HTC Flyer Review

HTC Flyer

Review Summary:

The Flyer is not perfect, but the pen support and robust notes app make it a great mobile tablet for jotting down notes.

Pros

• Solid design and build
• Great keyboard
• Excellent notes app when used with N-trig pen

Cons

• Pen not bundled in US
• Flyer only runs smartphone apps at launch
• Can’t navigate device with pen

HTC Flyer Full Review

 

(Editor's Note: As of 7/5/11, Best Buy is bundling the Scribe digital pen with the Flyer. It is not clear if this is a permanent change or limited time offer.) 

HTC is certainly bringing something different into the tablet market with the Flyer. Instead of rolling out a Honeycomb tablet with the same specs as the Xoom and the rest of the newly released Android lineup, HTC instead released a seven-inch Gingerbread tablet with the custom Sense UI and single-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor. But the Flyer’s most defining characteristic is its N-trig pen accessory and HTC Scribe Technology, which turns the Flyer into a bona-fide note-taking tablet.

Read on to find out if HTC’s gamble paid off and if the Flyer is a scribbler’s dream tablet.

BUILD & DESIGN

Not only does the HTC Flyer sport unique specs, it looks different too – or, about as different as a slate can look from the other rectangular devices.

The Flyer’s back panel tapers off at the edges and bleeds over from the back to the front of the device, slightly protruding from the display. This, coupled with the two grip-friendly plastic covers/bumpers on the short sides of the Flyer make it exceptionally easy to hold with one hand. Of course, if you are going to utilize the Scribe tech and take notes, it makes sense for the Flyer to be one-hand friendly.

A quick tour of the Flyer reveals nothing is out of place. The display dominates the front with the front-facing camera lens punctuating the upper landscape portion of the frame. There are also four soft keys on two sides that light up depending on the Flyer orientation, including the familiar Android home, menu, and back options, as well as the Flyer-specific pen options, which include the various pen types, colors and sizes, as well as quick access to the notes app. This pen soft key won’t register finger taps, only pen input. The back houses the rear-facing camera lens and two speakers.

On the short side are the power/wake-sleep button on the top cover, next to the 3.5mm headset jack, and an odd USB connector input on the bottom cover, which works with both the proprietary cable that ships with the Flyer and mini USB. The top cover slides off to reveal the microSD card slot.

The upper long side of the Flyer houses the volume rocker and two on-board microphones, the bottom side is bare.

 

Overall, the Flyer feels great, and the little bumps and protrusions make it the best tablet for one-handed gripping to date. It has a great balance and is just heavy enough to feel solid.

It’s almost twice as thick as the iPad 2 at its center, but that’s the tradeoff for a solid device. The rear-camera lens protrudes from the back, making it especially prone to scratches, and the speakers are on the rear of the device, facing away from the user, when they ideally should be on the front.

I’m not a fan of the removable case. Unless it provides access to the battery or other element that is off limits with today’s tablets, I’d prefer a single piece body. The fact that it only provides access to the microSD card slot, which I don’t use much anyway, makes me wonder why HTC even bothered with it.

Finally, there is no place to dock the pen on the Flyer. I understand an embedded slot would compromise the design, but a removable clip or magnetic solution seems doable -- especially considering the $80 pen is expensive to replace.

HTC Flyer Specs:

• Android Gingerbread (2.3) with HTC Sense UI
• 7-inch diagonal capacitive TFT touchscreen (1,024 x 600), active pen supported
• 1.5Ghz single-core Qualcomm processor
• 1GB RAM
• 32GB internal memory, microSD
• Front-facing 1.3-megapixel, rear-facing 5.0-megapixel webcams
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS
• 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB
• 7.7 x 4.8 x .52 inches
• .92 lbs
• Price at Launch: $499.99, pen sold separately

Display and SpeakersThe HTC Flyer has the same 1,024 x 600 resolution as the other big-name seven-inch tablets on the market, the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the BlackBerry PlayBook, and it is certainly a Flyer strength. The display is bright and crisp with a pleasant and slightly warm tone, and is one of the best we’ve seen when viewed in the sweet spot, which is about a twenty-degree range directly in front of the camera. Touch sensitivity is also spot on, and Android tablets have really improved in that area since the early, slightly jittery days of the original Galaxy Tab.

Glare from the sun, which plagues tablets, is an issue for the Flyer, so outdoor use might be tough. Also, viewing angles are good, but not great, with the screen losing brightness when viewed off the sweet spot. I suspect this has something to do with the scratch resistant glass and/or pen sensors.

In addition to be poorly placed, the speakers poorly perform. They are plenty loud for personal use, but fidelity is sub par. It’s tinny and the bass is non existent. Thankfully, the sound is much better over headphones.

PERFORMANCE

The HTC Flyer bucks the tablet dual-core trend with a single core 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor. It also features the smartphone-centric Gingerbread instead of the more resource-intensive Honeycomb, so everything runs smoothly out of the box. Load up the Flyer with a live wallpaper and a bunch of heavy apps like Google Maps, and you’ll notice a slight performance hit. The Flyer powers on and starts up in about 30 seconds, which is average for other tablets in its class. The screen orientation was also zippy, though the Flyer will only adjust the screen to two distinct orientations, given that the Flyer’s soft keys are only present on two sides.

