The HTC Thunderbolt has been available to purchase for less than 24 hours and we’re already seeing report from bloggers who are claiming that the device suffers from poor battery life. One report has taken things to a whole new level, by reporting that the Thunderbolt consumed 92% of its battery reserve in 3 hours and 34 minutes. The report claims “average to heavy” usage, but the screenshot they provided clearly indicates that the phone was awake for nearly 78% of 3:45 time period. One man’s definition of “average to heavy” usage can really mean anything, but I would tend to classify 78% awake time as “extremely heavy.”
Like many other bloggers, I’ve been playing around with the HTC Thunderbolt for a little more than a day. I have not done any stress testing on the battery yet, but I have used the Thunderbolt today as my main device for news, Twitter, phone calls, Gmail, and some light gaming (20 minutes of Dungeon Defenders). After being off the charger for 8 hours, the HTC Thunderbolt still has 30% battery life remaining.
I’m not here to claim that the HTC Thunderbolt has amazing battery life. It does feel like it will fall short compared to the HTC Inspire 4G or even the EVO, but I don’t think it’s half as bad as some other bloggers are reporting. I simply hope people don’t jump to any conclusions about the HTC Thunderbolt’s battery life before some thorough testing is completed. After a full week of testing, I’ll be giving you guys my final opinion of the HTC Thunderbolt’s battery. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: You can now easily toggle the Thunderbolt’s LTE connection with LTE OnOFF. Early reports indicate that turning off LTE when not actively using the web saves a significant amount of power.
I unplugged my phone and put it in my pocket four two hours. Took it out to user it and battery had dropped by 17% while in my pocket UNUSED for two hours.
Just spent 10 minutes looking at settings, etc. and it dropped by 20% just using the phone itself…no internet usage, no calls, no sms or mms.
Heaven forbid I use the internet, turn on wifi, our bluetooth!
This phone is worthless as it is.
I’d check to see what app you have installed. the demo unit I have survived 10 hours and 22 minutes yesterday under moderate to heavy usage. My G2 typically lasts 12 hours under the same conditions. the main thing that sucks down the battery is the display. I have not found anything to indicate that LTE causes any unnecessary battery drain.
then you have something running in the background…
I also picked up a Tbolt yesterday, and read the review from Slashgear. I’ve been using the phone as I normally would (2 email accounts, some web browsing) and about an hour of watching the Notre Dame basketball game via ncaa.com while I was waiting for an oil change in my car, and when I got home about 6p.m., the phone still had ~30% battery. The entire area that I was in today was 4G and I watched the game over WiFi.
Does the phone have the longest battery life I’ve ever seen? no. But I don’t think I’ll have any problem going an entire day on a charge.
I also have the screen brightness set to about 25%.
As with anything YMMV.
i used mine for a wifi hotspot for 2 laptops for 4 hours today. I did lose alot of battery but i got about 6 hours of usage before i got down to 15 percent. It sure isnt an all day phone yet 🙂 for heavy usage but i bet i could get a day out of it with “normal” use. I love this phone.
“Scott” take it back and get an Iphone, they were made for people like you…one button does it all…and the OS updates will fix the battery issues on that phone for you. 🙂 they will probably have a software update to fix the battery issue…best phone i have had so far, including 2 iphones and a few droids..nice job HTC…Split
Nice article, I thought the same thing when I read the Slashgear piece. I will be interested to see how your battery testing turns out. I have been playing around with my Thunderbolt (received it yesterday), and I don’t have my settings totally dialed in yet, but things are definitely not as bad as the blogger atmosphere torched yesterday, blindly repeating the SG article! I am already getting about 5-6 hours of battery with moderate use and leaving 4G enabled the whole time. Using WiFi and turning off 4G when not needed will easily get me through the day.
On a side note, 4G is unbelievable…I am getting download speeds up to 20M/s! Some apps are downloaded before the bar even starts! I already love this phone!
On full charge, with only yahoomessenger running at the background, WIFI, bluetooth and GPS off with very few short phone calls my battery would only last 7 hours max. Horrible battery life. I believe I have used it only lightly not even moderately.
While the battery issue maybe overblown, the amount of actual “phone” memory isn’t.
Go to any store selling the Thunderbolt. Open the settings menu and go to SD Card/Phone memory. HTC says the phone has 8 gigs of phone memory. A real important number when you consider that most of the Android Platform apps go to your phone memory not the SD card.
What you will find is that, out of the box, you have between 2.45 and 2.46 megs of phone memory. Or about 5.5 gigs short.
When I saw this it, not only halted my purchase of the phone, it caused me to call Verizon and HTC Techical service. Both confirmed what I had found. Both were dumbfounded and couldn’t explain the dropoff from 8 gigs to 2.45.
Oh, and it’s not the embedded apps. They use approximately 500 megs.
Something is wrong with this phone and if you want more proof go to your nearest Best Buy and ask someone in the cellphone area how many have already come back.
Unfortunatly I am experiencing the bad battery syndrome too, I My bolt goes from full charge to 20% in less than three hours on standby. I had to charge it 3 times today, and I only email and check facebook and a little internet searching. Nothing major! I am giving it another chance, let it completly die and it is getting a full charge. I want this phone to be great so bad!! I did see where they would be selling an extended battery, but that adds another ounce to an already heafty phone.
I have had good days and bad with the battery. I set all of my phone settings to help conserve battery like a low light setting for the backlight, turn off gps and wifi and yet I still have issues randomly. Today just fresh off the charger from my car the two minute walk into work and I was already down to 97 percent? And thats after turning on airplane mode during the walk so no network usage.
had Thunderbolt for 4 days now…..battery drains in less then 4 hrs. Will return.
Honestly, there must be some defective units floating around. i left my Thunderbolt at home yesterday to see how long it would last on standby. I didn’t change any settings. Google sync was on, Twydroid was pulling in tweets evey 10 minutes, foursquare friend updates were on, along with allthe other apps I use on a regular basis.
Thunderbolt lasted 21 hours and 50 minutes. I’ve been using it all day today as my main device. Battery is at 42% after being off the charger for 8 hours and 21 minutes. Display is the main battery killer, accounting for 62% of all battery consumption (it’s ben on for 45 minutes at 30% brightness).
If anyone else is having battery problems, can you post a fw more details. What apps are you running, are you using a task manager (you shouldn’t), what’s consuming your battery?
I have my email checking every 15 minutes and few phone calls. A couple longer calls does not seem to be the issue. I have bluetooth, gps and wifi off and the screen set to the lowest settings. I force stopped all unnecessary apps, like facebook, maps, etc. Like a poster above, just fidgeting with the settings, I lose 15 to 20% of the battery because of the display. Looking at what takes the battery is 57% for the display. When I try to leave the display alone and look at the email app a few times during the day and shut the screen off once I answer the phone, the battery may go 5 plus hours. If I use it normally, still with most apps closed, I get 4 hours. If mine is defective, there seems to be a lot of people with this type of thing. I will be returning the phone this week.
There does seem to be some huge variation in battery life for people, judging from the comments. Nicks control test on standby, really shows how good the battery should be. Wonder how many of the people reporting issues took the time to condition the battery properly. i.e; stick the phone on a charger for a good eight hours before launching into using it/ powering up?
My first day with the TB didn’t go to smoothly, I had to charge it once mid day. My previous phones was not a smart phone, so my husband reminded me the fact that I was using a smart phone and the fact that my phone is a beast! ;p So Tuesday I played with my settings, reduced the backlight, downloaded the app killer, and turned on the wifi when I was at home. The phone lasted me substantially well. Yesterday, I used my phone moderately, I was home most of the day, probably left for two hours. Made a few phone calls, took pictures and video, surfed the web, texted often, facebooked often, and it was on standby from about 10pm to 7am today and it’s been almost 24 hours since I took it off the charger and I am at 60% battery life. I think having the wifi on helps alot, I also got rid of that friend stream. Honestly, the battery isn’t the best but what do you expect when you have such an awesome phone. I think the key for me will be getting a car charger for days when I am on the run, but do I expected to last when we are one a weekend camping trip…probably not! But the pro’s far outweigh the con’s of this phone.
My one question, other than the bulky extended battery, is HTC working on a correction to this issue?
@holly thanks for sharing! Sounds like you’re gettign a lot more battery life than most. HTC always rolls out software updates ot their phones, so they may already be hard at work, steaking the systme so that it uses the battery more efficiently. But if you’re getting 24 hours on a single charge, you should be extremely proud of your phone and the settings tweaking you’ve done.
