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
So how much does 4G LTE affect battery life? Now is as good a time as ever to segue into battery results for the Thunderbolt. Unfortunately things here don’t paint a good picture for LTE and smartphone battery life.
I ran four tests on the Thunderbolt. Again this is our standard smartphone battery life test, with the display set to 50% brightness always on, loading our page load suite until the battery dies. In LTE only mode I ensured the phone stuck on LTE coverage in a good coverage area. I also did tests on both EVDO (3G) and 1xRTT (2G) only to illustrate the difference those make. Lastly, there’s been a persistent rumor for some time that allowing the modem to periodically search for LTE (like you would in the default “CDMA + EVDO/LTE auto” mode) negatively impacts 3G battery life. I ran a test with it in this auto mode and EVDO only to illustrate that the MDM9600 searching periodically doesn’t really affect battery life to an appreciable amount. Remember that 3-5 minute handover time? It’s clear that the polling index is sufficiently infrequent that this isn’t a big problem.
In a 4G LTE market, the Thunderbolt does drain pretty fast. I think it speaks volumes that Verizon stores are stocking a first party 2750 mAh extended battery and cover. That’s almost exactly double the size of the Thunderbolt’s default 1400 mAh battery. I didn’t get to play with the extended battery or inductive charging door that comes with it, but expect it to double battery life numbers.
The two other tests we usually run are the same as ever, though I did something interesting on the Thunderbolt by running with two different vocoders set. CDMA2000 phones are interesting since most of the Qualcomm enabled devices come with EPST, which lets you switch between EVRC, EVRC-B, and QCELP 13k. There’s a subtle but detectable difference in audio quality between the three, but even then lot of that is still subjective. EVRC supports bitrates of 8.55, 4.0, and 0.8 kbps, while EVRC-B builds upon this with some better silence and noise coding, in addition to offering a quarter rate, 2.0 kbps for better QoS. In newer phones and networks, EVRC is far and away the most common (default for the Thunderbolt as well), with EVRC-B an up and coming second.
Though EVRC and EVRC-B definitively offer better quality per bitrate (which helps carriers pack more voice capacity on the network), there’s another option that improves voice quality further. QCELP is an older voice coder, but allows for 13.3, 6.2, 2.7, 1.0 kbps streams. In theory, QCELP 13k can offer better voice quality in good coverage areas and network conditions. Carriers have moved away from QCELP to EVRC again for the implicit purpose of supporting more voice capacity with the same amount of bandwidth.
Interestingly enough, battery life does change subtly between 13k and EVRC on the Thunderbolt. I was somewhat surprised to see things swing this way, considering that EVRC is a more complicated codec than QCELP, and thus requires slightly more instructions per frame. It’s possible that at my test location, the Thunderbolt on QCELP negotiates a lower bandwidth stream than EVRC, and thus we see less data transacted.
Whether or not you can distinguish the differences between the three vocoders depends on a variety of factors. It’s undeniable however that EVRC-B doesn’t have the potential to sound better than EVRC in some conditions due to the presence of a quarter bitrate mode, and 13k even better still. I’ve taken audio recordings of the Thunderbolt calling the local weather ASOS and recorded output both using the line out jack. I also recorded two using a Blue Yeti microphone with the Thunderbolt kickstand open and closed to give a feeling for how different sound is in both configurations.
Voice Coder Comparison
HTC Thunderbolt - Headphone - 13k by AnandTech
HTC Thunderbolt - Headphone - 13k IS733 by AnandTech
HTC Thunderbolt - Headphone - EVRC by AnandTech
HTC Thunderbolt - Headphone - EVRC-B by AnandTech
Kickstand Comparison
HTC Thunderbolt EVRC Kickstand Closed by AnandTech
HTC Thunderbolt EVRC Kickstand Open by AnandTech
WiFi Hotspot
Like every Android phone, the Thunderbolt also includes phone as WiFi hotspot functionality. It’s the same HTC app we’ve seen before bundled with HTC sense, except this time the phone is on LTE. There have been a number of complaints about the Thunderbolt switching back and forth between EVDO and LTE and completely suspending WiFi connections during handover. This is more of a software problem that HTC should be able to fix by tweaking their hotspot software. Again the LTE handovers seem to briefly break connectivity, and the 4G status indicator briefly goes away. The HTC hotspot software as a result thinks the connection has been lost entirely, and suspends or drops WiFi connections. For now, the problems can be mitigated somewhat by forcing LTE only, and while I didn’t encounter any deal breaking instability this is something that can definitely be fixed with better AP management software.
The Thunderbolt ships by default with the hotspot only set to allow 5 users to connect. Dig into the menus, and you can easily change this to 8. Eight seems a bit arbitrary (as do all of these limitations, at this rate), but it’s there if you want it. Apparently some other LTE phones coming out will enable 10. If that’s seriously a deal-making feature, I think something is wrong. Just make it 10 everywhere, especially if it’s the same exact cellular modem.
For a while now, I’ve been secretly (well, not really secretly) running a fourth test on phones and wireless devices to measure WiFi hotspot battery life. Historically, WiFi tethering has been brutal on battery life, and I devised a test that I think is reasonably representative. For this test, I have two tabs of our standard page load test, and another two with flash, for a total of four tabs loading through a few dozen pages every 10 seconds. In addition, I have a 128 kbps MP3 audio stream from smoothbeats.com playing in the background to keep data active constantly. There’s just one wireless client with a 802.11n WiFi card connected, though all this traffic reasonably approximates a few wireless clients all transacting data.
The results here are interesting, and the Thunderbolt actually doesn’t do too bad, actually besting the standalone LTE enabled Samsung hotspot. Unsurprisingly, EVDO battery life is right where it should be at just over 4 hours. LTE data on Verizon is unlimited as of this writing, though that’s sure to change soon. If you can get it, the Thunderbolt certainly is a viable way to connect to the internet pretty speedily.
WiFi throughput on the Thunderbolt is class leading. I was impressed by its performance in our test, which consists of loading a 100 MB PDF over the network. I saw brief spikes over this average result.
WiFi performance on the Thunderbolt I guess actually is a bit of a surprise. I guess it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that the the smartphone with the best overall connectivity also delivers in the WiFi department. The Thunderbolt pairs at the same 72 Mbps we’ve seen before with 802.11b/g/n. Sadly, no 5 GHz 802.11a/n is present. I seriously hope 5 GHz support starts showing up in more smartphones going forward, because it really is impossible to reliably use 2.4 GHz anything at trade shows. Range on the Thunderbolt is right where it should be, though a tiny bit better than the Desire HD/Inspire 4G.
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Omid.M - Thursday, April 28, 2011 - link
A friend "in the know" (yeah, yeah) said HTC accidentally shipped it with S-ON for that portion of the internal storage, and that HTC had (has?) issued an OTA that will allow the full 8GB to be useable. Not sure if it's been pushed, as I don't have the Thunderbolt.Brian,
1) How quickly did GPS lock?
I feel like some of these issues that users experience with other phones---e.g. GPS lock on SGS phones---should be considered for reviews of future phones. I know it can be a hassle, but it should highlight that some issues are manufacturer specific. Hopefully, it lights a fire under mfrs. to correct these problems, if they see that other phones don't suffer from the same.
2) Also, maybe I missed it, but has AnandTech established a Light-Moderate-Heavy usage pattern for phones to test battery life?
i.e., Moderate = 45 min of Bluetooth, 20 min GPS navigation, 10 phone calls, 50 sms, 20 still pictures, etc ?
I saw you set display brightness to 50% and loaded web pages, but I'm talking about how a user would normally use the phone: calls, sms, pictures, BT, GPS...etc.
I am positive you guys have done it before.
Really amazing review. Have been spreading the word, hoping more people flock to AnandTech. You guys deserve the recognition!
@moids
Brian Klug - Thursday, April 28, 2011 - link
Moids,I haven't gotten any OTA updates, but that's entirely possible. Sometimes these review units get updates on a different schedule, so I have no idea. I should check whether it's S-ON or S-OFF.
I constantly forget to post about our GPS testing, possibly because I take it for granted these days that devices do it right. It's something I do test however with a bunch of phones at the same time and compare SNR for all the visible satellites using GPS-Test.
GPS locks fast, but not extremely fast. I took multiple road trips to Phoenix with the Thunderbolt doing navigation guidance. I'd say that 15 seconds with complete sky LOS is enough to get a lock. In location services it does have checkboxes for Verizon's location services and google's. I neglected to take screenshots but SNR is very good on the TB, no GPS problems here.
So the battery life test situation is continuing to evolve. We're working on and will have a system trace setup (exactly what you mention, GPS, using the phone, SMS, browsing) eventually. It's still in progress, of course it'd only work for Android comparisons at present.
Thanks for the good word as always ;)
-Brian
Omid.M - Thursday, April 28, 2011 - link
Feature requests:1) permalinking
2) Signature (with char. limit, like 40 chars, for Twitter ID,etc.)
3) Comment reply notification -- this one is HUGE. It's impossible for me to find replies to my comments, given then I can reply to an old comment (so my reply is "newer") but still buried in a sea of comments from older dates. Make sense?
