Tbolt Rant - 30 day review

[shpuntik]

Quick rant of the day for you guys. You can hate me all you want or agree with me. Enjoy.

This is my 2nd Android, the first being the Droid Incredible.

I was hesitant to get this phone as it was the first 4G device from vzw but after giving it a try when my brother in law got his, I was very impressed with the speed of the phone and the speed of 4G.

It has since been 30 days and I just got off the phone with VZW, who are sending me the iPhone 4.

Here's the deal and many of you know this... The phone is a piece of dog s*it.

The battery life is atrocious. I can easily take the phone off the charger, at 100%, place it in my pocket, not use it for 30 mins, and can almost guarantee that the battery will be at 60% when I go to pick up the phone. I don't know how any of you find this acceptable.

The 4G, while super fast, is incredibly unreliable and the only reason why it is so fast is because there is still such a small population on the network. Most areas still don't have it, and I realize it is a work in progress, but the phone won't even default to 3G... It will go to 1X instead in areas where 4G is not available.

The phone gets unbearably hot whenever it is used.. almost too hot to hold in the hand and definitely too hot to hold up to my face when talking.

4G has the potential to be a huge asset for VZW and I understand that vzw needed to launch a device in order to hype up and win the race to the 4G marketplace, but this phone is unacceptable and should have been R&D'd a little more prior to release. I mean seriously, how do you release a phone with a front facing camera and no video calling capability?

Good luck with your Tbolts, guys... I really hope HTC and VZW get their act together so that I can once again reap the benefits of the Android platform. For now, Apple it is.

 

[AustinTech]

#1 - Nobody is going to hate you for voicing your opinion on the phone. It's a phone. People will disagree with you and comment on their experience, but it has nothing to do with you personally.

#2 - Your battery life is really bad. As in something may be wrong with your phone bad. If it goes from 100-60 in 30 mins, something is wrong. How do we find the battery acceptable? Because we don't experinece that - I'd bet you are the only one whos battery goes down 80% in one hour with no use. That would mean your battery lasts 1 hr and 15 min.

#3 - Your opinion on why the LTE network is so fast is just that, an uninformed opinion. Sorry you have network issues, I don't and I go from 3G to 4G often, at least twice a day. The hand-off does take some time though, maybe 1 min.

#4 - You find the phone unacceptable, others love it. It is selling like crazy. Ever stop to think that maybe there is something wrong with your assessment?

Go to Apple. They make decent phones. Slow, boring, limited, tracked, locked, but otherwise decent.

 

[UBRocked]

Okay guys and gals...here's your warning...NO FLAMING THE OP! Their opinion has been stated in a respectful manner and I can see this thread becoming very polarizing. Comments that are disrespectful (attacking the person, not the issue) will NOT be tolerated. Nuff said...

To the OP, I wish you well with the iPhone 4. The T-Bolt is certainly is not a perfect device, and if my experience mirrored yours...I would have returned it as well.

However, I don't think your experience is what most people are experiencing. Maybe you had a bad device? It's probably a pointless comment now, but I'm overclocked to 1.5GHz and I can get a full day out of this device's stock battery.

Regardless, good luck to you and thanks for sharing.

 

[shpuntik]

#1 - Nobody is going to hate you for voicing your opinion on the phone. It's a phone. People will disagree with you and comment on their experience, but it has nothing to do with you personally.

Judging from the responses I've read on this forum, a lot of people do take things personally. That was just a pre-amble.

#2 - Your battery life is really bad. As in something may be wrong with your phone bad. If it goes from 100-60 in 30 mins, something is wrong. Duh. How do we find the battery acceptable? Because we don't experinece that - I'd bet you are the only one whos battery goes down 80% in one hour with no use. That would mean your battery lasts 1 hr and 15 min. Come on man.

If you were a betting man, you'd be out some cash - As mentioned, my brother in law, has the same phone and the same awful battery life. Not even mentioning the horror story's that you read on here about this phone's battery life.

#3 - Your opinion on why the LTE network is so fast is just that, an uninformed opinion. Sorry you have network issues, I don't and I go from 3G to 4G often, at least twice a day. The hand-off does take some time though, maybe 1 min.

