It is probably too early to judge whether battery life concerns with ThunderBolt turn into actual problems, or how well the phones and batteries will perform in real-life conditions. Wirefly did a thorough video review of application speeds in ThunderBolt apps, but had not thoroughly tested it over LTE.

One lengthy said the battery performance on its ThunderBolt review unit was "very similar" to the HTC Inspire 4G on AT&T's HSPA network, despite ThunderBolt's 1400mAh battery being more than 10% bigger.

"Regardless, the HTC ThunderBolt will definitely need a daily charge, just like any high-end smartphone, and in some cases an additional charge throughout the day will be necessary," InfoSyncWorld said.

Analysts said that many smartphone users are in the practice of connecting a charger to the device before going to bed, although they noted that 6.3 hours of use as stated in the specs won't take many workers through a long day.

"Battery life is an issue in any of these smartphones," said Phil Asmundson, an analyst at Deloitte. "It's great if I remember to plug it in every night, but it sucks if I don't. Anything they can do to improve battery life improves customer satisfaction."