• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Help Is anyone returning this phone?

Well after having my Bolt now for 2 weeks, it's a keeper. Not returning unless there is a major malfunction that happens. Battery issues for my device are non-issue. Could it be possible there are bad batch of devices / batteries? Perhaps. Although I've been pretty lucky with devices in the last couple of years. Palm Pre -> HTC Hero -> iPhone 3GS -> HTC Evo -> Droid X - and finally HTC Thunderbolt. Out of all of those devices, the only 1 that I had issues with was:

Palm Pre - Defective ear piece

I've been on various forums since 2005 and I can't count how many times I saw threads where people were "on the 10th phone..let's see how this one does"... Really? 10 phones? Here's me feeling guilty about one phone that was truly defective and having it replaced.

Anywho, back on track.. The bottom line for me is I'm keeping my Thunderbolt since it's not defective in anway, if it were I would be going in for a replacement.

Here is just a couple of screen grabs of battery stats and usage, along with current settings.

GPS = OFF
WIFI = ON - Always
Display = About 20% to 25% (Automatic Brightness OFF)
Screen Timeout = 30 Seconds
Location Settings: VZW and Google = ON
Sound Settings = Vibrate for calls & Notifications = ON
Play sound when making screen selection = ON
Screen Lock Sounds = ON
Vibrate FeedBack = OFF
SmartKeyboard = Sound on Keypress = ON, Virbate on Keypress = ON
LiveWallpaper = OFF, using static
Bluetooth = On / Off when needed. (Blueant Q2)
Widgets: News, Friend Stream (Twitter), HTC Weather (1 hr updates), YouTube, HTC Bookmarks.

I typically can go about 2 days before charging, at which point I'm down to about 15% battery. This is all day texting, a few phone calls, Gmail, music playing / streaming, web surfing, bluetooth, camera (taking pics of my girls being silly :)). The bottom line for anyone is that if they are not happy with the device, you can replace it, or swap out for another device, the choice is yours in the end.

5579869810_4850d18f9e_z.jpg


5579869848_2acc30ddf4_z.jpg


-DanDroid
 
DanDroid said:
I've been on various forums since 2005 and I can't count how many times I saw threads where people were "on the 10th phone..let's see how this one does"... Really? 10 phones? Here's me feeling guilty about one phone that was truly defective and having it replaced.
Click to expand...

I cant help but be like WTF? Ive jumped from carrier to carrier, phone to phone over the last 3 years, and i have only had a real "defect" once. My original Evo lost all response on the top of its touch screen, sent it back, next one was flawless.

I gotta wonder if people are being a little over dramatic on here.
 
I am swapping out to try a brand new device.

I gave it a full two weeks and tweaked the heck out of everything to get better battery. Still have to charge multiple times a day. To get better battery life I:

-Sync: Off (just sync email and contacts manually as required)
-Mobile data: Off
-WiFi: On
-Bluetooth: On
-Animated wall papers: Off
-Screen brightness: 15-20% (which is totally unusable outside...)
-Etc. (can't remember 100% of my battery saving techniques)

Screen and phone standby are still my consistently largest power consumers. I am in a 4G "border zone" as VZW calls it but generally do get decent 4G data connection but not wonderful 4G speeds, typically 5-8 Mbps. Plenty for anything but hardcore movies streaming or downloading. Just 5 minutes away from my house in a strong 4G area I clocked 31 Mbps. Absolutely unbelievable. Hats off to VZW, Qualcomm and 4G on that.

Anyway after battery life was miserable with this customization above I moved on to JuiceDefender. I tried my own custom setting as well as the automatic "Aggressive" setting.

Results: In airplane mode 15-20% drain overnight while sleeping
Out of airplane mode: 30-35% drain overnight while sleeping. Obviously while sleeping is the best time to charge, and normally I do, those were just experiments to observe the drain while idle.

All real world testing simply showed me that my phone better be plugged in basically 100% of the time, home or car. I even ran it dead with Nav on in my car while plugged into the charger.

