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The freshly announced HTC Thunderbolt is still a little while out for Verizon, but that hasn’t stopped the phone’s RUU from leaking. And with that comes a system dump measuring a whopping 500MB, of which not lick of Bing has been uncovered so far.
An evening meeting between a group of us press folk and HTC PR revealed some interesting tid-bits about the hardware design of the new handset, including antenna located in the removable plastic battery cover to allow for a unibody metal casing without hampering signal strength. Another cool fun fact is HTC’s adoption of a policy to always expose some of the internal elements of the phone for those extra-techy brownie points. In the case of the Thunderbolt it is the vibrating motor, which you can see in this video capture by our friends over at Android Central.
Now where is the Droid Bionic?
Sorry for the stupid question, but can someone please tell me what “RUU” means?
wow, that was slow.
ROM Update Utility, and I’m still looking for the latest one for my Droid Eris,
@ Chris: ROM UPDATE UTILITY
Wait, so the ThunderBolt does have a Unibody aluminum design? does that mean that little rubber ball on the back is the antenna since alot of those official accessories cut around it to keep it exposed. That was my guess when i saw the cases anyway. Phandroid do some digging to find out when this baby launches :) this will be replacing my Droid Incredible which i traded for a Droid X (hated it) and got the Droid Incredible back. I love HTC sense. HTC has spoiled me i think with a UI like that for Android.
I noticed that no one at CES was allowed to switch the skins, only the scenes which alot of the tech blogs thought were the skins.
I’m pulling that boot screen from the RUU and puting it on my Incredible, thats just awesome.
The ThunderBolt is a great phone. New gen processor, 768 Megs of rAM, and an aluminum unibody. I am dropping Sprint and my Evo as soon as this comes out!
@wycka, that was a cold boot (which can be done manually even after its been on for a while)
the new Sense allows phones to boot in 3 seconds thanks to the new hot boot feature
@tim242, don’t forget about the 8GB internal storage and included 32GB MicroSD Class 6 (sorry for the triple post)
I have seen all the specs, but have the dimensions been released. This is my dream phone, and the one after!
@tim242, check out this link to see all the specs including the processor name, storage, sense features etc.
http://www.htc.com/us/products/thunderbolt-verizon#tech-specs
notice how it also says “Bluetooth 3.0 when available” (meaning this phone has it but its not yet active. (sounds to me like the Droid Incredible thing with the wifi N all over again.
No Dual Core = No new phone
It has new gen 1 Ghz processor that performs as good, if not better than dual core…and uses less battery. Not to mention, only certain apps will be able to use the dual cores.
The dual core phones require extra battery space. The Bionic is bigger than the X!
tim u r an idiot and have no idea what u r talking bout
Thanks Guardian & Dr!
@stank, its true, dual core phones require more battery even if they are more power efficient, the Bionic has one of the ugliest UI overlays on Android just like the Droid X. The ThunderBolt is already getting high quandrant scores even without a dualcore processor. the Bionic has a dual core yes, but you can’t compare it against the ThunderBolt and call that a fair comparison since it doesn’t have a dualcore like the Bionic. The ThunderBolt is made out of a chunk of aluminum unibody design, so it will be one of the most durable phones on the market like the Desire HD/NEXUS ONE and Desire was. The hardware on the ThunderBolt might be dated but not everyone needs a dual core processor to do what they want on an Android phone, and by the time HTC gets there hands on one, they’ll be one step ahead of Moto like they have been design wise. The fact that Verizon gave HTC exclusivity to be the first LTE phone on the network had to have had limitations with it like any contract would for exclusive rights. One possibily being releasing a sorta outdated hardware so not to compete or draw attention away from the Droid franchise which apparently now Motorola has exclusive rights with Verizon now, hence why Motorola Mobility now has a Red logo. The other reasons to get a ThunderBolt lies with HTC loyalists like myself, they always deliver great hardware and while i do agree its a bummer it doesn’t have the killer hardware Bionic has like the Tegra2 chip, its not a deal breaker for me.
