[Thunderbolt General] BryanP:
warning wall of text

I remember hating verizon for crippling the bluetooth on my v710? swearing never to go back. I've been GSM since cingular dropped tdma and I switched my 3360 and got a 6620. Then winmo starting with an htc wizard up until an HD2 that I converted to android. Wife has gone from thinking I'm nuts to giving up on my smartphone crack habit. Been mostly cingular/AT&T with a few bad romances with Tmo where I think "this time the reception will be better" (last time cause I really wanted the HD2). Then I walk out of the lumber yard and get 4 voicemails all saying generally wtf are you??

Then along comes the thunderbolt. I'm currently carrying an tmo HD2 running android and cause it's better than my fuze... a hacked beyond belief iphone on att. A friend hands me his verizon phone and I walk through my 7 story concrete/glass office building with the verizon, at&t, and tmo phone all showing signal strength. Tmo fades early as expected. There's a few times where verizon gets beat but most of the time it's got a 5 db advantage.

So a saleslady at the verizon store loans her thunderbolt and I try it in a fringe area (my house). Coverage is better with the thunderbolt and while at&t speedtests better and seems to load faster initially, verizon never hiccups and pauses like at&t and loads every single webpage before at&t completes.

So then the pro's cons.

I have 7 gsm phones all unlocked that I can bring up either att or tmo on but my att contract is up and my tmo is just a $5/mo family line that I just use text on.

unlimited data. I dont have 4g here but it's a chance to grandfather in on unlimited high speed data. Previous calls to at&t complaining about having 4 iphone non-tech unlimited users on my plan where I'm the geek yet I'm the only one without unlim data fall on deaf ears. I may not use the 5 gig I've got but it's a pain having to worry.

Verizon? Really? After laughing at people who were forced to use get it now to get their pictures off their phone? After swearing never to return when they crippled the firmware on the v710? And CDMA?

But the lure of unlimited data gets me to try a thunderbolt. I get in on a 1 year contract and I too get a healthy discount.

Fast forward 3 weeks. Rooted & flashed a non vzw rom after 4 days. 14 day return day came in went without a thought. The iphone is in my desk and the tmo hd2 will probably get turned into a winmo phone when I get time just to see if it's more than an xbox facebook extension. I find there are many times I havent even bothered to turn on wifi since web pages load without pauses, hiccups or waiting. Was going to hold out for a dual core but I've got no complaints. The screen colors seem much more vibrant than my hd2. I got the extended battery but even with not being able to put the phone down be it texting or internet I still last all day on the regular battery. Besides, by now I've got a usb charger about every 5 feet at home.

very tough call and it took a lot to get past going back to verizon and cdma but I'm glad I did. Sorry if I stepped on any toes windows phone, iphone, tmo fanboys, and grammar nazi's. Just MHO. Got a microcell to help not drop calls and still do on att. Verizon goes without extra help and doesnt drop calls. Texts are quick but break at 160chars. I use the phone to monitor several production unix machines so quick sms was imperative.

Drop me a line if you have other q's. I'm generally a lurker but always up for helping. Feel your pain in deciding..