[Thunderbolt General] Solar257:
I went from an Incredible to a Thunderbolt. I bought it off of Swappa. Since I used Titanium Backup + Dropbox for my apps, the switch wasn't too painful. Overall the change wasn't too bad. The one thing for me is I'm still having trouble finding "manageable" battery life on the Thunderbolt. Essentially, FOR ME no matter what I do, the battery life of the Thunderbolt is like a stock rom on the Incredible.

On my Incredible running Cyanogen 7.1.0 with Chad's 8/15 Incredikernel I was able to keep wi-fi on (for location), have three mail accounts sync (one push and two every hour), and have the app my6Sense update my feeds as a widget, at CPU speeds of 245-1075mhz with about 10-12 hours of running time and about 2-2.5 hours of screen on time. I set the auto backlight in the CM settings to never go above 200 with 7 total brightness levels. In addition I have one of those HTCexpress.com batteries in my phone.

With the Thunderbolt I haven't gotten close to 12 hours yet. I've used the latest 906 radios (as someone who didn't get the phone when it launched trying to understand the difference between the terms MR2 and MR3 for radios is difficult) and have tried a few different kernels (Lean, Slayer, DreamKerel, and Tiamat) all have been a bit different but none have really helped me stretch my battery life to that mirroring the Incredible. The cool thing is if you've used Chad's Incredikernel and also downloaded IncrediControl the control app works on Lean kernel (only one I tried). I've undervolted the Lean kernel by ~100mv (when using extreme battery saver in speedtweak.sh) and overclocked it to 1.2ghz at the same time. It seemed like the phone cannot make it past 6 hours (syncing the same email accounts and wi-fi on and my6sense) with 4g on and using ProTekk's CyanogenMod #16 build (link). I managed to get 3 hours of screen on time using the Thunderbolt but it didn't matter much since it still dies in ~6-7 hours even with less usage (as measured by screen on time). I also set the auto backlight again using the CM7 level settings. I played around with turning off 4g and seeing if that improved battery life but I didn't put much effort into it so I can't say definitively. I'm using the apps System Panel and Spare Parts to monitor my apps for any rogue tasks and nothing seems out of line in terms of CPU and Partial wake usage, respectively.

I bought two 1700mah HTCExpress batteries (link) for the Thunderbolt off Amazon but they wouldn't charge past 93% so I sent them back in exchange for different ones (I'm still waiting for the originals to make their way back). I tried bump charging them but to no avail. Fortunately, from what I've seen using the app CurrentWidget (link) and the regular battery it doesn't look like the Thunderbolt, overall, needs to be bump charged nearly as much (if at all) as the Incredible -- except for the first charge after installing a new kernel and battery stats are wiped. Perhaps when the return batteries arrive I'll have a bit more juice.

For now I'm running the stock Gingerbread 605.5 ROM, debloated and rooted (link) This ROM is ok and one thing that's great is the camera and camcorder are much better than CM7. The built-in DLNA local-network streaming support is welcome when I'm at home and want to watch files on my PC. On the same token, the combination of Dice Player and UPnPlay are a similar combo for CM7. Battery life on this ROM is a little stronger at around 6.5-7 hours, with maybe 1-1.5 hours of screen on time.

As for WiFi tether, I'm using the 3.1 beta app 6 app with a device profile setting of NexusOne, a Netd setup-method, and have the routing fix enabled to get tethering working on my Thunderbolt.

For me, this list of kernels and ROMs was super helpful (link). Also RootzWiki was just as useful as XDA in seeing what's new for the Thunderbolt. Personally I'm looking forward to what can be done with the new kernel source that HTC just released. Rooting was a breeze using the Revolutionary tool found in the first link from this thread (link).

Lastly, 4G is fast! now I can watch HBO Go and not have to worry about getting an audio-only stream. WatchESPN still stutters a bit, but Spots Center is there as well. If it's 4g you're looking for I'd go with the Thunderbolt, though I hear the Incredible 2 has great battery life for a 3G phone.