I have a Droid Incredible, when the Droid X came out i was so excited for it and couldn’t wait to get it, when i did get it, i was VERY disappointed with it, glitches out that the wazoo, horrible speaker quality compared to my Dinc, low volume, screen was not that great looking as far as color vibrancy and detail, and the UI was just awful, even a NEXUS UI would look better than that eyesore they call NinjaBlur. I ended up trading my Droid X back for my same Incredible, while it was more powerful than my Dinc i still love my HTC Incredible over the X any day no matter what update they can put out for it.
once you got an HTC phone, you never want to leave that brand, thats what i think
@stank: why are they putting 1900 mAh batteries on just the dual core phones? There would be no need, if it was so battery efficient. @ NCX: You hit the nail right on the head! Last time I tried to switch to verizon, i tried the X. I went running back to my Evo! Bring this bad boy to me!
Really your post is really sad and one sided. So you love HTC and tried the X obviosly your going to be loyal to your HTC. Anyways You were saying how the X screen looked bad well I disagree with you becasue I think the incredibles screen is just as bad (washed out looking). Your reasoning for getting this phone is because you don’t need a dual core is pathetic and most people that read this site they are tech savy or want the next greatest and the bionic is going to be another game changer with the tegra 2 chip in it. Yea at first only a couple of apps will take full advantage but you can not say that the dual core will not be great because of the number of apps that use it? Thats dumb to be honest with you I think you would see an impact right away with dual core just from a lag aspect the dual core will keep your machine running smooth. Next, every phone that comes out that is a game changer will have a few glitches here and there its given especially with android because of the number of diffrent variations of it there is. And I don’t know how many times we have to go over this but the dual core will save battery becasue of how it will be used instead of a single core running at 800 all the time to keep up a dual core will use less by spreading the 800 out For ex. the dual core will split the 800 which would be 400 per core meainig that it will use less power to keep your phone smooth plus the endless possibilities that it has. Every has their opinion but don’t make facts up here. For my opinion dual core is the only way I will upgrade and this thunderbolt is a fail just for the fact that you can wait another month or 2 and get a dual core.
I just got the rockband game that was shown at the CES last night in my droid x. sick game…My Droid X ROCKS!!!
Joker: I thought it split it as well, but it doesn’t. According to the press releases, each core will operate at 1ghz. That’s 2ghz of power…obviously will us more battery.
it takes over one minute for the phone to boot…that’s cool…
Very disappointed. Maybe Motorola will impress me, I can absolutely wait.
I don’t really get why everybody hates the Droid X UI. I have had the droid X since it was released, and while I agree with everybody out there about all the stupid glitches and everything, the UI was never an issue for me. I installed and tried roms and home replacement apps, but always went back to the stock because the roms and home replacements felt cheap..
Then again, I have never owned a Sense UI phone. So maybe I have no idea what I am missing haha. After the Tmob G1, I have had the Droid, and now the Droid X. I am very looking forward to having the Thunderbolt soon :)
This Thunderbolt is an extreme let down. It is effectively a mix between the Droid Incredible and the Desire Z. There is nothing special about this phone except LTE. It’s the same Snapdragon we’ve seen before. Sure it is the 45nm shrink that is a bit more efficient and has a slightly updated Adreno chip but it’s an incremental upgrade at best.
If you look at the LG Revolution or the Droid Bionic… those are massive upgrades. Tegra 2 (can you say be my biotch Adreno?), Cortex A9 based Dual core (if you don’t know why A9 is better… go do your homework), LTE and larger batteries. Will it come with Sense? No, but do you really expect anyone on this site to not root their phone? Software can be altered, hardware cannot.
I’ll take a LG Revolution or Droid Bionic over the Thunderbolt for the Tegra 2 chip. Cortex A9 + Tegra GPU is blisteringly fast. If you stick with the A8 based Snapdragon your bottleneck will be the rendering of pages unlike… and a nasty one at that.
Also, anyone who assumes just because it is a dual core proc it will use more battery is being mislead. They are completely different manufacturing processes and core arc’s. The A9 has been completely reworked… not to mention a thing called dynamic scaling. Just like in desktops and notebooks these things throttle clock speed based on need.
Try again HTC. My last 3 phones have been HTC but I will be skipping this epic fail.
Hardly an epic fail with an upgraded processor, aluminum unibody, and 768 megs of RAM. Enjoy your dual cores running on a mesely 512 megs of RAM. Also enjoy your cheap plastic!
There was a white paper published by Nvidia which goes into alot of detail just how the dual core Tegra2 works.