Very unhappy with the phone battery life. The phone has been off the charger for just 3 hours and 15 minutes. No phone call made. I have the “sync” turned off. No Wi-Fi, no GPS and the screen brightness in very low. I viewed a few websites and did a couple of text messages. Battery is no 55%. That is crazy.. Cannot give this phone back quick enough. (I really wanted this phone to work well)
The battetry life is horrible compared to any android I have used ( Moto Droid 1 and 2). I have a task killer, killing apps every time screen dim. My email settings fetch only every hour. I keep gps, bluetooth and wifi off. I’m only in a 3G area so cant blame it on LTE. My battery drains at least 10% every hour regardless of use and that is unacceptable!!! I like the phone but will be returning it w/in my 14 days if HTC keeps acting as if the batteyr life is normal for a smartphone because its not,by the time my 8 hour work shit is over my battery is at 10% left and it seems to charge forever but only last a little while. I would be concerned!
One thing that I can’t understand…how dumb the general public is. Carefully read your posts. Dim the screen, turn off the 4g, install app killer. You’re holding a “top of the line technology” phone in your hand and everyone tells you its great if you do all of the above. When turning everything off you’re turning the phone into a paper weight. How silly are all of you. The thing has a front facing camera for video chat that doesn’t even work. Europe has had video chat for 5+ years! HTC, Verizon, Epic fail! Releasing a phone they know is garbage just to make a buck off of you. Keep drinking the kool-aid people.
nice comment Herdy. My concern exactly. What is the point of this phone if you have to turn every feature off and not use anything for fear of draining the battery in a few hours.
I have tried all the settings changes, but I need email and occasional web access and the batter just does not do the job.
I dont want to, but I think this has to go back and go with the iPhone 4.
I don’t agree with either of the previous comments, There has never been a high end phone like this that, if you use it as your mobile computing solution, does not require you to tweak the settings continually to get the best out of it’s battery. If there are features that you don’t use continually, you can turn them off. The screen is good but doesn’t need to be on full brightness, and auto adjust doesn’t cut it. So manage it yourself. If you want a phone that you don’t have to think about, don’t get one that will replace your laptop. Part of the joy of a device like this is learning how to get the best out of it, it’s not an off the shelf solution, it’s a power user device. You need to adjust the settings to what most suits your needs. A little knowledge goes a long way 🙂
Wake up VZ customers. I seriously hope that you KNOW that HTC is junk. Gee, did anyone check the Sprint HTC Evo?? The joke is on those who bought the Thunderbolt. Why? Because lookup the HTC Evo. It’s the same phone! Same specs, same looks, same good old junk as the HTC Evo and battery…. I was SHoCKED to see the Thunderbolt name on the HTC Evo.. Thats sas that HTC did NOTHING new on the Thinderbolt…Doh!!! HTC does one thing right. That’s SATURATE the market with Android junk devices ! Who wants to BABYSIT their cellphone to make sure the battery last 4 hours?? They are the new Nokia!
Bob, the Thunderbolt and EVO both might look the same, but be sure to check your facts, The Thudnerbolt has a different display, difference processor, difference RAM and ROM, and a difference version of HTC Sense. The only thing they really have in common in the screen size, camera, and a kickstand on the back.
At Peter Murphy above…. What do you mean there has never been a phone like this?? HTC Evo for Sprint IS this phone! Look it up. 720p hd at. Slow 23 fps! Junk!
I made a big mistake on this one. Charging the battery 2 or more times a day. This device was built to be used, but included a battery that’s ONLY worth emergency useage!!
And to think I signed a new 2 year contract to be a slave to the charger!
Why would HTC build a cellphone that does so much yet is capable of so little do to this battery problem ??
Like the previous post. I DO NOT WANT TO HAVE TO BABYSIT MY SMARTPHONE!!! my IPhone 4 was not anywhere near this bad!!! Returning Saturday!
