Verizon said on Tuesday that its 1st 4G smartphone, the HTC ThunderBolt, will be present in stores and online from March 17 for $249.99 with 2 year contract. It was a long awaited declaration, as the ThunderBolt is going to be the first smartphone to take benefit of Verizon's 4G LTE network-- which gives download speeds up to twelve Mbps and upload speeds up to five Mbps.

But the ThunderBolt's $250 cost point is greater than most other phones, which normally debut at $199 – including the new Verizon iPhone. The ThunderBolt operates on Google's Android 2.2 and is motorized by a 1GHz Snapdragon mainframe from Qualcomm. It has 2 cameras, 8 gigabyte of onboard memory, a kickstand for media viewing and a pre-installed 32 gigabyte microSD card.

The smartphone can be utilized as a mobile hotspot to share web connectivity with up to 8 Wi-Fi gadgets. Verizon will give hotspot service for free till May 15. After that date, the service can be utilized for $20 for 2GB of data per month.