Switching back to king size.

A few months ago Jenna and I decided to switch from a king bed to a queen. We lasted a couple of months; however, today we decided to switch back. Sadly this means we purchased a new bed frame and mattresses. It's amazing how much the extra bit of space can really mean. We cannot wait for the new bed to be delivered (in 9 days).

HTC Thunderbolt: First day

The first day with the Thunderbolt went well. Everything is configured and I'm enjoying the phone... with one major exception. The power button on my device certainly is not right. The best I describe it as is squishy. It's nearly flat with the top of the phone and does not make any physical click when depressed. Jenna's phone seems just fine so I'll try to swap mine tomorrow.

I tried to start working on a widget to toggle 4G; however, I'm stuck waiting on HTC Sync to download which is crawling at 8 KBps. Maybe tomorrow - I tweeted HTC a few questions too.

4G LTE Toggle?

I really wish there was a simple 4G LTE toggle widget for the Thunderbolt. There are a couple of apps in the Market which open the testing menu; however, it should be easier.

So, why isn't there one? Looks like there is not a predefined network connection type in the API: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/net/ConnectivityManager.html.

Normally I'd expect to see a ConnectivityManager.TYPE_LTE but that type doesn't exist yet. The signature for setNetworkPreference is int, so I may be be able to call getNetworkPreference to determine the LTE integer value, store it in a constant, and then reference it later. If the signature is really the enum, I may be out of luck.

Maybe I'll try this when I get home - if I have time. Maybe someone else has already tried it...

HTC Thunderbolt: first impressions

Purchased two HTC Thunderbolt phones today, one for me and one for Jenna. Initial impressions:

• Larger screen is beautiful (compared to OG Droid)
• Hardware feels solid, good weight
• 4G is extremely fast - reinstalled all apps in seconds
• Sense 2.0 seems better than previous versions.
• New skins look better (using slate)
• Calendar agenda widget looks great and is extremely useful
• UI feels more responsive
• There is still a lot of bloatware (city id, blockbuster, etc)
• Less of this runs by default, still more than I would like
• The physical power button could be better
• doesn't have a physical "click" when pressing
• sometimes have to press down slightly harder

I have disabled 4G on both phones - just using 3G unless we need to stream something large. I read a lot of reviews saying the 4G drains the battery. So far the battery seems reasonable but I have not used it long enough to determine.