The HTC Thunderbolt is a mess of a phone, but a cool one to look at a decade later. Gotta love the old HTC Sense UI and quirkiness, definitely came from a different era. Make sure you stop by the Discord if you enjoy talking some tech! I'm there occasionally, but always watching 👀 discord.io/91tech
I loved my Thunderbolt in 2020. Since it no longer activates on CDMA, battery life is much better and I got a full day out of it. It did all I needed it to as well, playing music, phone and texts, browsing, and weather apps. I personally adored the UI and wish phones went back to it. I keep it as a backup, since it can't run some apps I use today like the Kroger and Walmart apps, as well as certain music streaming apps. While Verizon no longer activates it, you can cheat with a Straight Talk SIM kit. The Verizon SIM in the kit doesn't ask for the IMEI.
My first smartphone…. Oh the memories of this thing… waiting for the Ice Cream Sandwich update, rooting it and flashing various broken builds of ICS on this thing… good times. I had a replacement, bigger battery that came with a new backplate, it gave the thing a huge hump and made it even heavier but hey, it made it last most of the time I needed it haha.
The ICS hype was such a big thing. I preordered the Galaxy Nexus and got upset when it took another 6-8 weeks to get to me due to unexpectedly high demand. I used that thing with custom ROMs for soo long, until they started getting further and further behind the main releases with fewer people putting the time in. I still miss that phone tbh. Those blue Holo glows in ICS looked great on OLED.
Ah man I remember when I got my HTC EVO and the screen size from my iPhone! Wow I felt like I had an HD TV in my pocket! Now today it's considered small. Crazy how far we have gone!
@@TheBikemaster94 I bought the extended battery for my EVO towards the end. Ahh nothing like waking around with a burrito in your pocket 🤣 luckily at the thing baggy clothes was in so wasn't too bad lol
My grandmother had the htc evo 4g I'm around 15 at the moment she had it in I'm going to say in 2011 I used a lot to watch TH-cam and play games I remember I got the early early demo for minecraft pocket edition and played it alot
You honestly did such a great job with this and it was such a creative idea! Can you please compare the iPhone 12 mini size with retro “large” android phones like the Evo and first two gens of the Note?
Definitely want to do some videos about the iPhone 12 Mini, while I can't guarantee direct comparisons with older Androids as that's quite niche I would like to look at those older Androids and mention how the size holds up today for sure. Hoping to finish off my series of Galaxy S phones soon, as well as some more fun HTC phones.
I'll never understand why the kickstand never caught on outside of HTC. That's one hardware feature that always feels like it's missing on other handsets.
Well most companies now sacrifice everything for aesthetics. Apple more so than any other company. The hinges and added slits go against the sleek one piece cover. If a company could get away with selling you a phone with small battery that only gives you 1 minute and you had to carry a car battery in a backpack just so they could have the slimmest phone fit right in your wallet they would.
I remember having unlimited data in the late 2000s early 2010s because companies were trying to get everyone on data plans and didn't expect data to take off
@@chriswright8074 they made everyone switch to traditional data plans with limits once 4G/LTE came out then turned around and brought back unlimited data plans
The charging port placement was designed so that that phone could be slipped into a dock that held the phone horizontally for hands-free in-car use. In the car, it worked great. I think there was a desktop dock planned, too, but I don't remember that it ever materialized. I still have two of the phones, and I may have one of the car docks around somewhere.
My first 4g phone was the Samsung epic. It had a keyboard and I remember thinking I could never get a touchscreen only phone. Then I got the HTC sensation and loved it
The early 10's smartphone market was magical, imo. Different form factors, wildly different designs, it was all so fun. From Samsung's huge (for the time) Galaxy Note series to Sony Ericsson's extremely compact Xperia Mini, phone with or without slide-out physical keyboards, I feel like every taste was catered to.
I would say 2013-2015 was my favorite era of Android. So much fun experimentation and fun visuals. I remember having a Skrillex Live case for my Galaxy S5 and seeing that wallpaper of constellations and stuff would always make my day 🥰 older Android is fascinating too, of course, but those aforementioned years are my personal favorites 👌
I remember the battery life on my Desire being atrocious, can definitely see how the Thunderbolt would be a real pain in this regard! The first major release of any new technology isn't always its finest hour!
I had the Desire Z, which was fine, but that had a slightly newer chip (smaller fab process, the 800MHz in that one benched the same as the 1GHz in Desire, etc) so I would imagine it got probably at least an hour or two more than the OG Desire. But then I also rooted mine and installed CyanogenMod Android 2.3 without even bothering to try using the HTC Sense Android 2.2 install it came with. And I remember reviewers complaining about Sense’s battery drain at the time - so maybe that’s where I got most of the battery life being fine and it was not really from the hardware?