Having a terrible time with this battery.. Fully charged it this morning.. Made one 8 minute phone call and fiddled around on facebook for a bit and the battery power left is 20%… that was 3 hours ago I took it off the charger… I keep hearing people say there is a way to turn off 4g .. i can’t seem to figure out how to do that and i even called the verizon folks and they swear there is no way to do it? Can someone help me out with that? Thanks
Go to settings menu select Wireless & Networks then choose Mobile Network (the second one) that says set options for roaming networks, then select network mode. Select CDMA for 3G only. If you want 4G select LTE/CDMA
Mike my husband and I got our thunderbolts at the exact same time. I bought the extended battery which I love. I paid 29.99 for the battery and 9.99 for the case. My husband phone is always hot i think the battery temp was 108. F. Of course we are out of the warranty period so Verizon is suggesting a factory reset. he goes from 100 percent battery and 3 hours later he is at 4 percent. This is an idle phone.
It looke like LTE OnOFF is now the easiest way to toggle your LTE connection on the Thudnerbolt. https://htcsource.com/2011/04/easily-toggle-the-htc-thudnerbolts-lte-connection-with-lte-onoff/
You guys are crazy. Just learn a few tricks. Geeze!
I Bump charged phone. (look it up if you dont know what that is)
My Phone is NOT rooted and im using the Stock Battery.
1: I disabled GPS when not using
2: I disabled WIFI when not using (I just turn it on when needed)
3: I turned off Mobile Network when at home
4: I have mail set to only update when I open mail
5: I turned off the pocket ring feature
6: I went to that Blockbuster app and turned off the auto update thing
7: I removed my app killer / battery manager(saver) apps
8: I tuned off BlueTooth (not using)
9: I switched phone to 3G (not needing super fast internet constantly)
10: I tuned off all haptic feedback.
With all of that said,my Last charge was just over 57 hours ago ( I never tuned off phone since then ) YES 57 HOURS SINCE LAST CHARGE! THE PHONE HAS REMAINED POWERED ON.
I still have about 15% of battery life left.
My awake(usage) time is just over 10 Hours so far. ( I have made a ton of calls, surfed the net, sent and received about 50 texts at least)
I had the same problem with the battery that everyone is complaining about. I told myself this is unacceptable, and I went back to verizon and the rep reset(wipe the phone) my phone. I was thinking what is this going to do? But believe it or not it did the trick! I now can go a full day without having to charge the phone. Thats with moderate to heavy use. I hope this helps some of you out there
As Dave mentioned above, Bump charging is a great idea. I had to send my test unit back last week, but I noticed that the Thunderbolt would always display about 95% when booted after a full charge.
Bump charging should only be done once in a blue moon since it can cause extra rear on the battery.
I’ve had my ThunderBolt for a few weeks now, and the battery life is terrible (usually get less than 5 hours of life before being below 20%). I consider myself a light user, since I’m literally afraid to do anything with my phone all day out of fear that it’ll die before I get home… which sucks, since it makes all the neat things it can do worthless. I’m willing to believe that one of the apps I installed is eating lots of battery, but it’s gonna be a pain to uninstall everything and add apps back one at a time. Wish I had gone for the iPhone at this point… 🙁
Easy fix after trying everything from every forum and post. Verizon 4G is the issue, set you Thunderbolt to 3G and enjoy all the great features of the phone, minus slightly faster internet. Wait until 4G is a standard not just a fringe technology.
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/03/22/tip-force-htc-thunderbolt-to-use-3g-only-turn-off-4g/
I agree the battery isn’t as bad as some will state and is more related to the fact that the first few days you own the device you’re no doubt going to work it to death. I had to charge it twice a day for a couple days but after I got everything set up and went more into an average days routine it was fine to simply give it a charge up when I get home from work and get through the next day. You don’t expect your laptop to run unplugged for 12 hours while running video and games so I don’t think it’s fair to expect your phone to do that. Another quick solution is to look at the sync settings of all the apps that look for updates and spread them out more. While weatherbug won’t drain your battery if it checks the weather once every two hours it sure will if it’s checking every few minutes. Same goes for facebook and e-mail sync checks. Having all those apps constantly running a sync while the phone is in your pockets does a lot of those fast drains.
Just bought the T-Bolt last week and all current software updates are done. Battery lasts maybe 2-3 hours and that is AFTER having the V-store download a special app that allows me to toggle to 3G. Why put out a 4G phone that you have to convert to 3G to TRY and get battery life…which actually still is not helping much. I had a BB Storm that I thought I was glad to get rid of but this is even worse as I pretty much don’t have a mobile phone – I have one that must remain plugged in. Amazing all the sites saying “not really a problem” but oh by the way, here are about 30 things you can do in general to improve battery life. There is a MAJOR problem here…maybe it’s just with the one issued to me but i doubt it. SUCKS!!!!