Some of the comments on here have bad info. Now, regarding how dual cores save power. They don’t clock at 1Ghz each all the time, that would be silly. They are clocked much like they do now, as it is needed. One chip can be idle and the other can carry out menial tasks.
Power saving works like this though: Clock speed v power usage is not linear. To get more and more clock cycles needs a vast increase in power consumption. So, say a single core CPU needs 1w at 1Ghz, then at 0.5Ghz it might need 350w. Now, run 2 cores at 0.5Ghz, total power = 700W, that is 300w less than the single core running at 1Ghz.
Per my comment.
I should have written 350mw (not 350w), 700mw (not 700w) and 300mw (not 300w)
Finger trouble!
Enjoy your aluminium brick.
Brick? The bionic is bigger than the droid X! LoL
Brick? The bionic is bigger than the droid X! LoL ignorance must be bliss!
And heavier!
Sexy and very powerful!
dual-core would be better for its marketing, though.
but it’s only the 8th day of 2011, so, we’ll see a tremendous amount of impossible Android gadgets this year
I do not understand the complaints about boot time. I mean, really, who leaves their phone off anyway? You kind of need to have it on to RING!
I would love to know what you are going to do with the extra 256MB of Ram other than boast that you have it. Seriously, when have you run out of RAM on your phone? Yes, the aluminum body is sturdier but then again I’ve never put a scratch on a smartphone I’ve owned so it doesn’t bother me. I have a use for Dual core and Tegra that is tangible and useful. I do not have a use for extra RAM I don’t run out of.
Oh and the upgraded processor… is really a die shrink with a few optimizations tossed in. It is really the same proc we’ve been seeing since the DINC, N1, etc.
What happened to phanmail fridays?
my nexus S usually cold boots in about 45 seconds out of the box it was like less than 30 although it has taken longer
will the bionic be THAT much faster than the thunderbolt? please someone respond
Tim242: I love House MD too, lol.
Obvious troll is obvious (tim)
It’s not about running out of RAM. More RAM means faster operation. Dual core is marketing. Wonder why atrix got 1GB of RAM, bionic only half of that? Motorola gimped the bionic, and you still want to defend it.
@Brandon – I’m always running out of RAM. When i go back to my browser I regularly find that the pages I was looking at have dropped out of memory. I’d like to be able to use my phone a bit and then return to the browser exactly as I left it. This is a problem on my current Desire Z (512MB) and my previous Desire (576MB).
Bela, go shopping and stop trolling, bimbo.
An Android phone without support for tegra is not gonna last long. Sure theres flash and html5 but Android is moving on. Make sure your wagon has all the wheels otherwise you will be left at the side of the road.
Thanks for your eatyh-shattering insight Bela. Yawn.
Troller of trolls…Bela
That boot animation was like something out of an 80’s cartoon. Very lame. Why is this even a post?
Tim, you are spewing garbage. First off the cores do not only run at 1ghz, if you look at Moto’s latest phones like the d2 global the cpu runs at 300Mhz unless it needs addition power. It then increases the processor speed to 1.2 when it needs to.
As for the bionic being “gimped” with 512mb ram, how can you even begin to speculate how the phone will run? Mable it’s the 1GB in the atrix that is the marketing ploy.
Screw the phone..The Rockband game that is in the leak kicks ass!!
Just another piece of shit from htc. Ill pass and wait for something good.
Yea the thunderbolt is a piece of crap. worthless phone that is why the bionic is gonna be way better than the steel brick lol duel core oooooo yeaaaaa
Samsung fascinate all the way shits on all theese phones. Im gonna wait for the next galaxy phone gonna be the best by far trust me theese first 4g phones are gonna suck. there is always a problem with the first type of phones.
im in the stoneage, im looking to get my 1st smartphone and i have no clue what im looking at, i have no clue what anyone is saying so i guess im screwed. coin flip for the thunderbolt, revolution or bionic. for my knowledge of smartphones (none) probably tbolt or revolution. i just need to use my last upgrade credit as well as i can. wow i have alot to learn, u guys are all smart for keeping up with this tech. i wish i would have!
maybe you guys could help seeing that all of you have good knowledge of smartphones and how to do all of the upgrades and good use of all the apps out there. i just dont wanna ruin the phone a few months after i get it. im just gonna start out with a tbolt or revolution, any ideas for a newbie like i am?