Gosh I miss the early days of old Android devices. One of my favorites was the HTC Droid Incredible, I still remember being excited that it was one of the first devices in North America, if not the first, to get the 2.2 update OTA. After that I only bought Nexus for a while with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and then LG Nexus 5, which I still feel like was the best smartphone of it's era.
Great video. I actually really want to see you do a review of the Palm Pre, for it was a pretty advanced phone for what it was (in terms of its software). I mean, even Apple seemed to be heavily influenced by Palm when it came to iOS/iPadOS's multitasking. Other than that though, you have once again made a great video.
those side chargers were such a pain ... Except if youre charging in a vehicle when its horizontal in a holder.. the only useful situation for that. These days with the larger screens ,, no need to view the phone sideways for usual instances.
I really don't understand this whole "battery life" issue. I owned a Thunderbolt and never once experienced poor battery life. I charged it once overnight like every other phone I've ever owned. I used it quite heavily back in the day as well. It was a fantastic phone for it's time. In fact, I still have it in my phone drawer.
I remember reviews at the time saying using LTE ate up the battery but without it it was basically fine and akin to the Desire (whose silicon it shared); if slightly short. So I wonder how much you used the LTE. But then I was always fine plugging in at 5-10% remaining while reviewers would seemingly complain if it was below 20 or 30% by the time they charged, so I can understand where you’re coming from WRT not always agreeing with reviews’ battery life assessments.
My aunt didn't have this exact phone but she had an HTC back in 2014 and I remember playing around with it. HTC with its phone's designs and the android skin they used was very good. Android today is typically flat and boring (luckily android 12 has been working to fix it).
@@nickalvizo haha that's good. I feel like for most phones a lot of these 'failures' actually were fine, just the tech enthusiast crowd ended up disappointed. But notable devices all the same
The HTC Thunderbolt is the phone that made me leave the Android platform for good as soon as the iPhone was finally available with other carriers such as Verizon. I got a 4s and never looked back. At the time I really wanted Sprint's version of the first 4G HTC phone for the red acccents but I settled for the Verizon counterpart..... That Thunderbolt had awful battery life as you mentioned and used to crash all the time. It's still cool looking at your video though and remembering what originally drew me to the Thunderbolt. Even though the screen was smaller, I liked how premium the iPhone 4s looked and felt both in hardware and software compared to the Thunderbolt.
Bought one of these when they came out, I had the double-thick battery with the expanded back panel, and it was awesome. I also had a grandfathered unlimited data plan from Alltel, and you better believe I abused it by watching tons of TH-cam on my phone whenever I actually had 4GLTE service.
What a trip down memory lane! In 2011 I had the HTC Evo 3D (my brother found a lost but unclaimed Evo 4G) and HTC Sense was on both our phones... I remember rooting and custom ROMing my brother's Evo 4G to make it run better and he was pissed that its UI was different lmao. I ended up reflashing it to a stock HTC Sense ROM, all was well, but that was interesting... lol. I also had Sprint's Samsung Galaxy S variation called the Epic 4G, and that ran on 4G WiMax. It was the only OG Galaxy S to have a physical keyboard, so that was fun. Thanks for this video.. It was interesting taking a trip to the past.
Heyo! I bought one of these a year ago for $10 shipped, just so I could have the first 4g LTE phone, something to add to my collection. Cool seeing you cover it!!
Here at 2K views! My HTC Thunderbolt stayed with me for a really looong time , I bought it just because the LTE connectivity was just an interesting thing to me and I got the phone , Sold it in 2015 tho , Btw 91 tech i love your videos!
My first LTE phone was a ZTE Supreme on Virgin. I first got to see LTE in action during a trip to Orlando, since my hometown didn’t have it at the time. It was definitely a big difference.
I love how with htc sense it did a full screen animation of the current weather when you had the clock and weather widget in the screen. I thought it was so pretty
I had the extended battery which made the chunky boi even more massive, and there was a HUGE SMS bug where texts you sent would randomly go to other people.
I remember buying this some months after it came out used off Craigslist for $260 and that was a lot for a phone back then. I kept it for only a couple months cause the battery sucked and switched to the Droid 3 if I remember correctly
I had one of these pretty close to launch. Battery life was so bad that i carried a 10 foot charging cable with me everywhere. 5 hours on average. I remember flying cross-country once with it, going from plane to transit and had to keep it off unless i needed to look at transit directions less i got stranded in a new city with a dead battery and nowhere to charge.
This was my favorite phone. I never had problems with it. I still talk about it. It was so sturdy. I was still working as an RN at that time, so it went through a lot with me. I miss that phone! Oh, the nostalgia!
My father got this phone when it came out, and it was eventually passed down to me. I love and HATED this thing. It got me through, but I eventually broke it
This was my second smartphone after the droid. I remember how horrible that battery was but I could have sworn they came out with an expansion batter you could swap with the battery and it had its own back plate because the battery was so thick.
