Verizon’s 4G LTE devices tend to be a little finicky – just ask any nearby Galaxy Nexus owner. So when HTC updates the radios for one of its Verizon devices, it behooves the advanced user to try them out. HTC Thunderbolt owners, this one’s for you: the folks at XDA have zipped up the latest radio firmware for your phone and posted it in a flash-friendly format. The software itself comes from the latest OTA update, but the radios themselves can be used on any ROM.

Hold your horses, flashers. According to some users in the thread, the radio ZIP has the possibility of de-rooting your phone. So make sure you’ve got a handy Nandroid backup safely on your MicroSD card. The popular custom ROM CyanogenMod 7 seems to be safe, perhaps because it’s rooted by default. Some users are reporting that it strangely allows even custom ROMs to start downloading the official OTA update from Verizon, by changing the s-off value in the software. You have been warned.

Reception and battery issues have plagued Verizon’s LTE phones since the get go, and flagship devices have been no exception. The Thunderbolt, the DROID Charge and DROID Bionic, and now the Galaxy Nexus. On the plus side, I’ve been seeing much better performance on my own Nexus, and other Android Community writers have seen dramatically better battery life. Perhaps Verizon’s handoff issues have finally begun to be resolved – we’ll see.

3 COMMENTS

  1. Messing with cellular radio firmware? No way man. If your Thunderbolt(like mine) drops the 4G network and drops to 1X you can at least fix that. Go into phone and type##778# hit dial, edit mode, password is 000000, modem settings, Rev. A, change to enabled, instead of eHRPD, hit menu, commit changes, reboot. 

    Hardcore users, however, I would like to hear how this works for them. 

  2. this is an old radio it has been out for a few weeks. it works grea, a lot better than the previous radios. definately worth a flash. and not the radios do not affe
    ct root.

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