HTC has always stood out among the raft of Android phone manufacturers. The company's been partnering with Google since the start, but still forges its own style, which has won it a lot of fans.
Now that Android is a major tablet OS, with Android 3.0 appearing on the likes of the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1V, HTC is still staying separate from the crowd.
Our colleagues at T3.com grabbed some HTC Flyer video footage which you can watch below.
The most notable change from the norm is the 7-inch screen and the touchscreen stylus, known officially as the Magic Pen. It connects wirelessly to the Flyer, and enables you to annotate, highlight and erase in supported apps. It offers a measure of pressure sensitivity (unlike most styluses on capacitive screens), so may pique the interest of artists.
Instead of Android 3.0, the Flyer uses Android 2.3.3, skinned with HTC's familiar Sense UI. In this case, it's Sense 2.1 for Tablet. We'll go into more detail about exactly what that means on the third page, but for now we'll just say it's HTC's way of trying make a version of Android designed for phones work a little better on larger screens.
Instead of the dual-core processors that have quickly become the standard for new tablets (particularly Nvidia's Tegra 2), HTC has gone for a single-core processor with a higher clock speed. The CPU is paired with 1GB of RAM, so there's great potential for multitasking.
There's a five-megapixel rear camera, as well as a 1.3MP front-facing camera. Both are capable of recording 720p HD video footage.
Initially, the HTC Flyer will be available in a Wi-Fi-only version with 16GB of storage, or a 32GB Wi-Fi + 3G version. The 16GB Wi-Fi model will set you back £479.99, while the 32GB Wi-Fi + 3G model is £599.99. In both cases, you get the pen in the box, along with a protective slipcase, a USB cable, a set of headphones and a mains power adapter.
Your comments (21) Click to add a new comment
bryn53
January 13th
21. Did you check the GPS ?
Did you check the WiFi and 3G performance ?
If not why not /?
What is the objective battery life ?
What applications come preinstalled ?
Does it have printing capability ?
What mass storage options are available ?
Lots of space used in this reveiw but most of it just hot air; nothing useful really.
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pony
October 21st 2011
20. Rotating Stand Leather Case with Pen Holder for HTC Flyer,Which provides a perfect protection to your device and against hock,damage,dust and scratch.http://www.pludeal.com/rotating-stand-leather-case-with-pen-holder-for-htc-flyer-black_p9274.html
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docpark
September 22nd 2011
19. I use this far more than my iPad 2 because it fits in my pocket.I reviewed it here
http://golfism.org/2011/08/31/the-htc-flyer-review/
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opticalgenesis
August 6th 2011
18. You have to remember about the price being more than the iPad 2, is that if you bought the Wi-Fi only 16GB iPad 2, it is about 50 quid less than a 16GB Flyer. But, you get a case (worth at least 15-20 quid) and the pen with AAAA battery (worth 50. So the actual Flyer is about 15 quid less.
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opticalgenesis
August 6th 2011
17. @bryn53, if that's what you want, you'll probably want to wait for a Windows 8 tablet to be released.
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tfrew
May 30th 2011
16. Hey jorjxmckie ,
your comment is actually false there are actually special stylus's available for all capacitive touch screen devices. Although HTC were working with N-TRIG to create a better capacitive touch screen stylus experience , the HTC flyer is not the only device with capacitive stylus technology.
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jorjxmckie
May 30th 2011
15. Did a quick demo at the local Best Buy, and was mainly concerned with how snappy it seemed and how responsive the pen--I was pretty impressed in both areas. Using the art program the drawn line lag is very minor and a decent fine line with pressure information is possible. With that established, I'd say this could be useful as a tool (rather than a toy) for students and artists. If this is important, then the price/screen/16GB v 32GB iPad comparisons are meaningless... the Apple device only does finger painting.
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skevy
May 27th 2011
14. Just bought one as have the HTC desire, HTC hd and HTC touch pro 2. Device is working a treat, yes you may say how many HTC devices but this little unit can run round an Apple iPad any day, so user friendly plus very adaptive. Good price aswell from Best Buy Nottingham £479.00 far cheaper than anywhere I've googled. Well done HTC another fantastic product
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duskrider
May 26th 2011
13. I have to say, now that I have the Transformer with Honeycomb, I think HTC might have been smart to stay back with 2.3 for the time being and update to Honeycomb when it's a bit more mature. Honeycomb is way too buggy for HTC to customize with Sense UI.
Kudos HTC, wise move.
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bryn53
May 22nd 2011
12. I'm an HTC fan and an Android Fan. I have an HTC Desire HD that I'm very pleased with.
But I want to get a tablet PC as a laptop replacement.
So - it must have
a) Decent email app (like the iPad but better). How about being able to import all my mail from Outlook ?
b) Open Office software already installed and optimised for the device.
c) a Printing app not reliant on attaching to any PC i.e. print to a networked printer or attached via USB. Support for the big name printer brands.
d) support for USB hard drive and USB flash storage devices.
e) Support for a physical keyboard or a docking station would be nice. Like the Asus Transformer but with HTC's build quality.