Back in the day, when I needed proof that Android phones were crap, I would show them this. But I don't know how HTC fell off because they literally made the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1. HTC also made some great phones like the HTC One . Alas, they really felt the queeze from not only Samsung but Apple too.
I always wondering (And actually like them. Especially their design) the phones came out on early 2010's. Its good to hear it from your explanation. Good video Josh! (And yes i liked HTC's UI design they did it very cool in time.)
2:22 this was my first smart phone. I actually could not go with a phone with a screen smaller than 4in, and hilariously, that was the first smart phone with a 4in screen. It was a beast back in the day. I used to overclock it haha.
I wish I could relive 2010 again, but LTE back in those days wasn’t important due to the extremely limited data cap’s Verizon imposed once they got rid of the unlimited data plans. But for me 2005 to 2015 were the most enjoyable days of phones
This phone was my first smart phone ever in 2011 until I got the iPhone 5 in February 2013. I actually really like this phone and if it didn’t malfunction in late 2012 I would’ve kept it for a while. It was very interesting I had a little complaints and I like the stand on the back. Now I have an iPhone 13 that I just got this past month it’s almost 10 years later using iPhones despite my first phone being HTC I actually really enjoyed it.
Had this phone with an anker extended battery. This device was really good back then. I loved htc devices. They looked really nice. This device wasn’t as bad as you make it out to be. The charger was put on the side because when people lay with their phone. They rest it on their chest or stomach while surfing. Bending the charge port. And devices back then the charge ports would always break and fall out back then. This fixed that.
Size and specs wise, the HTC Thunderbolt was extremely comparable to the HTC Evo 4G, which was extremely comparable to the HTC HD2 running Windows Mobile 6.5 and hacked to run everything else. The Thunderbolt was absolutely chonky compared to the Evo 4G, which had extremely similar specs just different radios. Smartphones almost never came with kickstands, that was a huge flex because 4.3inches was considered huge and 5inches and above was considered impractical "phablet" territory (check out some reviews of the Dell Streak and Samsung Note 1 if that sounds rediculous). I type this out a decade later on a phone with a 5.4 inch screen that has "mini" in the name.
I've had the Virgin Mobile Evo 3D, loved that phone for being big upgrade from the Optimus V. I was young and thinking upgrading to 4G was awesome, few days later I've turned off the 4G since it was spotty AF and was happy with 3G. Good times.
Hey, I've got an idea for a video. How about an NVIDIA SHIELD tablet K1. I remember using it back in 2016 until the SoC died. I got my money back. It was a cool, cheap and powerful tablet though.
i remember i gave my ipod touch that type of android overlay through cydia with the flipping time and weather, wow i didnt know it came from this phone!
I guess my Expectation back then must have been pretty low because I Personally Loved my Thunderbolt enough to learn how to replace my 1st phone Screen When i dropped and it and broke it. That alone helped me to be able to do more for my phones later on. Still loved it enough to carry an extra battery for al day use. lol
I just bought a brand new one for 1$ at the Costa Mesa flea market, this lady had garbage bags full of them in box for 1$. I use it as a hiking gps, and it’s held up fine.
My first cell phone was a flip phone and at that time text messages was 10cents a message, they charged a lot if you using data and you only had certain amount of minutes depending on the plan. This was around 2003
This was my first smartphone, and I absolutely loved it. Went from it to the droid dna by htc, then the one m8. I miss HTC, wish they hadn't fallen apart after the m8, it was the best phone I've owned.
I was *so* excited to get this phone when it came out. I had just started a new job and was relying on it a lot for work. And then... I had to change to an iPhone because this phone was just terrible. The battery wouldn't even get me through lunch.
@@91Tech that will probably be the case lol 😂 also I didn’t know you would reply to me :) your fast to replying also I’m gonna make videos about some old phones witch is cool 😎
I had this phone when it came out everything you said is true. Verizon offered a bigger battery for it.I've also noticed in the video you insert a 64 gig chip in the phone . I don't think the phone could read anything past 32 gig, As the 64 gig is a new technology it didn't exist when the thunderbolt came out. It came out a few months later, but but the technology changed and the chip would have been extremely expensive it would have been extremely expensive if the phone was able to read it. It may explain why you could not store your pictures on the chip. Since I no longer have my thunder bolt and did not possess a and did not possess a 64 gig chip at the time when I did, when I did, I can't prove that theory.