Maybe things are different in Georgia, and I respect that, hope you continue to have a great experience - don't get me wrong. It is AWFUL in NYC and the surrounding areas.

#4 - You find the phone unacceptable, others love it. It is selling like crazy. Ever stop to think that maybe there is something wrong with your assessment?

Unfortunately those people won't be as happy when they experience the problems aforementioned.

Go to Apple. They make decent phones. Slow, boring, limited, tracked, locked, but otherwise decent.

Trust me, I'll miss the Android platform - I think it is a great OS and has an excellent foundation. I will also miss the fast speed of 4G (when it works) and the Flash support. However, I am willing to give all of that up so that I can actually use my phone instead of leaving it to charge all day.

.

 

[Dark Jedi]

Every phone has its problems. I would ask the op did you call big read for a replacement phone ? I bet you didn't and just kept the same phone. So its safe to say your 30 day review is flawed at the get go. Maybe next.time don't settled for a broken phone and get it replaced. I will expect the same review when your iPhone shows its own problems. They don't make the phone you expect. Because nothing is perfect.

 

[famouzstarz]

i would like to know how you got a return and a new phone after 30days as the 14 day policy totally bites! im on my 3rd bolt with the 4th arriving today and i cannot even get a different phone let alone just out right return the bolt and get my upgrade reset!

 

[shpuntik]

Every phone has its problems. I would ask the op did you call big read for a replacement phone ? I bet you didn't and just kept the same phone. So its safe to say your 30 day review is flawed at the get go. Maybe next.time don't settled for a broken phone and get it replaced. I will expect the same review when your iPhone shows its own problems. They don't make the phone you expect. Because nothing is perfect.

I do not believe the phone is broken... It seems to me that this is the norm.

i would like to know how you got a return and a new phone after 30days as the 14 day policy totally bites! im on my 3rd bolt with the 4th arriving today and i cannot even get a different phone let alone just out right return the bolt and get my upgrade reset!

Call and complain.

 

[famouzstarz]

Call and complain.

well thats the obvious you must have just got a sucker for a csr as a lot of people on the boards haven't had such luck!

 

[shpuntik]

well thats the obvious you must have just got a sucker for a csr as a lot of people on the boards haven't had such luck!

Or maybe I'm a really good complainer : )

 

[jcnyc]

I live in NYC, midtown west if you must be specific and I get full 4g bars everywhere I've gone. Only place I've gone without 4g service is my work's bathroom, but at that point I'm usually playing angry birds anyway. The stock battery life is abysmal for sure and no one should be forced to paya nother 50$ on an already expensive phone for an atrociously looking extended battery. However, if you get the 1700 extendeds from htcexpress, they will make your battery life significantly better. Also, if you just root the damn thing, battery life will never be a problem again. Again, something you as the consumer shouldn't be dealing with.

As for the phone, it does overheat and when that happens it's time to take the battery out and rest it otherwise your phone will be drained 3x as fast.

Also, Skype was released as an .apk like a month ago. I've been using it to chat with my gf whenever we're away from work and it works perfectly. Of course VZW and HTC should not leave the entire tbolt community at the mercy of reading forums but skype is still released nonetheless.

Coming from ATT's grade F network, LTE is the best accomplishment ever in terms of cell phone carrier technology. It is faster than my home internet and is easilyi faster than any other network.

Anyway, good luck with the iphone4. Apple makes a solid solid phone and different people have different preferences for their OS but we can all agree the technology is much too dated in this age.

 

[rogue_slc_vzw_rep]

Why is anyone apologizing for the phone to this guy? He's made his decision. We haven't experienced the same thing as him. Done.

Have fun with your iPhone.

 

[ska.t73]

I do not believe the phone is broken... It seems to me that this is the norm.

The battery life you are reporting is most certainly not the norm. The battery life is a problem with this phone, however the battery drain you are reporting is indicitive of a problem with your actual device. The battery should not be draining that fast, you either have a rogue app that isn't allowing your phone to sleep (this would also explain why your temps are so high), or there is something wrong with the phone that is preventing it from sleeping.

Now with that said, the battery life is indeed an issue (I love the phone but the battery life being a problem can't be argued). HTC and VZW have admited that it is an issue, and have actually fixed the problem which will be released soon with an OTA update.

