At Verizon’s press event today at CES, HTC’s Peter Chou took the stage to unveil the new HTC Thunderbolt. As expected, the new 4G enabled HTC handset features a 1GHz second generation Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 4.3 WVGA Super LCD display, 8MP camera with led flash and 720p HD video recording, front-facing 1.3mp camera for video calling over Skype, Android 2.2, and HTC Sense 2.0 (with integration with htcsense.com).
Neither HTC nor Verizon were very forthcoming about pricing or availability of the HTC Thunderbolt. We were simply told that all of Verizon’s LTE 4G products will be available during the first half of 2011. During the Q&A portion of the press event, Verizon clumsily dodged a question about 4G pricing. From the looks of things, Verizon may be planning on rolling out a different pricing structure for handsets running on LTE.
After the event we were able to get some hands-on time with the new HTC Thunderbolt. The phone feels pretty much identical to the HTC Desire HD which launched a few months back in Europe. We were not able to get it on video, but a speedtest.net test showed that the HTC Thunderbolt was able to pull down data at 14 Mbps with upload speeds of 4MBps.
HTC Thunderbolt Specifications
- Networks: LTE 700, CDMA EvDO revA
- Operating system: Android™ 2.2 + HTC Sense
- Display: 4.3” WVGA TFT capacitive touch screen
- Camera: 8MP with autofocus, LED Flash (2x LED), 1.3MP front facing camera
- Memory: 8GB emmc + 768 RAM Memory card, preinstalled 32 GB microSD™
- WLAN: 802.11 b/g/n
- Bluetooth: 2.1 with EDR (3.0 when available)
- GPS: GPS/AGPS
- Battery: 1400 mAh
- Special features: Dual mics with noise cancellation, Surround sound, Compass sensor, G-Sensor, Proximity sensor, Light sensor, 3.5mm audio jack, MicroUSB, FM radio, LTE SIM slot , TI audio DSP
- Chipset: Qualcomm® MSM8655, 1GHz, Qualcomm MDM9600