No, he could read the SD card, the complaint was about not being able to store photos on the internal memory and having to go get an SD card at all. 32GB is the maximum size for SDHC yes, but a lot of devices from this time period had SDXC already. And a device that supports SDXC reads all SDXC cards even if they have higher capacities than were available when they came out. I have a 2011-model laptop with SDXC and it reads 512GB SD cards just fine. Just like something with SDHC can read 32GB cards even if the max was 8 or 16 when it was new. Even though the voiceover said he used the SD card fine, I just quickly checked, and yep, the Thunderbolt had SDXC. Most things from that time period did but I figured I’d be 300% sure before I make this “well actually” comment. In fact the Galaxy S, as well as some of its predecessors, and all the Motorola DROIDs except for the very first one, and many more, all had SDXC already, specifically so they could future-proof their SD slots.
I had a distant cousin, the HTC Inspire 4G, in 2011. I actually really liked that phone except for all the AT&T bloat. I eventually sold it for a Windows Phone of all things.
I had the HTC Vivid, another early LTE phone, I'm sure glad I could carry a spare battery as I'd blow through both that and the original one each day lol
I got one when it first came out! Really cool, but the battery life was horrible. Then I went to the Droid Charge, then the Droid Razr. After that, I switched to the iPhone 5 on launch day and have been with iPhones ever since
You should do a video on Windows Mobile. Back when i was in preschool we only had 2 popular smartphone operating systems: BlackBerryOS and Windows Mobile. We didn’t have iOS until i was three in 2007.
I had the HTC Inspire 4G which ran on AT&T’s HSPA+ 4G (not LTE). It was pretty much the same phone as this one. I loved it. It was my first phone on my own plan 🙂#nostalgia
i had this phone and i absolutely loved it, but i did have complaints - battery life sucked and you couldn't plug in the phone when you used the kickstand, and the wait for ICS felt like an eternity when everyone else had it and i was waiting.. ended up rooting
The HTC Thunderbolt is a mess of a phone, but a cool one to look at a decade later. Gotta love the old HTC Sense UI and quirkiness, definitely came from a different era.
Make sure you stop by the Discord if you enjoy talking some tech! I'm there occasionally, but always watching 👀
discord.io/91tech
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I loved my Thunderbolt in 2020. Since it no longer activates on CDMA, battery life is much better and I got a full day out of it. It did all I needed it to as well, playing music, phone and texts, browsing, and weather apps. I personally adored the UI and wish phones went back to it. I keep it as a backup, since it can't run some apps I use today like the Kroger and Walmart apps, as well as certain music streaming apps. While Verizon no longer activates it, you can cheat with a Straight Talk SIM kit. The Verizon SIM in the kit doesn't ask for the IMEI.
Do a Galaxy note 5 please. Love your channel.
I’ll
My first smartphone…. Oh the memories of this thing… waiting for the Ice Cream Sandwich update, rooting it and flashing various broken builds of ICS on this thing… good times. I had a replacement, bigger battery that came with a new backplate, it gave the thing a huge hump and made it even heavier but hey, it made it last most of the time I needed it haha.
The ICS hype was such a big thing. I preordered the Galaxy Nexus and got upset when it took another 6-8 weeks to get to me due to unexpectedly high demand. I used that thing with custom ROMs for soo long, until they started getting further and further behind the main releases with fewer people putting the time in. I still miss that phone tbh. Those blue Holo glows in ICS looked great on OLED.
I remember installing ICS on the HTC Sensation
I miss my old HTC One V 💔 even though its a single core disaster 😂😂
My favorite where the sudden reboots that took what seemed 5 minutes to reboot.
@@kcrowland5271 LOOLL 😅😅😅
Ah man I remember when I got my HTC EVO and the screen size from my iPhone! Wow I felt like I had an HD TV in my pocket! Now today it's considered small. Crazy how far we have gone!
me too, good times!
My first 4g phone was a Droid 3 with extended clip (battery) it felt heavy like a real piece of equipment
@@TheBikemaster94 I bought the extended battery for my EVO towards the end. Ahh nothing like waking around with a burrito in your pocket 🤣 luckily at the thing baggy clothes was in so wasn't too bad lol
My grandmother had the htc evo 4g I'm around 15 at the moment she had it in I'm going to say in 2011 I used a lot to watch TH-cam and play games I remember I got the early early demo for minecraft pocket edition and played it alot
You honestly did such a great job with this and it was such a creative idea! Can you please compare the iPhone 12 mini size with retro “large” android phones like the Evo and first two gens of the Note?
Definitely want to do some videos about the iPhone 12 Mini, while I can't guarantee direct comparisons with older Androids as that's quite niche I would like to look at those older Androids and mention how the size holds up today for sure. Hoping to finish off my series of Galaxy S phones soon, as well as some more fun HTC phones.
@@91Tech you are the king, man. Thank you!
@@91Tech hope to hear about the one M7. Such a gorgeous phone
@@Yeahhhhthisisgood omg yes the one m7 and m8 were soooo gorgeous 😭 I had the m7 when I was like 13 and I felt like I was on top of the world lmao
I'll never understand why the kickstand never caught on outside of HTC. That's one hardware feature that always feels like it's missing on other handsets.
