HTC's smartphones have always been original
and reasonably impressive, but their sole entry into the mini-tablet world was
an atypical outing for the company: fairly tentative and middling. Featuring
the company's trademark Sense UI and a stylus, there's a lot about the HTC
Flyer that was good, but over 18 months after release, it can't help looking
stagnant and overpriced.
The stylus-based input feels like a missed
opportunity. Sense is designed for smartphones, and doesn't quite translate to
tablets. The handwriting recognition is poorly implemented (you only have to
look at the Samsung Galaxy Note II to see how it should be done) and a feature
that allows for pressure sensitivity is fiddly and impractical wherever it's
actually implemented, which isn't in many places at all.
Worse still, the hardware specs were awful
even at the time. Now, they're actively painful. 1.5GHz single-core CPU? 1024x600
resolution screen? Flatly inadequate. 32GB of storage is fairly good, and the
combination of 5MP/1.3MP cameras does at least register on the lower end of
hardware scales, but let's be honest: there's nothing here to make it worth
paying $162 for, never mind more than twice that. The only interesting feature?
Dual microphones to help with noise reduction.
Further dissuading you from any thoughts of
actually buying an HTC Flyer should also be the news that the follow-up, the
HTC Flyer 2, is actually in the works. We wouldn't expect to see it until
mid-2013 at the earliest, but if there's some kind of brand loyalty or moral
imperative that compels you to buy HTC hardware, you're better off waiting to
see what that's actually like. Any tablet more than 18 months old struggles in
the face of the Nexus 7 and its competitors, but it's hard to know what HTC
thought they were doing. The Flyer was overpriced and underpowered on release
day, and time has only made it all the more so.
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Details
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Screen Size: 7"
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Internet: Wi-Fi + 3G
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Price: 16 GB ($373) / 32 GB ($454)
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OS: Android 3.2 (Honeycomb)
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UK Release Date: May 2011
Verdict
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Quality: 4
·
Value: 3
·
Overall: 3
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