Thunderbolt™ by HTC (Verizon) (Verizon Wireless)

• Volume Adjustment: You can use the side buttons to adjust the volume. We used the lower volume key most. 
• Speakerphone: Call quality is acceptable when using this feature. We didn’t cut each other off when speaking simultaneously. 

The user interface is fairly straightforward and icon friendly. To access the cell phone’s applications simply select the up arrow key and they’ll appear. There are a few things to note about navigation. If you’re in a screen and want to go back to the previous screen simply press the back arrow. If you want to exit a program simply press the button with a picture of a house. Whenever you’re in an application and want to do more, press the Menu key and a set of options will appear.

The phone is also loaded with tons of applications including RockBand, Amazon Kindle e-book reader, Blockbuster, Rhapsody, Lets Golf 2, and a TV/Video app called Bitbop. There are a few of our favorite HTC apps loaded as well such as the Flashlight and Footprints. The latter is an application that allows you to take a picture of a place, get all the information available about it from the web including a map, and even add a note. The idea is that whenever you go back to that place you can revisit or just share it with friends. 

• Web Navigation: You can easily access any website you want simply by entering the name of the site in the Google search bar. The cell phone does support Adobe FlashPlayer. We did also appreciate that you can have multiple browser windows open simultaneously and easily navigate between them. You can also do things like find a word on a web page, which is helpful on the phone’s smaller screen. Overall, surfing the web on the ThunderBolt by HTC was a fluid experience with the ability to zoom and scroll around web pages with ease.
• Social Media: Facebook comes included in the applications preloaded on your phone as does Peep, HTC’s Twitter client. It also has HTC’s Friend Stream feature that lets you view all the updates (including pictures, Facebook updates, and more) for your contacts in one place. That means you don’t need to go to the Facebook app to look for just a few updates. If you want access to more social networking options you can easily download them from the Android Market or the Verizon App store. 
  

  Photo taken at the camera's highest setting.

• Shutter Speed: We found the shutter speed on the ThunderBolt by HTC to be fast so you’ll be able to easily capture action shots. 
• Picture Quality: We found colors to be true when looking at pictures on the cell phone. 
• Photo Settings: You can control the brightness, saturation, contrast, sharpness, timer, image adjustments, resolution, white balance, face detection, effects (normal, grayscale, sepia, vintage cold, vintage warm, vintage, depth of field, vignette, distortion, negative, solarize, posterize, and Aqua), and add geo tags.
• Video Features: You can record 720p HD with this Android cell phone. We found quality solid and playback smooth. 

Music Features: Playback of music through the ThunderBolt by HTC’s speaker is loud and not too tinny. There’s also a FM radio app, but you’ll need to plug in headphones to use that feature. 

• Formats Supported: We were able to play MP3, unprotected AAC (Apple’s audio format), and unprotected WMA (Microsoft’s audio format) music files. 
• Features: Repeat, Shuffle, and Playlists (you’ll want to create playlists since all the music included in the RockBand game are also listed in the music section). There’s a Sound Enhancer and find related videos on YouTube. You can also save tunes stored in your cell phone as a ringtone or as an alarm and share music with other Bluetooth-enabled devices. 

Connectivity: The ThunderBolt by HTC works with Verizon’s 3G and new 4G LTE networks. The cell phone is automatically set to 3G and if you want to use the 4G network you can turn it on in the phone’s Wireless Network menu found under the Settings option. It also has the Mobile HotSpot feature so you can share the data connection with up to eight other WiFi-enabled devices. 

• Bluetooth: The cell phone worked seamlessly with the Motorola T505 and callers didn’t know we were using a Bluetooth connection. We were also able to connect the ThunderBolt by HTC with a MacBook Pro and transfer contacts, pictures, and music. 
• WiFi: It has 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (that’s pretty secure) and we were able to log onto available WiFi networks to surf the Web or send/receive e-mail. It just takes moments to set up. The only thing you need is the WiFi network you want to use and password if needed. 
  

  The microUSB port lacks a cover making it easy to charge.

Battery Life: We were a little disappointed in the ThunderBolt by HTC’s battery life. We definitely wish the battery lasted longer; when WiFi was turned on we were able to go a complete workday before needing to recharge the cell phone. That said, when WiFi of 4G wasn’t activated the cell phone did have better battery life. If you plan on using the ThunderBolt as a Mobile HotSpot, you’ll definitely want to have the cell phone charging simultaneously. The good news is that the cell phone will charge when attached to a computer via the included USB-to-microUSB cable. We should note that depending on what applications you download to the smartphone, battery life can drain faster.