Well most companies now sacrifice everything for aesthetics. Apple more so than any other company. The hinges and added slits go against the sleek one piece cover. If a company could get away with selling you a phone with small battery that only gives you 1 minute and you had to carry a car battery in a backpack just so they could have the slimmest phone fit right in your wallet they would.
@@nothereforit.605 The iPod Flea comes to mind.
I remember having unlimited data in the late 2000s early 2010s because companies were trying to get everyone on data plans and didn't expect data to take off
Cricket and metro was the ones that stated the trends Verizon grandfather plan I forgotten what it was clutch at the time
@@chriswright8074 I was on a grandfather plan from Verizon, when everyone ran outta data I had unlimited lol
@@KidTonyGaming yup unfortunately they made everyone convert to something else can't remember
@@chriswright8074 they made everyone switch to traditional data plans with limits once 4G/LTE came out then turned around and brought back unlimited data plans
The charging port placement was designed so that that phone could be slipped into a dock that held the phone horizontally for hands-free in-car use. In the car, it worked great. I think there was a desktop dock planned, too, but I don't remember that it ever materialized. I still have two of the phones, and I may have one of the car docks around somewhere.
My first 4g phone was the Samsung epic. It had a keyboard and I remember thinking I could never get a touchscreen only phone. Then I got the HTC sensation and loved it
Lol same...except 7 phones later I'm still missing the keyboard.
I loved this time period for smartphones because you never knew what was around the corner. But innovation is lost to lack of competition.
Innovation gave way to immitation :(
The early 10's smartphone market was magical, imo. Different form factors, wildly different designs, it was all so fun. From Samsung's huge (for the time) Galaxy Note series to Sony Ericsson's extremely compact Xperia Mini, phone with or without slide-out physical keyboards, I feel like every taste was catered to.
I would say 2013-2015 was my favorite era of Android. So much fun experimentation and fun visuals. I remember having a Skrillex Live case for my Galaxy S5 and seeing that wallpaper of constellations and stuff would always make my day 🥰 older Android is fascinating too, of course, but those aforementioned years are my personal favorites 👌
I remember the battery life on my Desire being atrocious, can definitely see how the Thunderbolt would be a real pain in this regard!
The first major release of any new technology isn't always its finest hour!
I had the Desire Z, which was fine, but that had a slightly newer chip (smaller fab process, the 800MHz in that one benched the same as the 1GHz in Desire, etc) so I would imagine it got probably at least an hour or two more than the OG Desire. But then I also rooted mine and installed CyanogenMod Android 2.3 without even bothering to try using the HTC Sense Android 2.2 install it came with. And I remember reviewers complaining about Sense’s battery drain at the time - so maybe that’s where I got most of the battery life being fine and it was not really from the hardware?
Oh look ! It's Saturday night with 91Tech ! Nice video pal ! I can't wait to get one for a video that is
..if I'm lucky !
:) hope you enjoy!
@@91Tech Whoa thanks Josh ! I hope to become a Tech TH-camr like you ! P.S How do you get such old phones ? I cant seem to find them in eBay.
Gosh I miss the early days of old Android devices. One of my favorites was the HTC Droid Incredible, I still remember being excited that it was one of the first devices in North America, if not the first, to get the 2.2 update OTA. After that I only bought Nexus for a while with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and then LG Nexus 5, which I still feel like was the best smartphone of it's era.
I had a thunderbolt and I loved it a lot
My first HTC phone was the Evo Shift 4G (Sprint). I thought that physical keyboards was so cool... 😂
Great video. I actually really want to see you do a review of the Palm Pre, for it was a pretty advanced phone for what it was (in terms of its software). I mean, even Apple seemed to be heavily influenced by Palm when it came to iOS/iPadOS's multitasking. Other than that though, you have once again made a great video.
those side chargers were such a pain ... Except if youre charging in a vehicle when its horizontal in a holder.. the only useful situation for that. These days with the larger screens ,, no need to view the phone sideways for usual instances.
I really don't understand this whole "battery life" issue. I owned a Thunderbolt and never once experienced poor battery life. I charged it once overnight like every other phone I've ever owned. I used it quite heavily back in the day as well. It was a fantastic phone for it's time. In fact, I still have it in my phone drawer.
I remember reviews at the time saying using LTE ate up the battery but without it it was basically fine and akin to the Desire (whose silicon it shared); if slightly short. So I wonder how much you used the LTE. But then I was always fine plugging in at 5-10% remaining while reviewers would seemingly complain if it was below 20 or 30% by the time they charged, so I can understand where you’re coming from WRT not always agreeing with reviews’ battery life assessments.