I am currently running the leaked OTA update on my phone and I can tell you that the battery life is vastly improved with the update that will be coming out to everyone soon (if you are rooted you can get the update now). There was an issue with the voltage that was being used when the phone was sleeping, the phone was pulling way to much voltage in sleep mode and was causing battery to drain quicker then it should.

Now I might be a TB fanboy (I am) but I respect you for having your opinion and it would seem that if you are not happy with the phone then you did the right thing. This post is just trying to help explain why you were seeing these issues and to state that this is not common and is indeed a problem with the device that you had.

 

[UBRocked]

Why is anyone apologizing for the phone to this guy? He's made his decision. We haven't experienced the same thing as him. Done.

Have fun with your iPhone.

Who has apologized?

Just because he doesn't like the phone (for whatever reason) doesn't mean he's not welcome to post his opinions and open up a discussion about his experiences. If he didn't care to discuss it, he wouldn't have created this thread. Point is, we aren't just supposed to ignore him because he didn't like the phone that many of us own (I'm not saying that's what you were implying).

Maybe someone else with similar experiences reads this thread, sees some other comments by people that are happy with their T-Bolt and that person decides to try a replacement device before moving on.

 

[dguy]

The battery life is atrocious. I can easily take the phone off the charger, at 100%, place it in my pocket, not use it for 30 mins, and can almost guarantee that the battery will be at 60% when I go to pick up the phone. I don't know how any of you find this acceptable.

Yet another person mistaking user error for a problem with the phone. Isn't it neat that with the stock battery I can be unplugged for 12 hours with 2 hours of awake time and several hours of mp3 playback and still have 50% left? Learn to configure and use the phone.

The 4G, while super fast, is incredibly unreliable and the only reason why it is so fast is because there is still such a small population on the network. Most areas still don't have it, and I realize it is a work in progress, but the phone won't even default to 3G... It will go to 1X instead in areas where 4G is not available.

You don't have a clue how fast the 4G will be when the network is saturated, don't pretend you do. The 4G to 1X issue is being resolved in a firmware update coming soon.

The phone gets unbearably hot whenever it is used.. almost too hot to hold in the hand and definitely too hot to hold up to my face when talking.

Unbearably hot? Stop whining, that's utter rubbish.

 

[AustinTech]

The only time my bolt gets hot is when is charges via USB. Weird, I know. The wall charger, no issue, but the USB makes it hot.

 

[bdevil02]

I've definitely had by TBolt get hot a couple times, and noticed the battery draining extremely quickly when this happened. One time, I even had the 4G disabled. But a quick reboot solved that problem.

 

[UBRocked]

Yet another person mistaking user error for a problem with the phone. Isn't it neat that with the stock battery I can be unplugged for 12 hours with 2 hours of awake time and several hours of mp3 playback and still have 50% left? Learn to configure and use the phone.

I seriously doubt that a 40% drop in 30 minutes is "user error". It's either an exaggeration of monumental proportions...or something seriously going wrong with the phone. "User error" is not even close to making sense in this case.

Unbearably hot? Stop whining, that's utter rubbish.

Did you see my post about being respectful? And again, if the battery loss is accurate, I'd believe the phone would be hot as hell as a result of such fast battery drain.

 

[mattbirk]

Mine seems to get hotter on the car charger and USB than wall.

Also, try uninstalling some apps...initially I thought the norm was 6 hours battery life and I didn't know what to do...with a little searching around I realized a few apps (Tango, TiKl) were just draining my battery...now I get a full day. When I had those apps, the phone would drop like crazy like yours.

I do not ever see the 4g switching issue that this firmware is supposed to fix, so I guess I am lucky there, but my LTE is always working.

Dog sht is a far fetch, but it's a biased review...it is frustrating though. Took me a few days to get mine going strong.

Good luck.

 

[shpuntik]

Yet another person mistaking user error for a problem with the phone. Isn't it neat that with the stock battery I can be unplugged for 12 hours with 2 hours of awake time and several hours of mp3 playback and still have 50% left? Learn to configure and use the phone.



You don't have a clue how fast the 4G will be when the network is saturated, don't pretend you do. The 4G to 1X issue is being resolved in a firmware update coming soon.



Unbearably hot? Stop whining, that's utter rubbish.