These problems, along with a few other annoyances and of course based on the very good results others in the forums have posted about led me to believe I may have got a lemon. I'll give my 2nd unit a try and go from there. Since all of my local stores were completely sold out they did an "advance" exchange with 2 day shipping. I'm expecting the phone Sat or Mon. I sure hope I can get some improvement in battery life. I simply refuse to ruin the size, weight and aesthetics of the phone with monster tumor on its back (i.e. extended battery).
 
swamp said:
I am swapping out to try a brand new device.

I gave it a full two weeks and tweaked the heck out of everything to get better battery. Still have to charge multiple times a day. To get better battery life I:

-Sync: Off (just sync email and contacts manually as required)
-Mobile data: Off
-WiFi: On
-Bluetooth: On
-Animated wall papers: Off
-Screen brightness: 15-20% (which is totally unusable outside...)
-Etc. (can't remember 100% of my battery saving techniques)

Screen and phone standby are still my consistently largest power consumers. I am in a 4G "border zone" as VZW calls it but generally do get decent 4G data connection but not wonderful 4G speeds, typically 5-8 Mbps. Plenty for anything but hardcore movies streaming or downloading. Just 5 minutes away from my house in a strong 4G area I clocked 31 Mbps. Absolutely unbelievable. Hats off to VZW, Qualcomm and 4G on that.

Anyway after battery life was miserable with this customization above I moved on to JuiceDefender. I tried my own custom setting as well as the automatic "Aggressive" setting.

Results: In airplane mode 15-20% drain overnight while sleeping
Out of airplane mode: 30-35% drain overnight while sleeping. Obviously while sleeping is the best time to charge, and normally I do, those were just experiments to observe the drain while idle.

All real world testing simply showed me that my phone better be plugged in basically 100% of the time, home or car. I even ran it dead with Nav on in my car while plugged into the charger.

These problems, along with a few other annoyances and of course based on the very good results others in the forums have posted about led me to believe I may have got a lemon. I'll give my 2nd unit a try and go from there. Since all of my local stores were completely sold out they did an "advance" exchange with 2 day shipping. I'm expecting the phone Sat or Mon. I sure hope I can get some improvement in battery life. I simply refuse to ruin the size, weight and aesthetics of the phone with monster tumor on its back (i.e. extended battery).
Click to expand...

Thats horrible. I was at school today for 7 hours in airplane mode and never lost a percent.. NO lie
 
swamp said:
These problems, along with a few other annoyances and of course based on the very good results others in the forums have posted about led me to believe I may have got a lemon. I'll give my 2nd unit a try and go from there. Since all of my local stores were completely sold out they did an "advance" exchange with 2 day shipping. I'm expecting the phone Sat or Mon.
Click to expand...

I'd agree...you got a bad device. Nice job testing that at night...15% drop in airplane mode while sleeping is not right. I ran the phone for 8 hours (not in airplane mode) today and saw 15% drop. Granted...I wasn't on my phone very much during that time but I was still using my phone periodically for a few text, and email messages and "words with friends" (I'm hooked on that game LOL).

Hope you see much better results with the new device! :D
 
Returned it and got the iPhone 4. Couldn't handle the poor battery life. Coming from a Droid X, it was even worse than I expected. I was down to 80% about 20 minutes after disconnecting from the charger!

Unacceptable. Droid X didn't do that to me and iPhone is still at 96% after 5 hours from being disconnected...
 
UBRocked said:
I'd agree...you got a bad device.
...
Hope you see much better results with the new device! :D
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm optimistic. I know a bit more about what to expect now and really hope this phone is a keeper. Other than battery it is pretty amazing. I "only" get about 10 Mbps at my house in a 4G "border" region. A mile or so away into the heart of 4G near my house I can get 31 Mbps. Unreal.
 
chris2k5 said:
Returned it and got the iPhone 4. Couldn't handle the poor battery life. Coming from a Droid X, it was even worse than I expected. I was down to 80% about 20 minutes after disconnecting from the charger!

Unacceptable. Droid X didn't do that to me and iPhone is still at 96% after 5 hours from being disconnected...
Click to expand...