The battery life on the TB is awful. It completely outweighs the positives making the phone a pretty bad device. I would go with the iphone if I could go back. Shame on HTC for releasing a device that can’t get through the work day without being plugged in. I think the majority of consumers would rather have a slightly thicker phone that got through the work day than a thin one that has to be plugged in all the time. I know extended batteries are an option, but that should have been standard on this phone to make consumers happy and that way all of the phone cases ie. otterbox would have been designed for a size that accommodates a properly sized battery. HTC I know you can do better than this. Battery life should be a top priority on a “wireless” phone.
I keep hearing people say just disable EVERYTHING, and the phones battery is fine. Am I the only person that finds this unacceptable. Turn your $200+ phone into a $50 prepaid junk phone and it lasts all day.
HTC hire a few Apple engineers!
Also, I still haven’t found an acceptable facetime replacement. In my wifes words ” I might use it if it worked”
Hmmmm, I used to have an Iphone. And I will admit that I got better battery life, however, I am the kind of user that not even my Iphone stayed charged all day. I was dissapointed after the first day of using my TB, but there are a few things you can do that will save the battery. Moving backgrounds use more processing power, thus uses more battery. Also, you can go into the display settings and change it to show only some animations rather than all…I changed it, and really have no idea what it changed, but it did help the battery life a lot. Also, don’t have your brightness on auto, that tends to kill it, i keep mine around 25%. App killers help, it kills any uneeded programs running in the background. Plus you gotta think, the phone is running a 1GHz processor, so that alone takes some battery power there. They don’t have the biggest battery stock, but they do have an extended battery you can get for it, that they claim should increase your battery life by 3x or so…also, make sure you turn your screen timeout down, and just make sure you lock your screen when not using it. You don’t have to turn it into a “prepaid junk phone” to make it last. Think about it, laptops are the same way. They claim 8 hours, but if you don’t have it on battery saver power scheme, and you use wi-fi or watch movies or anything that uses a lot of processing power, you greatly reduce the battery life. Just be smart, play with some settings, and tweak it to where you get the best performance for your battery life.
No question the consumption of energy out weighs the battery that came with the phone. Anyone who says otherwise is blowing smoke.
My son and I both have the HTC Thunderbolt and have both experianced the same issue with the battery drain after using the Verison car charger. Everytime after the phones have been pluggged into the car charger the phones we get about 2 – 4 hours of stand by life. Both phones get very hot. This happens everytime we use the car charger. If after using a car charger you remove the battery and reinstall it the phones gets 8 hours or better of standby life. I repeat this happens to both phones EVERY time we use the car charger.
Verizon needs to look into this issue ASAP.
I’ve had the Thunderbolt since may. The battery life sucked at first but after letting it totally die its much better. This phone does so much I dont expect a few day battery life
I had an htc thunderbolt for 2months, it would get very hot and be dead in 3.5 hrs… I switched it for another htc thunderbolt and have not had that problem on the new thunderbolt. The battery life lasts about 10-11 hrs for me, but I have a car charger and one at work also just in case it needs a charge. I do wish they would give us the update though , and I’d like to use Skype with the from facing cmera,
I have a Thunderbolt. The phone part isn’t even activated. I’m just using it as a wifi device. I have everything turned off that I can. The battery issue is not overblown. All I get done is charging it. I can play games that aren’t heavy on the battery (like pool), for about 2 hours max. I love the Tbolt otherwise. Just wish the battery life was better.
I have the thunderbolt and i have had it since its release in march and I was have an average battery life of around 12 hours but all of a sudden it went to somewhere around 1 to 2 hours but only takes five mins to charge back I got Verizon to order a new battery put I put it in and its the same problem anyone know what I can do? (already tried a factory reset)
My HTC Thunderbolt displays a messaging stating that the charger that is connected is not compatible ,I’m using the HTC supplied charger . Also, the message doesn’t go away when the charger is unplugged . You have to shut the phone off and back on . The phone also loses almost all power after the charging is complete ,8 hrs.or more . I tried the standard and extended battery ,same issue .Is there a charging problem with these phones ,or do you know of a repair short of sending it to HTC . Phone is a week old but out of warranty because the phone was switched to another plan ,from the one it was purchased under ..Help…………..
