OtterBox Defender Case for HTC Thunderbolt Smartphone Review

Legit Mods and Ends Reviews

OtterBox Defender

The HTC Thunderbolt was released back in March of this year and was Verizon’s first 4G LTE phone. The blazing 4G LTE speed come at a price, $249.99 with 2 year contract or whopping $569.99 if you bought it outright. Now that you have dropped a good chunk of change on a phone that will be almost like an appendage for the foreseeable future, it needs some protection. Today we are looking at one such option is the Defender from OtterBox.

The OtterBox Defender is a case aimed at those who can get a little rough with their electronics or those who just don’t want to take a chance with jacking up their new $250 investment. This is not our first look at a Defender series case from OtterBox. Back in April of this year we looked at the Defender, as well as the Impact, Incipio Feather Ultralight, and Commuter cases for the Motorola Atrix 4G. Being that the HTC Thunderbolt is a different phone the OtterBox Defender case will be similar, but there will be some differences.

Features of the OtterBox Defender

• OtterBox HTC2-TBOLT accommodates HTC ThunderBolt smartphones


• Screen Protection: Clear protective membrane on screen and keypad


• Inner Layer: Hi-impact polycarbonate shell


• Outer Layer: Durable silicone skin


• Access to sync/charge port via silicone plugs


• Access to all side button features


• Ratcheting belt clip holster included


• Included belt clip holster doubles as a media viewing stand

Specifications of the OtterBox Defender

• Colors: Black


• Weight: 2.47 oz / 70.08 g


• Dimensions: 5.26 x 3.06 x 0.83 in
  / 133.67 x 77.23 x 21.08 mm

Next Page - Unboxing the Defender

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Correction: Ivy Bridge and Thunderbolt - Featured, not Integrated

Intel just emailed me to clarify a point from its Ivy Bridge presentation on Tuesday. While USB 3.0 will finally be integrated into the chipset, Thunderbolt will not. Intel clarified that the interface will be featured on some 2012 platforms but it wouldn't be on all and it won't be integrated into the chipset.

Thanks to the readers who questioned our original interpretation of the slide and my apologies for the confusion.

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Computex 2011: Some Time with Promise's Thunderbolt Devices

Yesterday Intel told us that Ivy Bridge would integrate both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt into the 7-series chipset, that should help make both standards see more widespread adoption in 2012.

Two lines of systems currently support Thunderbolt: the new MacBook Pro and the new iMac, unfortunately there are no Thunderbolt peripherals available. Apparently both Apple and Intel want to approve devices before they go on sale, at least initially to ensure there are no embarrassing problems at launch. Although Promise showed off Thunderbolt enabled external storage devices at the Thunderbolt launch in February, we won't see availability until the end of June at the earliest.

 Promise will release two external storage devices that use Thunderbolt as their sole interface: the Pegasus R4 and Pegasus R6. The difference between the two is strictly the number of drive bays; the R4 has 4 bays and the R6 has 6 bays. Both platforms support RAID 0/1/5/6 and 10.  The Pegasus enclosure has two Thunderbolt ports, one for input and one for output. Pegasus can pass through video, however the final connection to your display has to be via a DisplayPort cable since there are no Thunderbolt displays today other than what's integrated into the iMac/MBP. The Thunderbolt spec as implemented in the Macs supports up to 6 devices per root connection.

 The Pegasus' bays support both 3.5" and 2.5" drives. Promise had a setup using Intel X25-Es although I'd expect SSD 510s to be used in any shipping products with SSDs. Pegasus does support 6Gbps drives, although the highest transfer rates I ever saw on the machine maxed out at 850MB/s despite the use of a 6-drive RAID-0. It looks like there may be some internal bottlenecks at work here. 

Here's a shot of what a connected TB device looks like in System Profiler:

Activity Monitor accurately reports disk activity that happens over the Thunderbolt interface:

And of course performance results:

Promise also had its SANlink on display at the show:

The prototype takes a single Thunderbolt connection and allows you to bridge it to up to two 4Gbit Fibre Channel ports for connected a system to a beefier SAN. {gallery 1114}]]>

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Intel Integrates USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt into Ivy Bridge Platform

We knew about the first feature on this list (USB 3.0) would come with Ivy Bridge's 7-series chipset, but the second one was something I just heard about today. Ivy Bridge will integrate Thunderbolt into the chipset. Expect Thunderbolt adoption to skyrocket as a result in 2012.

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HTC Thunderbolt Review: The First Verizon 4G LTE Smartphone

We've spent a long time testing Verizon's first 4G LTE enabled smartphone, the HTC Thunderbolt. We're finally ready with the complete review. It's got the fastest cellular connectivity around, and simultaneous voice and data to boot. 

Read on for the full review!

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Intel will present Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interface directly

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Intel recently said that they will support both of this interface (Thunderbolt from MacBook Pro new revision and also USB 3.0). USB 3.0 that will implement in next time will support the previous version USB.

Intel also said that both of them will be “complementary” technology. Intel do this after AMD do a big splash by announcing that their 2 kind of APU will directly support USB 3.0 so it means that manufacturer motherboard not need again for special controller using USB 3.0 and of course it will cut down the price.

Endorsement of USB 3.0 be sure for their new processor that is for Ivy Bridge only, in the other hand Sandy Bridge cannot enjoy the USB 3.0 port as well, because it still need special controller from motherboard to support USB 3.0.

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Intel's Codename Light Peak Launches as Thunderbolt

Back at IDF 2010, we wrote about Intel Light Peak nearing its eventual launch in 2011. Back then, the story was a 10 Gbps or faster physical link tunneling virtually every protocol under the sun over optical fiber. Though an optical physical layer provided the speed, in reality the connector and physical layer itself wasn’t as important as the tunneling and signaling going on beneath it. Daisy chain devices together, and connect everything with one unified connector and port. 

 

That dream lives on today, but sans optical fiber and under a different name. Intel’s codename “Light Peak” is now named Thunderbolt. 

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