4) Add Tapatalk compatibility to the AT forums. The mods said they're just waiting on Anand to approve, and I've given examples of other forums built on the same system (phpBB, etc) with equal or more users, to show that those forums are working fine and won't buckle under high traffic. Just have to register the forums (free) with Tapatalk so we can post using the Android/iOS app.
Oh, and a Wordpress style mobile version of these articles would be sweet, especially for commenting.
Come on, AT! The best tech site on the net should have these features! :D
Great work as always. Hope you nail those papers, Brian.
Omid.M - Thursday, April 28, 2011 - link
Awesome. Thanks for the reply!The OTA is coming if it hasn't already. I'll check with my source, but he said HTC definitely wanted to make the full 8 GB usable, so it was definitely a minor oversight on their part which they intend to correct.
I don't know why more manufacturers haven't built antennas into the cover. It definitely seems the way to go.
FYI,
Regarding the sig, if you could make it so the badge (to the left) has another bar below the handle where you can put, say, a Twitter ID...well, that'd be slick...hint hint.
That way, since it can only take something like a Twitter ID, you won't have to worry about junk URLs clogging up the comments section. Plus, people can retweet or tweet at individual comments.
Expect more RTs of this article shortly :)
whthawk - Friday, April 29, 2011 - link
Fascinating and easy read. Thanks!FITCamaro - Sunday, May 1, 2011 - link
I love all the people who are like "its thick and heavy....waaaa..." Man up people. Some of us like to have a phone that has some meat to it so we don't feel like we're going to break it. Nor is 5 ounces instead of 4 going to make any difference. For me even the Thunderbolt barely is noticeable when I'm holding it.floyd1 - Wednesday, May 4, 2011 - link
he folks who can tell me how can i order this htc thunderbolt???? and what is the price??? hope some one can help me my regards floyd from hollandname99 - Saturday, May 7, 2011 - link
"The Thunderbolt has noticeably less attenuation when held in a 4G LTE scenario, no doubt thanks in part to the fact that it's fully leveraging MIMO "This statement makes no sense.
(a) To know what is going on requires knowing what is being reported by that signal strength number. THE big issue with mobile radio is the VARIANCE in signal strength. This variance occurs on a timescale of 10s of ms, and a spatial scale of cm/
So when that dB number is reported, what EXACTLY is being reported? The maximum value over the past n seconds? The minimum value? A time average of the power, converted into dB? A time average of the dB rating. (Since the mapping from power to dB is non-linear, these two types of averages are VERY different),
(b) MIMO is NOT a technology to deal with a weak radio signal, in fact the exact opposite.
Given two antennas, you can use them in two DIFFERENT ways.
(i) You can use the two antennas via receive diversity, which means they each pick up an independent version of what is essentially the same signal. This is useful when the amount of signal variance means that one of the signals is frequently too weak to be useful, but usually not both, so at least one of the signals is strong enough to be useful.
ST codes like Alamouti are a fancy version of this idea.
Note --- this is useful for situation where the combination of the mean signal strength AND the variance means that the signal is sometimes too weak. It does not help if the mean strength is too low to be useful; it is a coping mechanism for a high variance.
(ii) MIMO is different. MIMO says we will use the two antennas to decode what are essentially two independent streams of data, and double our throughput. For this to work, we require that the lowest signal strength received (even in the presence of variance) not be too low. Thus this is a technology to take advantage of either a high mean signal strength, or an unusually low variance in the signal strength.
You can use your antennas to give you either diversity (more consistent reception) or MIMO (higher throughput, under good conditions), but not both.
NEITHER diversity nor MIMO can deal with a signal that is too weak. There IS multi-antenna technology that can do this (beam shaping) but I don't know if any carrier or cell-phones use this.
In other words, if this phone shows lower attenuation when being held
(a) who knows WTF that actually means, since we have no idea what is actually being measured
(b) it likely has more to do with the details of the placement and geometry of the antenna than with antenna diversity
(c) it certainly has nothing to do with the specific technology of MIMO
name99 - Saturday, May 7, 2011 - link
Having made the complaint above, congrats to Brian for taking my earlier complaints about these reviews to heart and trying to get a more comprehensive picture of the capabilities of these phones beyond mere headline numbers!Certainly, for example, the histograms are very helpful.
EvoGuy - Monday, May 16, 2011 - link
Droid Charge does not have an MDM9600 or any other Qualcomm IC.Of the four LTE smartphones coming to Verizon, only HTC has a Qualcomm LTE IC. CDMA is handled by VIA in the Charge, Q has the other three.
Also, EV-DO stands for EVolution-Data Only. "Data Optimized" is a backronym to try and cover up the fact that EV-DO cannot support voice. There was a standard called EV-DV (EVolution - Data & Voice), but it was killed by the giant IC company.