Review: HTC Flyer Tablet – HTC First Tablet with Android 2.3 Gingerbread
Tech’s answer to Osama Bin Laden has been lurking in the shadows since its tentative unveiling at Mobile World Congress in February. There’s been a steady trickle of web chatter about release dates (July) pricing (including a rather hopeful £120) and spec (more powerful than Thor). However, after some nifty intelligence work. 73has stormed its stronghold and shot it. With a camera. We’ve also discovered its actual spec.
The Flyer is a sprightly little thing, coming with a seven-inch display that you can grip easily with one hand – which you’re going to need, as the tablet comes with its own stylus. HTC calls it “Scribe Technology” and it is indeed a throwback to the days of PDAs and Windows tablets, but with a stylish and contemporary feel. It allows you to highlight, mark, and delete parts of documents, images, or your music library, make notes and more.
HTC has also brought a new version of its Sense Ul to the tablet, laying it over Android Gingerbread. An update to the more tablet-ready Honeycomb OS is promised in due course, once HTC’s boffins have managed to combine it with their own tech.
Behind the touchscreen is a single core 1.6GHz processor and 32GB of storage, which you can bolster with the addition of microSD or microSDHC cards up to 32GB.
As the presence of a stylus suggests, the Flyer hasn’t been made purely to sit on your coffee table for web surfing during ad breaks. HTC’s built in some impressive business functions, too. Scribe Technology lets you take notes, adding photos or audio recordings to documents as you wish before syncing with the omni-compatible Evernote.
But HTC hasn’t neglected entertainment by any means. Full Flash and HTML5 support makes the aforementioned web surfing during ad breaks a satisfying experience. HTC Watch gives you access to movies on demand – deals have been inked with most of Hollywood’s big guns – with films you buy on the Flyer available to watch across all your HTC devices.
You also get the now-obligatory five-megapixel/720p rear camera, as well as a front one for video Google Talk, and naturally there’s access to Android Market. Google’s ever-growing app store. That, by the way, now has more free apps in it than Apple’s one…
The Flyer is greater than the sum of its parts. Before you’ve used it you may have doubts about the size, stylus, processing power and choice of OS, but pick it up and those doubts fade. This is the tablet many of us were most impressed with at MWC. The fine tuning in the long wait since then has only made it even better.
Specification
- processor/ram 1.6GHz/lGB
- storage 32GB plus microSD/microSDHC
- screen 7-inch. 1024×600 capacitive touchscreen
- connectivity 14.4Mbps HSDPA. N Wi-Fi. Bluetooth 3.0.
- micro USB. 3.5mm audio
- rear camera 5-megapixel/720p
- front camera 1.3-megapixel/VGA
- size/weight 195x122x13 2mm/420g
£599, WWW.HTC.COM/UK. OUT NOW
Tech’s answer to Osama Bin Laden has been lurking in the shadows since its tentative unveiling at Mobile World Congress in February. There’s been a steady trickle of web chatter about release dates (July) pricing (including a rather hopeful £120) and spec (more powerful than Thor). However, after some nifty intelligence work. 73has stormed its stronghold and shot it. With a camera. We’ve also discovered its actual spec.
The Flyer is a sprightly little thing, coming with a seven-inch display that you can grip easily with one hand – which you’re going to need, as the tablet comes with its own stylus. HTC calls it “Scribe Technology” and it is indeed a throwback to the days of PDAs and Windows tablets, but with a stylish and contemporary feel. It allows you to highlight, mark, and delete parts of documents, images, or your music library, make notes and more.
HTC has also brought a new version of its Sense Ul to the tablet, laying it over Android Gingerbread. An update to the more tablet-ready Honeycomb OS is promised in due course, once HTC’s boffins have managed to combine it with their own tech.
Behind the touchscreen is a single core 1.6GHz processor and 32GB of storage, which you can bolster with the addition of microSD or microSDHC cards up to 32GB.
As the presence of a stylus suggests, the Flyer hasn’t been made purely to sit on your coffee table for web surfing during ad breaks. HTC’s built in some impressive business functions, too. Scribe Technology lets you take notes, adding photos or audio recordings to documents as you wish before syncing with the omni-compatible Evernote.
But HTC hasn’t neglected entertainment by any means. Full Flash and HTML5 support makes the aforementioned web surfing during ad breaks a satisfying experience. HTC Watch gives you access to movies on demand – deals have been inked with most of Hollywood’s big guns – with films you buy on the Flyer available to watch across all your HTC devices.
You also get the now-obligatory five-megapixel/720p rear camera, as well as a front one for video Google Talk, and naturally there’s access to Android Market. Google’s ever-growing app store. That, by the way, now has more free apps in it than Apple’s one…
The Flyer is greater than the sum of its parts. Before you’ve used it you may have doubts about the size, stylus, processing power and choice of OS, but pick it up and those doubts fade. This is the tablet many of us were most impressed with at MWC. The fine tuning in the long wait since then has only made it even better.
Specification
- processor/ram 1.6GHz/lGB
- storage 32GB plus microSD/microSDHC
- screen 7-inch. 1024×600 capacitive touchscreen
- connectivity 14.4Mbps HSDPA. N Wi-Fi. Bluetooth 3.0.
- micro USB. 3.5mm audio
- rear camera 5-megapixel/720p
- front camera 1.3-megapixel/VGA
- size/weight 195x122x13 2mm/420g
£599, WWW.HTC.COM/UK. OUT NOW