I’ve had the T-bolt for about 2 months now. I have the screen brightness down to where I can’t even see it in the sunlight. I have the latest OS update offered by Verizon. I have wifi, gps, and bluetooth turned off. I have an app killer that I routinely check and kill anything running. The phone is always warm in my pocket. I may google something or send 5-10 texts before I have to fully recharge it. I usually get about 4 hours before the phone dies in my pocket. I checked the battery settings and it lists the screen as using the majority of the battery. I bought the HTC extended battery and it gave me an extra 1-2 hours. It made the phone huge though (requires a different back cover). This phone is big enough stock. I absolutley hate this phone. It does great things but what good is a phone that you have to plug in every 4 hours. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been caught needing a phone and mine is dead. My fiancee has an HTC Incredible 2 and can go a whole day without charging it. I’m super jealous..
i have serious battery issues.. battery lasted well into the 8 hour mark when i first got it in march but now i get a constant issue which is annoying because my phone will literally say i have less than 10% ALL OF THE TIME regardless of how long it sits on the charger, reset/factory reset and even tried every app out there that deals with batteries, and tried multiple batteries.. my phone will still stay on for hours but it will constantly spam me with your battery percentage is below (blah) please connect a charger.
cant get firmware updates cause it says my battery is insufficient and a whole other line of bs.
Had my tbolt 10 months. No problem until yesterday. Plugged the verizon charger to phone overnight, unplugged as leaving for work, takes me an hour to drive into work, decided to call my husband after being on the road 45 mins and my battery was at 17%. Got to work, took out battery, let it stand for 5 mins, put battery back in, phone was just about dead. Plugged in a “igo” charger to phone, phone charged in less than 2 hours. Phone held charge all day. Got home, used the phone while facebooking and other even talked to a few people. Tbolt was at 30%. Before going to bed last night, plugged phone up with verizon charger. My phone is set on alarm to wake me up at 4am every weekday morning and my phone failed to go off. I woke up at 4:20am realizing my phone alarm failed. I get to my phone, and it’s DEAD. Nothing. No lights, no juice whatsoever. I removed the battery, let stand for 5 mins….. nothing. Reached for my iPad and looked up tbolt dead phone and was amazed to see a lot posted about the tbolt battery (not favorable). I came across this website that said to “use a different charger than the verizon charger.” So my tbolt has been charging now for about an hour. I must leave my house in another 45 mins, so I will see how long the charge holds and perhaps stop using the Verizon charger that came with my tbolt. NOTE: have not added or taken anything off my tbolt since this has happened. What’s even stranger, my husband and I both have tbolts purchased on the same day….. my first phone had to be sent back to Verizon because it would not pick up any Gs. I love my tbolt but I don’t like problems.
I’ve had this phone for about 3months now and the battery is staring to get weird.I let it charge for 2hours and on that time it went from 22% to 25%.thats rediculously slow.then after an hour and a half movie without even looking at my phone it went from 70% to 30 some %. I love this phone but the battery life…
I’m thinking about getting a T~bolt……. But after reading all of these comments about the battery life im rea questioning getting one now….. I wont have wifi, if i get the phone…. Is the HTC Thunderbolt a good battery life phone!? Thats all im worried about in a phone i purchase….. Please get back Nick! Thanks…….Sophie
NO THE REAL PROBLEM IS THE THUNDERBOLT LOSES CHARGE RAPIDLY SOMETIMES WHILE TURNED OFF COMPLETELY!!! I’VE TESTED THIS ON 2 SEPARATE THUNDERBOLTS WITH MULTIPLE BATTERIES, THIS IT SOLVED BY PHYSICALLY REMOVING THE BATTERY EVERY TIME YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE IT TURNED OFF FOR A WHILE… VERIFIED THIS FOR MONTHS AND THE SECOND I START LEAVING THE BATTERY IN… IT WONT BE ABLE TO TURN ON AGAIN WITHOUT CHARGING IT FOR 10 MINS THEN IT HAS 10% CHARGE WHEN YOU GET IT TO TURN ON WITH CHARGE. UNBELIEVABLE NO ONE SEEMS TO UNDERSTAND THIS GIGANTIC PROBLEM!!!