HTC Thunderbolt, announced at CES earlier this year, may only seem like it's underpowered compared to the dual-core offerings, but according to a very early unboxing by someone named Michael, it's quite a beast with some very admirable features. I don't know how Michael got his hands on this device so early - perhaps he's a tester, a ninja reviewer, or a VZW employee receiving Thunderbolt training (I'm most likely inclined to side with the latter), but he does spill some interesting details that I've summarized below, conveniently mixed in with some specs.

Oh, and this is the same video that was used in this post to cross reference the UPC codes - the problem was the original 720p video disappeared off the Interwebs only to resurface from ahart814's cache last night, except in a not-as-awesome 360p resolution the original video is back online.

Most of these features were already seen in our preview from CES, but Michael does show off his Thunderbolt a bit better than the CES presenter. Let's take a look:

[EMBED_YT]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcsbCA3uXek

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  • simultaneous voice/data 3G on Verizon Wireless was confirmed by our ninja, although it's not clear whether he was just restating what the earlier leaks were saying
  • 1GHz Snapdragon CPU
  • 768MB RAM
  • 32GB preinstalled + 8GB onboard storage
  • 8MP upgraded camera with dual LED flash and 720p recording, "much better than the EVO"
  • kick-stand that allows both vertical and horizontal
  • 4.3" 800x480px SLCD screen
  • really fast boot times, a-la Desire Z/HD
  • HTC Sense 2.0, easy skin changing
  • "beat Motorola's dual-core Droid Bionic and Samsung i510 in both Quadrant and Neocore scores" - we'll see about that
  • 1.3 MP front-facing camera
  • Skype video calling and contacts integration
  • 4G LTE
  • DLNA support
  • Android 2.2

I don't know about you but I am quite excited about the Thunderbolt. For one, it's not Motorola with their tightly locked boot loaders and it's not Samsung who will probably sit on the same Android OS version until 2012. Sure, it's lacking a dual-core processor and is running Froyo at launch, but from the looks of it, there's plenty of power, and with 40GB of storage out of the box, an upgraded camera, 768MB of RAM, and LTE support, the Thunderbolt is packing a pretty sweet package. Just don't forget about that Gingerbread, alright, HTC?

In conclusion, "ohhhh yeah!!!"

Source: LuddenMedia