HTC Thunderbolt - Unboxing my FIRST smartphone! By Android Authority

Hey guys- so I don't know about you, but the beginning of the year makes me feel a little nostalgic. I think back on all the things that happened this year and all the things that happened in the past and I kind of think about what started me in this career in general and if I think all the way back, I can remember my very first smartphone and I thought about this a couple of weeks ago and decided. Maybe I should just buy that smartphone, so I went one bay. I looked up the HTC thunderbolt and lo and behold I got one for five dollars. So without further ado, I'm going to unbox, my very first smartphone, the HTC thunderbolt. So I remember this packaging.

It's kind of like this dual layered packaging that has the top casing, and then you've got this, and it's very basic, obviously just black fun fact. This is the first 4g smartphone that was ever released, I believe at least in North America um. It was on Verizon and it was awesome now. Obviously, HTC used to do this, like big black and red packaging thing. That was very poppy.

Very vibrant um wow, but I haven't really opened this since I originally had one back in like 2009. So this is pretty nice to see. Oh man, okay, there we go now. I think this thing has like a 4.3 inch display or something like that, but it honestly does not feel that small in my hand, uh the kickstand here was something that I really enjoyed and obviously, if you open up the kickstand you've got those speakers in the back and that's something that HTC was famous for a really long time was having awesome speakers. You got a headphone jack up top you've got this camera, and now you can actually take the back off.

You know back when you can actually swap out the back of your phone um just so you could replace the battery if you wanted to. So, let's get this thing booted up. If it boots up, I hope it boots up. Oh, did it vibrate, hey? Okay, now you've got the home button, the menu button, the back button and the search button. Here I kind of miss having those hard buttons to actually navigate your phone with.

Now it's just all screen, and you know, there are gestures, and then we also have the cabs the fake capacitive buttons that are on the screen, but I kind of miss having those physical buttons. You know they're a little fun, ooh thunderbolt, yes, okay, so I originally was able to convince my mom to let me get a smartphone when Google Maps came out, because I convinced her that I would be able to know where I was at any given time. So it was impossible to get lost and that was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back. That allowed her to finally want to allow me to get a smartphone before then I had this, like you know dumb flip phone. It was a Motorola kind of like a knockoff razor, but so when I originally got the thunderbolt, I got it basically the day that the unlimited plans stopped being offered at Verizon.

So I was grandfathered into an unlimited plan for a very short period of time, but I just wanted to have unlimited data because I wanted to use the android market, which is what the Google Play Store was called back. Then, oh man, look at this. Look at these old YouTube, app, sucker, radio, adobe reader, Facebook, gee already built in rock band. That's strange, there's HTC sense, UI, the very, very classic sense UI. I don't know if you guys use this but like back, then it seemed like so futuristic.

What is this running? I'm going to see what this is running. I probably have to find a settings app software information, android 4.0.4, oh man, remember friend stream. You can log into social networks through here and just have everything in one stream, so like Facebook and Twitter and the screen really isn't that bad. You know, let's try to take a selfie and see what happens. Um wow look at these buttons thick phone but, like I mean kickstand like to come on like why? Don't modern phones have kickstands anymore, like that was always a really, really nice feature to have in a phone like if you can just have your phone sitting there and look at it now.

I know that a lot of cases have kickstands at this point, but I would love it if, like another phone, would just bring back the kickstand, so you could just watch content like this because it's annoying having to hold it all the time. So that's awesome that front-facing speaker. I wonder if we can play any music, honestly. This is more advanced than I remember it being, but there's a music app. Ah, no pre-loaded songs seems like playing android authority YouTube.

I video know. I don't think I need a longing yeah. Oh yeah, look at that! UI whew, that's old! I wonder if this will even work, can it play it back? Oh, there's a T-Mobile hector rules. All right come on pixel this year, the pixel of five, and it might be kind of hard to stomach for something. Oh, man.

He is having trouble even decoding this video. Oh there's, definitely audio coming out of the back. Okay. It's definitely louder when the kick stands open. I think that's who google is making the pixel wow this web UI is awful.

Oh my gosh too, by the YouTube, app doesn't work, but all right, let's take a photo with the camera and see what happens here. All right, I'm gonna, try to take a selfie switch. Look at that toggles mode. High resolution, we'll try with the'll try the back camera. I wonder if the volume down button still works.

Oh, got one: okay, yeah cameras have definitely improved in smartphones. I'll tell you that, but I mean look at these hardware buttons, this one's a little worse for the wear, but still is a pretty nice form factor. I really wish the HTC would like recreate this phone in some way. Honestly, the screen was pretty nice, it's getting a little warm already, which is very reminiscent of what happened to me before when I got this phone. When I first bought this phone, I remember I was multitasking like crazy on it.

I was using skype at the same time as like running some other app or something, and it got so hot. It almost burned my hand um. I ended up replacing it and turning it in for a droid charge, which is probably the worst mistake of my life, because this phone is so much higher quality than a droid charge, yeah big old Verizon logo at the top there too, but overall I think uh phones have definitely come pretty far in the last 10 or so years. Alright guys! Well, I think that'll just about do it for this phone. What was your first smartphone and does it bring back any specific memories? Are there any features from that phone that you wish modern phones had? Let me know in the comment section down below obviously, and I'll talk to you later.

You.

Source : Android Authority