2011: the year of the 4g/LTE phones
This was the year where we saw carriers roll out their LTE line up of phones. We even had one phone that was rumored to be this super phone, only to find out it was other than super. But let's get started.
Again, HTC was the goto company, releasing several LTE phones for 2011. The Inspire (AT&T's EVO 4g), Droid Incredible 2, Thunderbolt (Verizon's Evo 4G), HTC Rezound, and HTC EVO 3D, and Evo Shift. So HTC was putting in some work in 2011.
Let's start by talking about the Thunderbolt. Those a part of this forum, remember the 500 page talk about all of the hype over this phone. In case you forgot, here is the thread (
HTC Thunderbolt Release Date). Leading up to the actual release were rumors of issues that eventually manifested. The phone was plagued with reboot and battery issues. Those rooted saw fixes before Verizon and HTC released them. But that was the price of being first to LTE.
The other phones released at that time were the Droid Charge (Samsung phone), Droid X2, LG Revolution, Droid 3, Samsung Stratosphere, Droid Bionic, Droid Razr, and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
The Droid Bionic, like the Thunderbolt, was plagued with issues. That phone was rumored to have been scrapped, only to see it released with a bunch of problems. Motorola (and Verizon) released the Droid Razr as a "correction" for the Bionic. And I would argue the same could be said for the Rezound (for the Thunderbolt).
This was when we got all the excitement about locked bootloaders. Motorola's rep told a customer to look elsewhere if they wanted an unlocked bootloader (
Motorola Tells Customer to “Buy Elsewhere” if They Want Custom ROMs). So foe some, the decision whether or not to purchase a phone came down to the state of the bootloader.
Companies blamed the carriers for locked bootloaders, and carriers blamed the company. At the end of the day, battle lines were being drawn in the sand. And this would give way to a certain phone later that year.
That phone being the Galaxy Nexus. Finally Google was bring a Nexus to Verizon. A phone based on the look of the Samsung Galaxy S2 (a popular look). The phone would have a curved display, face unlock, Google Wallet, an unlockable bootloader, and would run Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.
I still remember standing in line for that phone. Only to end up swapping it with a HTC Rezound later in the year because of the LTE issues. Speaking of which, the HTC Rezound still is the most under appreciated phone of 2011. Mainly because it was sandwiched between so many flagship devices that it was an afterthought. Its main commercial was the dancing grandma. A phone that came with a free set of Beats headphones, had an awesome display, HTC's radios (that were much better than that of the Galaxy Nexus).
2011 was a transitioning period for android. We saw companies cannibalize themselves making multiple flagship phones. One company in particular that fell victim to that was HTC, having made several flagship phones for Verizon.
So what was the most memorable phone of 2011 for you?