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HTC Flyer 32 GB WiFi/3G

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Caractéristiques
Screen7 inches N.C. Capacitive
Resolution1024 x 600 pixels
Internal memory / SDHC card32 GB / no microSD jusqu'à 32 Go
Battery life7
Dimensions/Weight122 x 195 x 13 mm / 420 g
Show all specifications
Wi-Fi / Bluetooth / 3Gyes / yes / yes
ConnectivityProprietary N.C.
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Romain Thuret
Translator: Sam McGeever
Test date: May 13, 2011
Flyer: Pen plus Keyboard

Scribbling away with the stylus is one thing, but we'd much rather use the onscreen keyboard for writing mails and messages.

Using the Flyer's virtual keyboard feels odd, and is another example of how HTC has taken the lead from its smartphones. Rather than providing a new solution, it seems to have simply provided a larger version of the keyboard from the Desire S.

That left us a little worried about what typing on it would be like, but all the letters were there and it was easy in portrait mode as was it landscape, where the tablet is just small enough to hold it in two hands and type easily with two thumbs. The predictive text input is amongst the best we've seen from a mobile device.

HTC doesn't like copying everybody else, especially when it's in a crowded marketplace.  Starting with the launch of its first Android smartphone, the manufacturer decided not to make do with the default version of Google's mobile OS, instead adding its own Sense software which it has continuously developed ever since.

Now HTC has launched the Flyer, its first tablet.  The 7'' device stands out from the crowds thanks to the addition of an electronic stylus (or 'magic pen', according to HTC), and runs not just Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but also the latest version of the firm's own software, Sense 2.1.
 

HTC has also chosen a new processor, in the guise of Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon chip, running at 1.5 GHz.  Today we're testing the 32 GB version with WiFi and 3G, but there's also a 16 GB model with WiFi only.

The latter is on sale in the UK for £479.99, while the 32 GB version costs £599.99.  For the time being, there's no news about whether any mobile networks will take it up and offer it a lower price with a contract.


For your money, you get not just the internal memory, but a microSD card slot, allowing you to add up to another 32 GB of memory, a SIM card slot, and a proprietary port used to connect the Flyer to a computer and for charging.  It's a microUSB port that, rather oddly, HTC has decided to tweak.  If you force it a little bit though, a regular USB cable will do the job ...

Build Quality and Design

The Flyer looks great, with a well-designed aluminium frame and a great finish for the both the fixed elements and the SIM/microSD card slots, but it's impossible not to notice how heavy it feels at 420 g for a 7'' tablet.
 

It's 40 g heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and you can certainly feel the extra bulk, especially when you're using the stylus.   In general, it's a little bit easier to get hold of than the Tab, but not quite as easy as the Archos 70 IT.  Even the very first impressions leave you with the impression that you're handling a double-size scale model of a new HTC smartphone rather than a tablet.
 

One big choice is where to put that stylus: either you can use the case provided which includes a special pouch, or you can just carry it in your pocket.  Alternatively, of course, you could just leave it at home and not bother ...

There are three touch-sensitive buttons (menu, back, options), which it's very easy to brush across while you're in the middle of doing something else.  But kudos to HTC for including two sets of buttons, so they're available underneath the screen whether you're in landscape or portrait mode.  We also liked the white plastic trim at the back of the tablet which ensures a steady grip when holding the Flyer up to take a photo and when resting it on a table.

Screen

HTC is on solid ground with a SuperLCD screen, so we can only hope the manufacturer has followed up by calibrating it properly.  The Flyer has an average contrast ratio of 815:1, putting it in between the two generations of the iPad, which is a very satisfactory result.

The Flyer's ghosting time of 25 ms makes it boringly average for a tablet, neither falling below the 20 ms recorded on IPS displays (iPad 2, LG Optimus Pad) nor soaring to the heights of Acer's tablet and its black frame inserted into every three video frames.  The average deltaE is a decent—for a tablet, at least—7.1.

That figure is higher than what you'd get from Apple, but HTC manages to produce reasonable blacks, greys, reds and cyans while the other two primary colours are reproduced absolutely appallingly.  The Flyer's display has a warm, red tinge, but is in general well-balanced.

The screen itself can handle a few knocks, which is just as well, given that HTC invites users to draw on it ...

Interface and usability

HTC has launched an upgrade of its Sense interface on the Flyer, which is now at version 2.1.  The first big change you notice is that the different homescreens are now displayed in a 3D carousel that you spin around to get from one to the other.

Each homescreen represents a window on to your contacts, social networking, news and weather updates, e-books, notes, photos, news feeds or e-mails ...
 

Despite the 3G, you can only use it for accessing data and sending SMS and MMS: you can't make calls, which is rather disappointing for what is essentially an oversized smartphone.

The other new features in Sense 2.1 include SnapBooth, a virtual photo booth app, and HTC's own VOD platform, Watch.  There's a new task manager that you can access by sliding from the top of the screen down to the bottom.

Sense 2.1's Mail widget adds a few interesting features to a display which looks a little bit too much like what we'd expect from a smartphone; Android Honeycomb avoids creating that impression on much more ordinary tablets.

It's time to try the electronic stylus, said to be the final welcome addition that Sense 2.1 has brought to the Flyer.
 