Damn I remember my thunderbolt. Good times I loved it.
I had one, until i dropped it and the screen got this big black dot on it. I still have it!
My aunt didn't have this exact phone but she had an HTC back in 2014 and I remember playing around with it. HTC with its phone's designs and the android skin they used was very good. Android today is typically flat and boring (luckily android 12 has been working to fix it).
I haven't thought of WiMAX in a long time - not since I was considering the Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition (which was discontinued before I could buy one.)
I worked at TMobile during this period, the transition from 3G to 4G and I can confirm the hype was real.
Friend had the WiMax 4G phone...i wonder if he ever got to use it in North Dakota.
8:20 nahhh it was just the phone, you’re pretty handsome! I think the HTC Evo was way more popular than this one tho
My parents used to have an HTC Evo 4G back in the day
My condolences
@@91Tech Lol it worked fine for them
@@nickalvizo haha that's good. I feel like for most phones a lot of these 'failures' actually were fine, just the tech enthusiast crowd ended up disappointed. But notable devices all the same
@@91Tech Yeah pretty much, kinda like the 5C 😬
reminds me of my HTC Surround 7, good old times
The HTC Thunderbolt is the phone that made me leave the Android platform for good as soon as the iPhone was finally available with other carriers such as Verizon. I got a 4s and never looked back. At the time I really wanted Sprint's version of the first 4G HTC phone for the red acccents but I settled for the Verizon counterpart..... That Thunderbolt had awful battery life as you mentioned and used to crash all the time. It's still cool looking at your video though and remembering what originally drew me to the Thunderbolt. Even though the screen was smaller, I liked how premium the iPhone 4s looked and felt both in hardware and software compared to the Thunderbolt.
Bought one of these when they came out, I had the double-thick battery with the expanded back panel, and it was awesome. I also had a grandfathered unlimited data plan from Alltel, and you better believe I abused it by watching tons of TH-cam on my phone whenever I actually had 4GLTE service.
What a trip down memory lane! In 2011 I had the HTC Evo 3D (my brother found a lost but unclaimed Evo 4G) and HTC Sense was on both our phones... I remember rooting and custom ROMing my brother's Evo 4G to make it run better and he was pissed that its UI was different lmao. I ended up reflashing it to a stock HTC Sense ROM, all was well, but that was interesting... lol. I also had Sprint's Samsung Galaxy S variation called the Epic 4G, and that ran on 4G WiMax. It was the only OG Galaxy S to have a physical keyboard, so that was fun. Thanks for this video.. It was interesting taking a trip to the past.
Heyo! I bought one of these a year ago for $10 shipped, just so I could have the first 4g LTE phone, something to add to my collection. Cool seeing you cover it!!
Here at 2K views! My HTC Thunderbolt stayed with me for a really looong time , I bought it just because the LTE connectivity was just an interesting thing to me and I got the phone , Sold it in 2015 tho , Btw 91 tech i love your videos!
My first LTE phone was a ZTE Supreme on Virgin. I first got to see LTE in action during a trip to Orlando, since my hometown didn’t have it at the time. It was definitely a big difference.
I used to own an HTC desire; and it was a fantastic phone! all HTC phones in early 2010s were way ahead of the time!
I love how with htc sense it did a full screen animation of the current weather when you had the clock and weather widget in the screen. I thought it was so pretty
Reason why I always forgave HTC for slow updates is because HTC sense UI was so smooth and refined one of if not the best UI of those days
HTC Sense was probably my favorite version of Android in the old days as well haha. So fun looking, I still love that big flip clock.
OMG. The forest camera footage SCREAMS old school TH-cam.
I had the extended battery which made the chunky boi even more massive, and there was a HUGE SMS bug where texts you sent would randomly go to other people.
Odd thing is, I was watching your video about your HTC Thunderbolt while I am using my HTC Desire 550 Smartphone! =)
I remember wanting one of these so bad but I was on At&t at the time. I was rocking a Motorola Atrix 2
I remember buying this some months after it came out used off Craigslist for $260 and that was a lot for a phone back then. I kept it for only a couple months cause the battery sucked and switched to the Droid 3 if I remember correctly
I had one of these pretty close to launch. Battery life was so bad that i carried a 10 foot charging cable with me everywhere. 5 hours on average. I remember flying cross-country once with it, going from plane to transit and had to keep it off unless i needed to look at transit directions less i got stranded in a new city with a dead battery and nowhere to charge.
This was my favorite phone. I never had problems with it. I still talk about it. It was so sturdy. I was still working as an RN at that time, so it went through a lot with me. I miss that phone! Oh, the nostalgia!
