If I told you I test-drove a Lamborghini Aventador, what features would you most want to hear about? The feel of the perforated leather steering wheel? The purr of the 700-horsepower, 6.5-liter V-12 engine? Or would you rather hear a poetic description of the gas in the tank and the highway I raced it on?

Indeed, the HTC ThunderBolt is an excellent piece of hardware. It’s not quite the Lamborghini of the mobile phone world, but it certainly tops every other 4G device currently available from HTC, and it’s the first phone to run on Verizon’s 4G LTE network (That’s the “highway,” and don’t worry,...