 
If you put the weight to one side—it might be 'only' 15 g thanks to the AAAA battery, but if you're holding a 420 g tablet in the other hand ...—it's actually very useful in a number of situations.   The most obvious use is taking notes on the screen, which you can do in just about any app.  The Flyer takes a screenshot that you can draw on, so you can start from an e-book or website and underline, highlight and annotate using different sorts of pens in eight different colours and five different thicknesses.

You can activate the stylus at any time by tapping it against a special zone in the frame that doesn't react to your finger.  

On the stylus itself, there are two buttons which you can use to either delete or highlight text.  You can, of course, send notes to your contacts via the excellent Evernote platform which is integrated with the system.  The stylus is incredibly accurate and you only need to try the fountain pen option to see how well it picks up your writing.

Still, HTC is going to have to find some other ways of using its new stylus.  Holding the tablet in one hand and the stylus in the other quickly gets boring, but lying it flat on the table also leads to frustration because your hand inevitably activates the other touch-sensitive buttons, forcing you to quit your note or launch another app ...

Multimedia

Browsing the web is great on a HTC mobile, and it's just as fast, if not faster on Flash-heavy sites, on the Flyer.  Along with another tablet that we're in the middle of testing right now, the Flyer is actually the fastest we've seen so far. 

Web pages aren't displayed as sharply or as accurately as we'd expect in portrait mode, and depending on the font used, you can end up having to guess at what some text says rather than reading it.  Everything is much clearer in landscape mode.  The zoom feature is powerful and fast but accurate at the same time.  HTC has built a powerful browser that does a good job of tackling the task at hand.
 

Rather than playing video using custom software from HTC, you have to rely on the native Android app or a third-party app.  As you might know, the former only has support for MPEG 4, H.264 and m4a video files.  To get the most out of the Flyer's multimedia capabilities, you'll want to try another app.  HTC has tried to help out by pre-installing mVideoPlayer, but that's hardly the best choice.

HTC has designed its own music player, and has done a good job of making a clear interface without too many bells and whistles.  It looks pretty good, and after all, that's the main thing.  There's also a HTC app for e-books, but as with all LED screens, it doesn't take long to induce eye-strain.  The fact that the panel in question is pretty decent and that the room for adjusting the background and the font size used make short bursts of reading just about bearable though.

As we mentioned earlier, Sense 2.1 sees the introduction of HTC's video-on-demand service, Watch, which allows users to stream films they've rented over WiFi or 3G.  We couldn't, unfortunately, test it, as it still wasn't open for business when we had the Flyer in the lab.
 

Given that the Flyer went on sale on May 9 and users can tap on the Watch icon already, it might be time for HTC to actually turn the service on ...

The audio quality is as we'd expect from a HTC smartphone.  Listen to the headphones and you'll hear a muffled sound that's constantly interrupted by crackling feedback, but it will probably be just about acceptable for less demanding listeners.  Apple, Acer and Motorola all do a better job on this front.

The speakers are just as bad, easily sounding saturated with a very messy mix where it's very difficult to pick much out.  Worse still, you can forget about the SIS mode which is supposed to make things better but actually just makes the problems more apparent.

The Flyer isn't armed with an LED flash, but it does have a pretty decent 5 Megapixel camera that will sort you out most of the time as long as light levels are good.
 

Compare the HTC Flyer to other tablets, digital cameras and smartphones in our Product Face-Off

The amount of detail visible in photos is far from excellent, but HTC has had the good sense to leave things as they are without adding problems with post-processing.

We're glad that you can focus very accurately by tapping a specific area of the screen.

Battery Life

With a 4500 mAh battery, the Flyer should have what it takes to live up to the ambitions of ultra-mobile power-users.  Unfortunately, though, it's by no means the longest-lasting tablet we've seen so far.  When we tried a little bit of everything—surfing the web, sending e-mails, gaming and a few other things alongside—it only managed to last six and a half hours.  It's clear that the standby mode is far from efficient.

The results were almost exactly the same when we just played video constantly.  Given how bright the display is to start with, you can probably coax a little more battery life out of the Flyer by turning the backlighting down a little.

All told, then, there are some good things about the Flyer, and some less good things.  The stylus certainly helps it stand out from the crowd, but we're not sure what the real benefit is apart from the buzz.  Anybody who loves HTC and its Sense interface will be an instant convert—even if after trying Android 3.0 Honeycomb, we're still struggling with the idea of an Android tablet that works so much like a smartphone.
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HTC Flyer 32 GB WiFi/3G

Pluses

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Great use of the 7'' form factor

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Bright display has great contrast

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Stylus well-integrated into the interface

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Sense 2.1 looks gorgeous

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Web browsing is fast and easy

Minuses

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Only connector is a proprietary micro USB

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Battery life could be better

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Stylus: need to see how it does in the long term

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Touch-sensitive buttons are far too sensitive

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Heavy for its size

4
The HTC Flyer has been a long time coming and is worth the wait. But if you're looking for something different from your smartphone, be careful: it's a lot like an over-sized version of the firm's mobiles. Other users are likely to be put off by the weight, the stylus or the proprietary connectors. That said, it runs Sense 2.1, which looks great on a 7'' display that works very well indeed.
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