The EVO was amazing for the time only draw back was Battery, the Thunderbolt was simply an updated version. I helped launch both as an HTC employee
My father got this phone when it came out, and it was eventually passed down to me. I love and HATED this thing. It got me through, but I eventually broke it
This was my second smartphone after the droid. I remember how horrible that battery was but I could have sworn they came out with an expansion batter you could swap with the battery and it had its own back plate because the battery was so thick.
Back then my mom had an unlimited Verizon data plan on a droid x, I don’t know how much it was monthly, but phone plans weren’t that bad.
It's interesting when you consider the HTC Evo 4G (that predated it in capability and 4G), was actually a pretty decent phone that did fairly well.
Back in the day, when I needed proof that Android phones were crap, I would show them this. But I don't know how HTC fell off because they literally made the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1. HTC also made some great phones like the HTC One . Alas, they really felt the queeze from not only Samsung but Apple too.
I remember putting a HTC sense theme on my jailbroken iPod touch.. not sure if it was my 2nd or 4th Gen. Good times.
I think a BlackBerry Storm video would be cool... the biggest failure in smartphone history
I had one years ago, and loved it. Yeah, the battery was trash if you got 4g, but it was fast if you did. It felt solid in the hand.
Seeing the GameCube and Twilight Princess game case throughout the video was awesome! 😂❤️
I always wondering (And actually like them. Especially their design) the phones came out on early 2010's. Its good to hear it from your explanation. Good video Josh! (And yes i liked HTC's UI design they did it very cool in time.)
2:22 this was my first smart phone. I actually could not go with a phone with a screen smaller than 4in, and hilariously, that was the first smart phone with a 4in screen. It was a beast back in the day. I used to overclock it haha.
Hope you get your hands on an HTC EVO 3D to review soon.
5:02 The top gamecube game, The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess YESSS love that game
I hated how you couldn't use the kickstand and charge the phone at the same time. Terrible design
I wish I could relive 2010 again, but LTE back in those days wasn’t important due to the extremely limited data cap’s Verizon imposed once they got rid of the unlimited data plans. But for me 2005 to 2015 were the most enjoyable days of phones
One major thing that doesn't help with the battery suckage of this phone is the clock widget. Uninstalling it would increase some battery life.
This phone was my first smart phone ever in 2011 until I got the iPhone 5 in February 2013. I actually really like this phone and if it didn’t malfunction in late 2012 I would’ve kept it for a while. It was very interesting I had a little complaints and I like the stand on the back. Now I have an iPhone 13 that I just got this past month it’s almost 10 years later using iPhones despite my first phone being HTC I actually really enjoyed it.
Watching this video made me realize how much I miss old HTC
Had this phone with an anker extended battery. This device was really good back then. I loved htc devices. They looked really nice. This device wasn’t as bad as you make it out to be. The charger was put on the side because when people lay with their phone. They rest it on their chest or stomach while surfing. Bending the charge port. And devices back then the charge ports would always break and fall out back then. This fixed that.
Size and specs wise, the HTC Thunderbolt was extremely comparable to the HTC Evo 4G, which was extremely comparable to the HTC HD2 running Windows Mobile 6.5 and hacked to run everything else. The Thunderbolt was absolutely chonky compared to the Evo 4G, which had extremely similar specs just different radios. Smartphones almost never came with kickstands, that was a huge flex because 4.3inches was considered huge and 5inches and above was considered impractical "phablet" territory (check out some reviews of the Dell Streak and Samsung Note 1 if that sounds rediculous). I type this out a decade later on a phone with a 5.4 inch screen that has "mini" in the name.
I've had the Virgin Mobile Evo 3D, loved that phone for being big upgrade from the Optimus V. I was young and thinking upgrading to 4G was awesome, few days later I've turned off the 4G since it was spotty AF and was happy with 3G. Good times.
As someone who also had a wildfire s (first smartphone for me) the last minutes of this video were super nostalgic.
out of topic..but really the intro music🔥🔥
Josh’s voice and music choice is somehow soothing…
Hey, I've got an idea for a video. How about an NVIDIA SHIELD tablet K1. I remember using it back in 2016 until the SoC died. I got my money back. It was a cool, cheap and powerful tablet though.
i remember i gave my ipod touch that type of android overlay through cydia with the flipping time and weather, wow i didnt know it came from this phone!
Loved my Thunderbolt cuz it still had the best speakers (under the kickstand which was genius) on a smartphone I've ever owned.
I guess my Expectation back then must have been pretty low because I
Personally Loved my Thunderbolt enough to learn how to replace my 1st phone Screen
When i dropped and it and broke it. That alone helped me to be able to do more for my
phones later on. Still loved it enough to carry an extra battery for al day use. lol
my first phone was an HTC status.. I loved that thing lol, it's a shame HTC have dropped off the radar these days
I loved this time in cell phones!! I worked at best buy and it liked how phones were coming every month
I just bought a brand new one for 1$ at the Costa Mesa flea market, this lady had garbage bags full of them in box for 1$. I use it as a hiking gps, and it’s held up fine.
