HTC Thunderbolt LTE Battery Life Is…Abysmal.

Fellow gadget gurus over at Slashgear have been putting their recently received HTC Thunderbolt through its paces. Thus far, they’ve come away fairly impressed, especially with the speed that LTE has provided. The battery life while using LTE on the other hand leaves much to be desired. After a 2-1/2 hour browsing session over WiFI (no video, no wifi, no phone calls) the phone was down to 8% remaining charge (starting at 100%). While I realize next-gen cellular technologies are fast and require more power to operate at their claimed speeds, 2-1/2 hours is abysmal and just goes to show that (1) HTC put a much too small battery in the Thunderbolt (1400mAh) and (2) that battery technology in general has a long, long way to go.

Thunderbolt users: How is your morning going?

HTC Thunderbolt Now Available For Sale!

The one, the only, the much hyped HTC Thunderbolt is now available for sale on Verizon Wireless for $249 on contract and $599 off. If you ask us, that’s a sweet deal on a smartphone that has been hitting 5-18Mbps down and ~5Mbps up out in public. Of course, the second-gen 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 768MB of RAM, and 4.3″ display with 800 x 400 resolution will keep your whistle nice and wet for some months to come. If you’re heading out to your local VZW store today to pick up a fine piece of LTE history, be sure to drop a comment inside and let us know how it goes…

Reported iPhone 5 Case Images Leak Out.

French Mac website, MacBidouille, claims to have images of cases for the upcoming iPhone 5. Obviously, no official images or information about said phone has come to light yet (and probably won’t until sometime this summer). Though in years past, we’ve been able to rely on Chinese iPhone case manufacturers for a 2-3 month preview of what the next-gen iPhone hardware is going to look like. And if the cases above are legit, we’re looking at another “3GS” type of revamp — extremely minor changes to physical appearance, with most of the moving being done under the hood. Then again, going from a single-core to a dual-core processor, more RAM, a potentially larger screen, and iOS 5 in tow sounds mighty tempting to us nonetheless, no?

Android Developer Tells Sony To Take Job Interview And Shove It.

Hankers can be a loyal, close-knit bunch. Take for example talented and popular Android developer/hacker, “Koush” (Koushik Dutta) and a failed attempt by Sony to win his heart. The email goes something like this:

Sony’s Sarah McRae:

Hello Koushik,

I’d like to introduce myself, my name is Sarah McRae and I work onsite for Sony PlayStation in the Talent Acquisition department. We came across your blog and thought we’d reach out to you to see if you’d ever be interested in exploring opportunities with us here at SCEA. I am in the process of opening a Software Engineer role within our R&D team and you may be a good fit. Please let me know if you’d be interested in talking on the phone to further discuss…

Kousch’s Reply:

Hi Sarah, I appreciate that you reached out to me. The opportunity does sound very interesting!
However, due [to] Sony’s recent treatment of a fellow hacker, George Hotz (@geohot), I could not in good conscience word at Sony.

Regards,
Koush

A nice, not so subtle verbal slap across the face. Kousch maintains his #1 motivation for the response above was that the Android platform has been good to him thus far, so why jump ship now? A valid argument for sure. Though we’re fairly certain not having to worry about getting sued by an egotistical, backwards thinking company is another major bullet point in Kousch’s book. You stay classy Sony…

Email exchange after the break…

T-Mobile Launching Jet 2.0 4G March 23rd.

TmoNews has scored some news regarding the next generation of laptop 3G/4G sticks to drop on the Magenta carrier’s network. Specifically, the latest 4G-capable Jet 2.0 4G will be hitting retail shelves March 23rd. Picking up the new hardware will net users up to 21Mbps speeds on the downlink side of things and an integrated memory card slot. If the only thing holding you back thus far from picking up a 3G/4G wireless modem has been price, T-Mobile prides themselves in being one of the best values in town. Though, now that the recent price increase on *usable* data plans has brought things up to $49.99, they aren’t quite as lust-worthy as before. Nevertheless, options are options…

Motorola Droid 3 Pictures Hit The Web.

Well lookie there — a Droid 3 out in the open. There aren’t many specs to go by yet, but judging by the pics, the added 5th row of keys strictly for numbers (albeit squished row) is a nice change from Droids past. Previous rumors pegged the Droid 3′s screen at 4″. If Motorola can manage to toss in a worthy 2nd-gen Snapdragon or even a dual-core to boot, the Droid 3 will be “the” choice for VZW users looking for a qwerty-enabled Android phone this summer. LTE wouldn’t hurt either…

RIM: “Disable Javascript To Remain Safe On Mobile Web In OS 6″

If you aren’t the type to follow Pwn2own and the various trickery that the contest caters to, you should. It is there that some of the world’s most talented hackers crack their way into the gadgets we love and use every day, ultimately making our lives (and gadgets) safer and more secure. However, part of that added safety is dependent on the hardware manufacturers and mobile OS developers actually implementing fixes for said hacks in a timely manner. With that said, RIM’s response to the recently exploited BlackBerry browser on OS version 6 is hardly reassuring — they recommend you completely disable Javascript to stay safe. Seeing as how countless web forms, login forms, and general web browsing overall requires some level of Javascript, this pretty much ruins your whole mobile browsing experience. Add in the fact that RIM isn’t the fastest with OS upgrades/updates (and carriers are even slower to approve and push out said updates) and you’ve got a problem brewing for BlackBerry users.

RIM has the ability to push upgrades OTA themselves. Seeing as how this would be a relatively small update, now more than ever RIM should take advantage of the included feature to keep BlackBerry users’ mobile browsing experiences up to par. BlackBerry users: Thoughts?