Yes, despite Verizon's blazingly fast LTE network, which i have in my hometown, and despite AT&T's flat out disgraceful actions as of late, when it came down to which PHONE was for me I returned my Thunderbolt and committed to an Atirx. I couldn't be happier and no one's more surprised than me.
After I dropped AT&T and picked up the TBolt I quickly developed a feeling of "uh oh...what did I just do." The battery issues of the Thunderbolt really are a joke. Yes there are fixes and tricks you can do to improve it and they did work for me, and yes you can spend even more money for another battery but should you have to? Having a phone where you're staring at the battery icon skeptically just waiting for the whole thing to go to hell is no fun. I don't want to neuter my phone with dim screen settings and this-and-that disabled just to make it through the day. That's not why i choose to research and pay top dollar for a smartphone, ya know?
When I began to see the writing on the wall with the Thunderbolt I went to AT&T and purchased an Atrix just to demo the two side by side. I'd send an email on one and then the next email would be sent from the other. Make a call on one and the next call I'd try to make on the other, so on and so on. In all areas of PERFORMANCE, outside of network speed, the Atrix was the winner. I did have one person claim to completely dislike the sound of the Atrix...the "muffled" complaint. However, everyone else preferred the sound of the Atrix. In one instance I started a conference call I needed to be hands free for with the Thunderbolt, kickstand in action. The people on the other end couldn't make out half of what i was saying. When I finally said i'll call you guys back and switched to the Atrix it was immediate "wow that's a lot better".
What really shocked me was that I kind of preferred the 4" to the 4.3" screen. I was wowed by my demo of the Droid X and the large format screen but in the end I really didn't want it. A tad too much. Typing in landscape mode on the Atrix proved to be the sweet spot for me. Now Angry Birds kinda blows on the Atrix...but i'll live. Its literally the only game I ever even consider playing. Emails, calls, texts, etc...THOSE THINGS COUNT. Those are the things which keep my career going, my mortgage paid, family happy, loved ones in touch and in those areas the Atrix truly shines. The issue with yellows (as in "yellow" doesn't look yellow) is a major bummer but again...after all was said and done it's not that big of a deal. The few flaws that have been discovered early on will be taken care of. HSPA+ won't be a priority of AT&T's for long but when its finally deployed it'll be just enough to hold us over until their LTE network is let loose and manufacturers have had more time to study LTE's affect on battery life. The poor earpiece speaker design will be hammered out (that's a hardware problem by the way...don't count on software taking care of a speaker that physically distorts). The device has only been out what, 3 or 4 weeks? Already a software update has been put out to deal with several needed fixes. Motorola's on it. Don't worry.
Needless to say the Thunderbolt has officially been gone for a couple of days now. Folks, the Atrix is an incredible device. Its potential will probably never be realized on AT&T. Pretty damn close though and that's waaaaaaaay better than anything else out there on ANY network. Do a speed test with Atrix and any other phone on the same Wifi network...the Atrix can flat out fly. Will it ever be able to do it on AT&T? I doubt it but we shall see.
One last thing I have to admit is absolutely loving Sense. Holy s*** has HTC figured the UI thing out. Leaps and bounds better than the rest. Come on, Moto...that's the only thing HTC has on you guys!
Enough rambling. Just wanted to pass on a good news story here in Atrix forum land.
SH92
and hey- if it's not for you, it's not for you...one great thing about Android is the way it caters to personal preference 