HTC Thunderbolt Review: The First Verizon 4G LTE Smartphone
by Brian Klug on April 27, 2011 12:12 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- HTC
- Verizon
- LTE
- 4G
- Android
- HTC Thunderbolt
- Mobile
- MDM9600
- MSM8655
The other obvious oddity is software. Back in the day HTC famously built their own CDMA2000 support into Android 2.1 1.5 and released a host of devices. Android 2.2 1.6 (Got my versions screwed up, thanks Brendan!) swung around and built all of that in natively, and most of the world didn’t notice much difference, thankfully. Odd quirks such as cell standby showing inordinate power use in "about battery use" were about the only manifestation of this hack, outside phone test menus.
History loves to repeat itself, and this time the situation is that Android 2.2 lacks native awareness for 4G LTE. As a result, you get odd things hanging around like the 20 MB YouTube WiFi upload restriction, and the 128 MB mobile upload (for any connection) file size limitation. I’m sure a number of similar things are floating around, all of which previously pandered to the limitations of 3G that have no business being around anymore.
My closing thoughts with regards to LTE on the Thunderbolt are that it’s impressively fast, fast enough that it now feels like loading through pages is now CPU-bound instead of network-bound. In many ways that’s a much better situation to be in, as SoC updates follow Moore’s law, and network updates seem to eons to roll out due to spectrum reallocation, network build out, testing, and finally hitting go. Dual core is the solution, and it’s a shame the Thunderbolt isn’t. Right up that alley is MSM8960 and MSM8930, which are dual core and single core Krait, respectively. A quick refresher on Qualcomm’s naming scheme for SoCs is that the second digit connotes what cellular network standard support is built in: 2 is for 3GPP family only connectivity (GSM, EDGE, WCDMA/UMTS, HSPA), 6 is for 3GPP and 3GPP2 connectivity (so everything above, plus CDMA2000, EVDO, e.t.c.), and 9 now will mean LTE.
With both MSM8960 and MSM8930, the LTE modem is built into the SoC, resulting in both smaller overall package size and likely notable improvements in power consumption from everything being made at one process. At that point, LTE becomes much less of a design challenge, and I expect battery life to be better as a result. If you want something to wait for, it’s MSM8960. The other thing to watch for are the successors to MDM9600 - the MDM9615 and MDM9625, which were announced during MWC. The former is targeted towards a 28 nm process offers some performance increases alongside reduced power consumption and a smaller overall package, making it ideal for handsets. The latter is a category 4 device (as opposed to category 3 for the former two) and thus offers a higher level of performance, and likely will go into USB modems and other data-centric platforms.
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hans007 - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
i live in the bay and bought the tbolt.and WOW its like 10-20 mbps down. its insane fast. not to mention having used t-mobile before this (and i also used virgin mobile for about 3 weeks... which uh was pretty uneven honestly) the verizon network is bar none better than either of those (i dont use at&t but i hear it is horrible up here)
7Enigma - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
I will second the request for a permanent post # for referencing. I know the embedded message makes this more difficult but it could simply be the start of a string gets a post number and followups a second number (or letter as rarely do comments get over 20+ replies). I know I've given up several times when I want to go back to an older article to see if the author responded to one of my comments and can't find it without reading every single one.Hopefully something like this can be implemented in the near future as the comment system has really been the only thing lacking on Anandtech compared to other hardware review sites.
Brian Klug - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
We've been looking to add some features lately, I'll be sure to bring comment permalinking up. It might be a little while, but I totally agree.-Brian
CrystalBay - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
Yea , nice job Brian...Omid.M - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
Brian,Does it have dual mics, i.e. for noise cancellation?
I'm surprised at how many phones don't have this or at least don't advertise it.
@moids
Brian Klug - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
Indeed it does, there's one up at the top near the headset jack which is used for noise cancellation. I found suppression to be very good. You can see the mic port here: http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/1039#21The problem with audio sounding strange when recording videos is still present, though HTC is going to fix this in an update soon, I'm told.
-Brian
SRHelicity - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
Great review, Brian! As another commenter noted, this review is thorough and detailed. Good stuff!pandemonium - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
It got me really thinking about the basis of why Verizon and Sprint are pushing their LTE out.With how fast smart phones are being adopted by the general public, they better get a faster move on with their LTE coverage. I can't imagine not being able to simultaneously use data and voice being on a widely covered UMTS service compared to the lacking LTE coverage and the need for a dual transceiver device.
softdrinkviking - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
sorry to hear you were sick, brian. i know how it can be to get the double knockout, not so fun. :(nice to see this kind of form factor in the mix as it is exactly what i'm looking for.
do you, or anyone reading know if there are any similar designs around with a better screen? (ips)
i wonder what the refresh of the Dell streak 5" will add up to, if it's ever coming out?
Stuka87 - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
Why is it so many (if not all) of the 4G phones out there are freaking huge?!Is this just a way of trying to move them farther up market, or what? I know there are people that want a larger device. But really, I like the smaller form factors. I would never even consider getting this device because of its size.