

I am returning the Thunderbolt phone my husband purchased for Mother's Day. It is the most aggravating electronic device I have every used and last night the stress of dealing with the umpteenth problem with it triggered a health condition in my husband. I expect a full refund based upon this phone completely failing for the following reasons and more.

1)Day 1, couldn't get phone to activate since the Verizon store employee expert activated the sim card to initiate the plan then deactivated it so my old phone would continue working until my family gave the Thunderdolt to me for the holiday. (When you de-activate, you can't re-activate a sim card.)
1a)The sim card slide out slot is a flimsy metal piece barely connected to the phone. I think a strong breeze would snap it loose.
2)Day 2, it took 35 min on phone to learn why we couldn't activate the phone then ended up driving to the store to get a new sim card. (1 hour additional customer time)
3) Day 2, after activating the phone and learning contacts were missing spent 40 minutes on the phone with Verizon and was told it had been bumped up 2 levels to a "higher priority" When I called the number for the "higher priority tech expert" he said I would be getting a phone call in 2-3 days, but that I could go on-line (I wasn't home to do so) and set up separate accounts to possibly get around the problem ( additional 20 min phone call).
4) Day 2, learned no calendar information had transferred.
5)Day 2, learned no groups had transferred forward
6)Day 2, learned no notes had transferred forward
7)Day 2, learned no saved texts had transferred forward
8)Day 2, learned that the quick start guide provided very little help on actually working the phone and learned that I needed to research the 339 page "master your device" on-line. 339 pages of explanation proves this is an illogical and non-user friendly phone.
9)Day 3, received a call at 6:40 am in the morning, Verizon's definition of a convenient time to call me. I gave it to my husband to deal with since I needed to get family to school. Outcome of call was that we learned the Back-up Assistant is not reliable to actually back up your information on contacts and that we, the customer, were responsible for making sure that the Verizon Back-up Assistant was actually backing up everything it was supposed to do automatically.
10)Day 3, my husband spent a good part of the morning entering in groups, missing contacts, notes and calendar information (45min? hour?)
11)When I attempted to send a group text 8 out of 15 in the group were sent the text. In trying to forward to the rest of the people I had to do so 1 at a time since the To field showed blank when I attempted to send to more than one person
Other problems...
12) It takes a minute and a half for the phone to turn on when turned off to conserve battery
13)Charged phone overnight, at 7:45 am removed it from charger. Phone showed 5% battery left at 4:30 pm later that day. My "heavy" use? Maybe 3 under 2 minute phone calls, tried to text once or twice without success, maybe checked e-mail once.
14) From what I read I need to turn off the GPS, Bluetooth and anything else that makes this phone more than just a phone in order to conserve the battery.
15)In following this advice on conserving power I now need to plug in my phone charger, attach the phone, turn on Bluetooth (5 steps to get to the correct control button each time) and then turn on GPS (multiple steps also) EVERY time I get in my car. Reversing the procedure every time I exit as well. This is NOT user friendly.
15)Bluetooth doesn't work when power is 20% or less left in battery.
16)Texting before meant picking up my phone and starting to type in the message, typing maybe 2 letters to locate the name and pressing send. Texting now is a nightmare.
16a) I finally was able to disable the automatic "correction" text function (yes, I want Torida, not Florida. Only took 5 tries to make the phone accept it).
16b) I have multiple friends with the same name, (like Stephanie T, Stephanie D, etc.)the screen listing horizontally with phone numbers means I have to now type in the entire name plus more to get to the person I need. What took 5 seconds now takes 20 or 30 to look up a name.
16c)I will see an indicator at the bottom that I have new texts, but nothing is highlighted to say which ones they are when I open up the thread lists.
17) The volume on the ringer varies from audible to inaudible for incoming calls at random.
18)Callers can't hear you when on speakerphone

There is more...but you get the idea. The Thunderdolt is a lightning strike-out. If you are "quietly brilliant" you will look further for a new phone.

Verizon -- very bad service November 20, 2011

Reviewer:  J047 "jfireste" 

Beware of Verizon service! It is by far the worst of all the providers I have ever used.
1. Difficult to reach Verizon -- their automated touchtone system is designed to prevent you from getting to speak to a person; be prepared to spend 1-2 hours on the phone to get any issue resolved
2. Service people are unhelpful -- when you finally reach a service person, often their "systems are down" so they can't actually help. (This has been 4 out of 5 times for me.) Also, service people have no authority to resolve an issue -- for example, they cannot remove and obviously incorrect charge.
3. Verizon will not call you back. On multiple occasions, after waiting 30-40 minutes for a supervisor (who might actually be able to provide some service,) I was told they would call me back. They are 0 and 3 -- Verizon will never call you back
4. Misleading and erroneous charges -- you will find all sorts of extra and erroneous charges on your bill. Even after getting "free installation" in writing on my installation contract, Verizon charged me for it, and would not reverse the charge. No matter what deal they promise, expect all sorts of additional charges
Finally, to add insult to injury, Verizon will send you endless junk mail offeirng you the service you just purchase -- as if to let you know that they have no clue that you are a customer (and don't care.)

Backordered but on it's way March 20, 2011

Reviewer:  Kim Bell "honcho22"  (Nashville, TN, USA) -

I went to the Verizon store to test-drive this phone on the day it came out. The sound was loud, the calendar was easy to use, the screen size and picture were great. The camera took better pics than the Droid X my husband has...motion being the main problem that seemed much less of a problem for the Thunderbolt.
As for 'backordered', I ordered my Thunderbolt from Amazon on the 17th despite the backordered status. It is now on it's way to my house, shipped on the 19th, and expected to arrive tomorrow. That is 4 days from purchase date to delivery date. That 4 days was well worth the $70 I saved over what the store wanted for the Thunderbolt.