I close apps with the task killer all day long, I try to quit all applications. GPS is never on, refresh updates to fbook & twitter only on an a 2 hour basis. Email is via my exchange server so there is no send & receive. Battery life is horrible - don't be naive. Everyone knows it.

I hope you're right re: 4G bieng fast. It is the future and one day, all phones will be on the spectrum. Right now its super fast, I love it. But it is a work in progress and it is unstable - just look at all the data connectivity issues people are having. Also what is the use of having blazing fast speeds if you can't even browse the internet because your battery life is s*it?

Unbearably hot... YES. Its fn hot and uncomfortable. I don't know how else to explain it to you.

 

[Karuk]

I get what the OP is saying. He is not a person who is comfortable being an early adopter. Some people just want things to "work" without them having to think. Apple products just work because they are designed for people with very limited or no technical ability. Apple thinks for you and you pay the $$ for this.

I like being an early adopter in most cases. I have to reset my TB 1 or 2 times a week because 4g gets stuck uploading. No big deal when 95% of time I can download a 100mb podcast in 1/10 the time a 3g phone can. Battery life isn't great gut I can replace the battery without losing my phone for a week and paying Apple $100+. I paid $11 for 3 replacement batteries and a wall charger. Benefits outweigh cost.

I want to add that I own a 1st gen ipad and passed on my 1st gen ipod touch to my daughter when I got my OG Droid when it came out.

 

[mattbirk]

I close apps with the task killer all day long, I try to quit all applications. GPS is never on, refresh updates to fbook & twitter only on an a 2 hour basis. Email is via my exchange server so there is no send & receive. Battery life is horrible - don't be naive. Everyone knows it.

I hope you're right re: 4G bieng fast. It is the future and one day, all phones will be on the spectrum. Right now its super fast, I love it. But it is a work in progress and it is unstable - just look at all the data connectivity issues people are having. Also what is the use of having blazing fast speeds if you can't even browse the internet because your battery life is s*it?

Unbearably hot... YES. Its fn hot and uncomfortable. I don't know how else to explain it to you.

You MUST have a bad device. No question. Did you attempt to get a new one?

No one is being naive, I don't think we would all lie about our battery life...I'm sure if we all got 6 hour life VZW/HTC would be in a world of hurt. I don't know why you aren't taking out 'reviews' seriously...6 hour battery life is unheard of. Mine gets at least 15/day.

 

[nateap87]

to tell everyone the truth, my battery only suffers when i play games. that's really about it. other than that, the battery surpasses my og droid easily. i have skype with video chat. my phone doesn't get hot at all unless playing games (but only moderately warm). definitely sounds like op and his brother got a few lemons. sorry to hear that. guess the problem is in quality control.

 

[Bulldog1970]

I've had my TB for over a week now. Here are my results regarding battery life.
I keep 4g on all the time. I only have accounts synching when I am not at work.
So far, every day my battery life has been outstanding, at least, IMO. I take the phone off the charget at 6am and by the time I put it back on the charger at around 10pm, I usually have around 40% life left.
However, yesterday I had an odd occurrence. I checked my phone at around 7:30am and my battery was already down to 60%!!! The only thing I had done the night before was download and run the Speedtest app. I restarted my phone, charged via USB, and since then, everything is back to normal. I also removed the Speedtest app as I figured I would not use it regularly and might as well remove the possibly source of issues.
Overall, I love this phone and have no complaints. IMO, setting your phone up properly makes a big difference .

 

[dm33]

OP, unbearibly hot? Thats the clue!

It sounds like you have some process which is constantly running, maxing out the CPU. That would explain the very hot phone and explains why your battery life is so poor.

That is not the norm and not proper. Something in the software configuration is incorrect. You may have a bad app installed, or some situation causing some application to spin. First thing to try is rebooting, see if the phone acts more responsive and cools down. More detailed approach is to run a process monitor and see if any process is using up all available CPU power. If you can figure out the app, uninstall it.

Re LTE. It is very incorrect to say its fast only because no one is using it. LTE is a new wireless protocol many times faster than CDMA. No comparison. iPhone will have LTE some day, maybe iPhone 5 maybe iPhone 6.

 

[JustinHEMI]

Good luck!