HTC ThunderBolt is Free on Verizon For Limited Time

Verizon smartphone clients interested in speed and performance are getting some good news: The popular HTC ThunderBolt can be snapped up for free, for a few days meanwhile.

The ThunderBolt has received decent reviews

The ThunderBolt has received decent reviews and the smartphone has been popular with consumers. During it makes use of a 1 GHz Snapdragon chip instead of the dual-core 1.4GHz processor that's included in top-of-the-line Android devices, it's a fast phone.

The ThunderBolt was Verizon's first 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution, latest standard in the mobile network technology) phone, which it started selling ten months ago for $250 on contract. As evidence of how quickly the mobile space evolves, now the company has several 4G phones in its portfolio, including: Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Droid Razr, Motorola Droid Bionic, HTC Rezound, Samsung Droid Charge, LG Revolution, LG Spectrum, Samsung Stratosphere, and the Pantech Breakout.

The 4G hill

Until recently Verizon has been king of the 4G hill, however other wireless carriers have been hustling to catch up and used CES 2012 as a showcase for new 4G LTE phones and tablets. AT&T has been aggressively expanding its 4G network and has even edged out Verizon in a speed test, according to one study.

And during it has been late getting into the LTE game, Sprint recently announced its first 4G-enabled smartphones: the LG Viper and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, even though the company won't be launching its LTE network until mid-2012.

T-Mobile, in its turn, has big plans for its "HSPA+ 42" 4G network, which has performed remarkably then in PCWorld's 4G speed tests -- as a matter of fact, it's right about on par with Verizon's LTE network. T-Mobile as well announced its commitment to expanding its line of 4G-capable phones, tablets, and mobile hotspots, starting with the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze and the Nokia Lumia 710, which runs on Windows Phone.

What other free smartphones you can get now?

Want to know what other free smartphones you can get now? Check out PCWorld's Free Smartphone Smackdown: What's the Best Deal?