Why didn't you exchange it for another since you obviously had a defective phone?
 
CRPercodani said:
To everyone complaining about battery life, WELCOME TO MY WORLD.

(Evo owner since launch day)
Click to expand...

People are complaining about battery life? I haven't heard much about that...

Ahh damn...I see I'm late for April Fools! :D

EVO 3D in your future CRP?
 
My new thunderbolt will be here monday. Battery life was a not an issue for me. Doing a factory reset fixed my dropping data issues. But no matter what I did I couldn't fix my faulty gps. It often showed me hundreds of miles away or not at all.

I'm wondering that since my battery life was ok should i keep my battery.
 
UBRocked said:
People are complaining about battery life? I haven't heard much about that...

Ahh damn...I see I'm late for April Fools! :D

EVO 3D in your future CRP?
Click to expand...

Yes Sir, plan on picking one up on launch day. Enjoy your advantage my friend because soon I shall wield the OMFG DUAL CORE.

ska.t73 said:
Holy crap, and the dead shall walk! BTW still reading your posts in the Optimist Prime voice... :P
Click to expand...

Hahahaha, one of these days I will change my avie...maybe. Good to see your still around! I really miss the D1 days, we were all so close. No not like that, errr you get what I mean.
 
chris2k5 said:
Returned it and got the iPhone 4. Couldn't handle the poor battery life. Coming from a Droid X, it was even worse than I expected. I was down to 80% about 20 minutes after disconnecting from the charger!

Unacceptable. Droid X didn't do that to me and iPhone is still at 96% after 5 hours from being disconnected...
Click to expand...

You do know it doesnt read the battery right once you take it off the charger? Hence the bump charge threads.
 
CRPercodani said:
Yes Sir, plan on picking one up on launch day. Enjoy your advantage my friend because soon I shall wield the OMFG DUAL CORE.



Hahahaha, one of these days I will change my avie...maybe. Good to see your still around! I really miss the D1 days, we were all so close. No not like that, errr you get what I mean.
Click to expand...

Yea but your dual core phone will still be on a slower network lol. :b
 
CRPercodani said:
Yes Sir, plan on picking one up on launch day. Enjoy your advantage my friend because soon I shall wield the OMFG DUAL CORE.



Hahahaha, one of these days I will change my avie...maybe. Good to see your still around! I really miss the D1 days, we were all so close. No not like that, errr you get what I mean.
Click to expand...


Yep the D1 days were awesome lol
 
Mallissa said:
I'm unclear as to why everyone keeps comparing this phone to the iPhone. LIGHT YEARS difference. It's not even a comparable device.
Click to expand...

You are so correct. The iPhone will last days without having to be plugged in and it never needs a bump charge or a huge extended battery. :)
 
I think the phone is 100% a keeper. It's the hottest phone on the market, running on the fastest 4G available today...Yes there are some quirks, like some build quality issues some suffer from, battery is very suspect at times, ok at others, and of course dual core is around the corner...
However...
Right now at this moment there is nothing better out there at all!
So as of right now, I'm on my second TB after returning the 1st one because of some issues, and have to say I'm pretty happy at this point.
 
Yes I am returning. Mostly because I can't justify the purchase right now. I mean I switched from the EVO to a verizon iPhone so going to a Thunderbolt is like me going backwards. I mean it's a little better than the EVO but not much better (networks aside). Poor battery life, last year's display, Android 2.2 until this summer leaves a lot to be desired especially with all the other devices coming out in the next few months. Of course Android devices will always be coming out but in my particular situation, my next Android device has to be A LOT better than my previous one and not just a small step. Going back to VZW tomorrow.
 
Update after phone swap: Clear improvement.

New phone after swap has definitely shown an improved battery life. I still get inconsistent readings when sleeping from the mA current draw. Sometimes 30-80 mA sometimes well over 100 mA. Have not been able to get to the bottom of this. Either way with the new phone, JuiceDefender (with the many recent updates to the beta), careful management of settings and apps my overall finding is that the battery is just barely tolerable. The this makes the phone a clear keeper though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom