14 DAY TRIAL // During the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early 2011, Verizon Wireless and HTC Corporation announced officially the upcoming availability of a new Android-based handset at the wireless carrier, the HTC ThunderBolt, supposedly the first LTE-capable handset on the operator's airwaves.
Boasting a large 4.3-inch SLCD touchscreen display that can boast a 800 x 480 pixel resolution, along with a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU and 768MB of RAM, the smartphone should soon become one of the most appealing devices at the wireless carrier.
However, no specific info on when would the handset become available for purchase at Verizon emerged for the time being, though rumors pointed at February 14th and February 24th as the most possible release dates.
While confirmation on the matter has to emerge, we can now have a look at the device itself in an unboxing video spotted on YouTube (via Android Police).
The said video would present some of the main features of the new device, including the HTC Sense user interface that was loaded on top of Google's Android operating system, as well as the Skype video calling and contacts integration that Verizon touted for all of its 4G LTE devices.
Of course, this might be in contradiction with what was rumored only recently on ThunderBolt, specifically that it would be launched on February 14th with no Skype on board, but we find it hard to believe that Verizon would actually cripple its first LTE smartphone at launch.
One of the reports is certainly inaccurate, though we should wait for the release date to approach to learn which of them.
In the meantime, we should also note that the ThunderBolt lands on shelves with an 8MP camera with dual LED flash and 720p recording, a 1.3 MP front-facing camera, 8GB onboard storage and a microSD memory card slot with support for 32GB more, DLNA support, and other features more.