Like smartphone browsers, the HTC Flyer’s has no issue with text-heavy sites, but is slightly slow to load more complex ones. Flash performance is hit or miss, with HD video presenting particular issues. The HTC Flyer had the worst score when compared with current tablets in the Sunspider Javascript benchmark (lower is better), coming in just below the PlayBook and well below the current leader, the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer.

In overall performance, the Flyer bested only Xoom among Android tablets in the Quadrant benchmark (measures CPU, 3D performance, and memory, higher is better), but came within spitting distance of the Transformer and G-Slate.

Apps and OSAt first, I was wary of the Flyer running Gingerbread as it is a smartphone OS. HTC has not confirmed it will receive the Honeycomb update, but a Sprint rep commented the EVO View 4G, Sprint’s WiMAX version of the Flyer would. She may have been talking out of turn, because Sprint has officially been silent on the subject. It might make sense for both Sprint and HTC to wait on Ice Cream Sandwich, which Google claims will bring the tablet and smartphone versions of Android together.

Anyway, I was wrong to be wary. The HTC Sense custom UI perfectly adapts Gingerbread for the big screen. Sense divvies up Gingerbread into a homescreen with a handful of app shortcuts and seven additional screens for more app shortcuts or large widgets, all arranged in a rotating 3D carousel. Unfortunately, the widgets cannot be resized as they can with Honeycomb 3.1, and most are large enough that they take up the whole screen. Nevertheless, they make good use of the Flyer’s screen real estate.

HTC also applied a custom onscreen keyboard to the Flyer, which features quick access to symbols, haptic feedback for typing, and a decent word suggestion option. It’s much better than the onscreen keyboards found on the Xoom, iPad 2, G-Slate, or other recently-reviewed tablets.

The apps are a different story. Without Honeycomb, the Flyer cannot run Android tablet apps, meaning it’s stuck with the same issue that plagued the Galaxy Tab. Apps have either been adjusted to fill the seven-inch screen, or they run at smartphone size with a thick black border. I found more of the former than the latter, but after taking one look at the excellent CNN for Android Tablet app on the Xoom, I was disappointed to be saddled with the plain CNN for Android Phones.

There are a few missing elements as well. The Android Market movies are not available at launch, though HTC does have its own online movie outlet. The HTC selection is paltry compared to the thousands of movies offered up by Google, but there are a few decent titles, including new releases, to rent and own. When Google announced Android Market movies in May, reps claimed it will come to Gingerbread devices “in the coming weeks.” We are still waiting. Also, there is no native video chat (Google Talk is present, but doesn’t support video calls on the Flyer), but there are plenty of video chat offerings in the Android Market.

PenThe active pen support is the Flyer’s defining feature. Unfortunately, for US consumers, a pen does not come bundled with the device and an HTC N-trig unit will cost an extra $80 at launch.

The N-trig pen, or HTC Scribe Digital Pen, looks very much like the one that ships with the Fujitsu T580. In fact, I think it’s the same exact unit. It’s powered by an AAAA battery (included) and the pen tip has a very slight give to measure pressure sensitivity. There are two buttons, with one used for erasing and the other highlighting chunks of text. It has a nice weight, girth, and solid build when in the battery is in pace, but the tip causes it to rattle slightly when shaken. 

The pen shows its true utility when used with the notes app that ships with the Flyer. It’s a surprisingly robust scribbling application that in addition to enabling pen-based notes and doodles, also incorporates audio annotation recorded via the onboard mic, pictures from the onboard camera, and file attachments. Notes can also be synched up with the Flyer calendar as well as Evernote, the popular note-taking and collaboration service.

All-in-all, it’s a great app, and I think scribblers will find it useful. However, it’s lacking in some areas. First and foremost, there is no handwriting recognition. The note-jotting experience is smooth and pleasant, but the notes app won’t convert the handwritten notes into text. Also, recording audio while jotting notes will result in a sound file with audible clanks from the pen hitting the screen. Finally, you can use the pen to tap and select the pen size, color, and type (the Flyer offers dozens of useful combinations), but you can’t use it to open the calendar, a new note, record audio, attach a file, or snap a photo – those all require a finger tap.

In fact, the pen works for only scribbling on the screen and not navigation. We’ve extolled the virtues of navigating the iPad with a stylus, so it’s a shame that you can’t do the same with the Flyer and the N-trig pen. Instead of registering taps and swipes, the pen instead directs the Flyer to grab a screenshot. It’s an odd feature, one I cannot see much use for, especially in lieu of the navigation-based alternative.

CONCLUSION

If you want an Android tablet for note taking and general productivity, the Flyer is your best option, provided you pick up the pen. If you just want a seven-inch tablet, it slightly bests the Samsung Galaxy Tab in overall performance, design and specs.

I didn’t care for the awkward pen “screen grab” default feature, and the Flyer’s inability to run tablet apps is a major shortcoming, even though the Samsung Galaxy Tab suffers the same drawback. But the Sense UI and Gingerbread combo work great on the seven-inch screen, and the surprisingly robust notes app combined with the fine inking experience should make most scribblers happy.

A future OS update, either to Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich, would fix the app issue, but there is no guarantee the Flyer will ever see one.

Overall, I like what I see in the Flyer and am happy to report that it’s not just another Android tablet. Here’s hoping HTC continues to support the pen and expand its functionality for future devices.

Pros Solid design and build Great keyboard Excellent notes app when used with N-trig pen

Cons Pen not bundled in US Flyer can’t run tablet apps at launch Can’t navigate device with pen