Does HTC flyer have any of that ?
Nope ? Ok then I'll keep waiting.
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trumpetjedi8378
May 17th 2011
11. HTC Flyer = HTC Legend, but bigger
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trumpetjedi8378
May 17th 2011
10. Looks like the Legend
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michelle259
May 17th 2011
9. Good: HTC apps, looks, style
Bad: Battery life, latest android failure
Comment: Over all it is a good phone specially for those who are not too much into technology. Everyone does not need Honeycomb 3.0. The disaster which HTC has done is with the battery life. When a device such as a tablet has a poor battery life, it does not make a sense to buy it. HTC can always try to fix this problem up.
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wesley
May 17th 2011
8. The 7" form factor for a tablet is far more user friendly than 10". As for the review, I think that HTC's tablet friendly apps are very good and comparable to what is on the Galaxy Tab and Honeycomb. The keyboard is also very good and the UI and HTC's added extras are very good as usual. The perception Android 2.2/2.3 cannot be successfully used on a tablet was already rubbished by the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which transformed it with its Touchwiz UI and the HTC Flyer's Sense UI does the same. Honeycomb is very much still an unfinished beta looking os that in stock form does not attract me to buying it and possibly would only be good enough once Samsung and HTC fix it with their UIs'. Engadget reports good battery life, so don't know about that...
Overall a very good tablet that is way too expensive to buy until it gets a lot cheaper. The processor seems decent and gets scores comparable to a Tegra 2 processor in benchmarks, but it isn't a dual core and seeing as the Sensation coming out very soon will have a dual core 1.2 Ghz Snapdragon processor, most people would feel a unhappy getting a future unfriendly device. HTC have said though that it will get a Honeycomb update.
For my money I'd get a Samsung Galaxy Tab 3G with it's new Gingerbread update instead though.
@ Bradavon It does have great tab support in the browser, saw that on Engadget.
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bradavon
May 16th 2011
7. Where is the browser tab support HTC? If you're gonna upgrade your browser for tablets, why leave out tabs? Google managed it with the, wait for it, the Honeycomb browser. I bet there's no Chrome sync either.
If this was some Android tablet company you'd never heard of I'd be impressed but this is HTC, probably the only company alongside Apple who understands you need to create an "experience" for people to like your products.
HTC are the only Android company that has a following and they release this?
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bradavon
May 16th 2011
6. I'm a major fan of HTC's smartphones and in short measure because HTC Sense is excellent but here it looks a mess. It's blantantly obvious, HTC Sense and Android 2.x aren't meant for tablets.
The HTC Sensation still looks like the phone to beat (sorry Samsung, the Galaxy S2 is lovely but TouchWiz isn't) but for tablets?
No way!
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bradavon
May 16th 2011
5. HTC Mail and Friendstream look so good on smartphones but look a mess here.
All they've done is shift the smartphone view over to the left and given a preview on the right. The tablet Gmail app for example has three views:
1. Left Folders
2. Middle e-mails in current folder (e.g - Inbox)
3. Right Preview of selected e-mail
When you select an e-mail, the far left folder list disappears, the current folder lists moves over to the left and the preview window expands. It looks much better than this.
The space used up by HTC's black borders is fine on smartphones because it's kept to a decent size but it's clearly here taking up far too much room and obviously has been rushed to market.
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bradavon
May 16th 2011
4. As we all know HTC had a blip at the start of the year releasing hardware that isn't up to their usual high standard (S range anyone?). The HTC Sensation has re-addressed that balance for smartphones.
I suspect the Flyer 2 will be much better. Until it's all about the Asus tablets (the slider for me).
Asus have shown you can produce a decent Android tablet for a reasonable price. Come on HTC and Motorola! You can get away charging over the odds for a smartphone because few buy one outright but tablets it's common place.
As to using Gingerbread, the answer to Honeycomb being buggy (most reviews suggest it is) isn't to use an operating system designed for smartphones.
It's clear HTC didn't use Honeycomb because it's buggy but because they're only interested in releasing hardware with HTC Sense on top and I doubt they had enough time to test Honeycomb with HTC Sense.
HTC have said a Honeycomb upgrade is coming but how will that work with HTC Sense? They're very different UIs. Whereas Android 2.x and HTC Sense fundamentally aren't.
HTC's own mail app for example maybe tablet ready but because the Gingerbread compatible version of the Gmail app is smartphones only it doesn't display right on the HTC Flyer.
I suspect HTC could've overcome this. It's likely to be the same Gmail app running under Gingerbread to Honeycomb. I'm guessing the OS is reporting it's a "smartphone".
The recent Google Music app is exactly the same file/app whether it's a tablet or smartphone and it self works out to use the right layout.
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bigfella
May 16th 2011
3. 599pounds, what a joke i can buy a new laptop 4 that money. for me its not worth half of that, i'm happy with my iphone4
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