I still prefer the old Sense UI over any current UI. Imagine optmizied SenseUI running on Android 12…..
My first smartphone. Man the wait for ice cream sandwich was crazy
The HTC Evo 4g was my first smartphone. Then I worked for sprint and sell those things!
My first cell phone was a flip phone and at that time text messages was 10cents a message, they charged a lot if you using data and you only had certain amount of minutes depending on the plan. This was around 2003
My first smart phone ever battery life was trash but it was super fun thought this phone was huge in my hands now looking back it's so small
This was my first smartphone, and I absolutely loved it. Went from it to the droid dna by htc, then the one m8. I miss HTC, wish they hadn't fallen apart after the m8, it was the best phone I've owned.
I was *so* excited to get this phone when it came out. I had just started a new job and was relying on it a lot for work. And then... I had to change to an iPhone because this phone was just terrible. The battery wouldn't even get me through lunch.
In
West Virginia we still have 3g surprisingly for now but it’s becoming appert that it’s starting to fade out 😂
At this rate I bet you'll get 5G coverage by 2040 :)
@@91Tech that will probably be the case lol 😂 also I didn’t know you would reply to me :) your fast to replying also I’m gonna make videos about some old phones witch is cool 😎
I had this phone when it came out everything you said is true. Verizon offered a bigger battery for it.I've also noticed in the video you insert a 64 gig chip in the phone . I don't think the phone could read anything past 32 gig, As the 64 gig is a new technology it didn't exist when the thunderbolt came out. It came out a few months later, but but the technology changed and the chip would have been extremely expensive it would have been extremely expensive if the phone was able to read it. It may explain why you could not store your pictures on the chip. Since I no longer have my thunder bolt and did not possess a and did not possess a 64 gig chip at the time when I did, when I did, I can't prove that theory.
No, he could read the SD card, the complaint was about not being able to store photos on the internal memory and having to go get an SD card at all.
32GB is the maximum size for SDHC yes, but a lot of devices from this time period had SDXC already. And a device that supports SDXC reads all SDXC cards even if they have higher capacities than were available when they came out. I have a 2011-model laptop with SDXC and it reads 512GB SD cards just fine. Just like something with SDHC can read 32GB cards even if the max was 8 or 16 when it was new.
Even though the voiceover said he used the SD card fine, I just quickly checked, and yep, the Thunderbolt had SDXC. Most things from that time period did but I figured I’d be 300% sure before I make this “well actually” comment. In fact the Galaxy S, as well as some of its predecessors, and all the Motorola DROIDs except for the very first one, and many more, all had SDXC already, specifically so they could future-proof their SD slots.
I remember the first gen Motorola Moto g that I bought in 2014 was only 3g capable.
I had the original Moto E in 2015 back when I used to work at McD .
Things have changed so much since then.
I had a distant cousin, the HTC Inspire 4G, in 2011. I actually really liked that phone except for all the AT&T bloat. I eventually sold it for a Windows Phone of all things.
I had the HTC Vivid, another early LTE phone, I'm sure glad I could carry a spare battery as I'd blow through both that and the original one each day lol
I got one when it first came out! Really cool, but the battery life was horrible. Then I went to the Droid Charge, then the Droid Razr. After that, I switched to the iPhone 5 on launch day and have been with iPhones ever since
"iPhones where ahead with their retina display" huh Samsung was already using Oled screens with better pixel density, what do you mean here?
Realistic
frr
Did you paint the GameCube yourself?
You should do a video on Windows Mobile. Back when i was in preschool we only had 2 popular smartphone operating systems: BlackBerryOS and Windows Mobile. We didn’t have iOS until i was three in 2007.
0:36 The iPhone 4 had 4G before the iPhone 5 though?
I had the HTC Inspire 4G which ran on AT&T’s HSPA+ 4G (not LTE). It was pretty much the same phone as this one. I loved it. It was my first phone on my own plan 🙂#nostalgia
Loved my HTC Legend.....screen quality wasn't great but it was such a well made phone for the time
i had this phone and i absolutely loved it, but i did have complaints - battery life sucked and you couldn't plug in the phone when you used the kickstand, and the wait for ICS felt like an eternity when everyone else had it and i was waiting.. ended up rooting
My man Josh flat-out admitting to clickbait titles is fantastic lol
My mom had one. I still have it
I didn’t realize 4g was that old. Maybe because here in Russia (outside of Moscow) it barely has any coverage even in 2021
Do consider looking at the HTC HD phone series, they were a weird bunch.
Love it! Now do the Droid and Droid X ❤️
Loved htc sense. Peaked around sense 4.0 on the one m7. Miss htc at their peak.