With a steady flow of Honeycomb tablets being launched in the market, there are now plenty of contenders to take on the iPad 2. Affordable prices, more connectivity options and better compatibility are just some of the reasons why people are choosing Android tabs over Apple. So when HTC launched its maiden tablet, the HTC Flyer, there was a lot of speculation over why the company had decided to market an outdated Gingerbread device, that too at a price that makes the iPad look like value for money. Don't be put off just yet though, because this little tab has a few surprises up its sleeve.

First impressions

The HTC Flyer isn't anorexic, neither does it claim to be. It's pretty chunky, and its tri-colour exterior consisting of a black bezel, aluminium back panel and white inserts don't add to its glam appeal. Despite this, the finish is great. It feels reassuring sturdy in my hands, and the weight isn't a put off. The aluminium body reminds me of the iPad, but I wouldn't really call it a clone. An intriguing feature of the Flyer is that it supports pen input. I'm not talking about antiquated resistive touch screens, because the pen isn't a stylus. I'll come to the pen later though. For now, you'll be pleased to know that the Flyer ships with an elegant white carrying case which provides protection for your tablet. A magnetic cover flap makes it easy to use and there's even a slot for the Magic pen.

Our review unit was a Wi-Fi+3G one, which comes with 32GB of internal storage. This can be expanded by another 32GB via micro SD card. There's also a Wi-Fi only unit, which comes with 16GB of storage. The top cover can be prised open to reveal the SIM and micro SD card slot. Our unit gave us some trouble with this though, and I was not happy nursing my broken fingernail!

The tablet features touch sensitive Android buttons for Home, Menu and Return. There's also a button which brings up the pen menu. A nice touch is that when you shift orientation to landscape mode, the left side of the bezel has the same selection of buttons, so you can operate the tablet completely from either angle. Of course the downside to this is that orientation doesn't work in all four directions.

User Interface

Ok, so I know most of you will ask why HTC would choose Gingerbread instead of Honeycomb. Honeycomb is adapted especially for Android tablets, but there's still a glitch – you don't get access to all the apps in the Android Market. With Gingerbread, this isn't the case, and with the added benefit of HTC Sense, the tablet provides a fairly decent user experience. HTC has talked about an upgrade to Honeycomb in the near future, so we'll keep you posted on that.

If you've used HTC phones in the past, you'll be familiar with the Sense skin that merges quite beautifully with Android. The screen can be unlocked by dragging the lock ‘ring' upwards. There are a bunch of applications above the ring, which you can drag into it to start working. For example, dragging the Internet icon into the ring will immediately open the browser.

The tablet has eight easily customisable home screens, to which you can add various widgets and icons. I particularly liked the Gmail widget, which displays your inbox at a quick glance. Also convenient is HTC's social networking app, Friend Stream, which integrates your Twitter and Facebook feed.

The Flyer comes with its ebook app, ‘Reader'. Our unit came preloaded with a bunch of books, including interesting reads like Jack London's ‘White Fang'. There's a really nice scroll tool which lets you scroll page wise through the book, giving you chapter details as you skim through.

I really liked the overview feature on the Flyer. For example, if you're using the browser, you can see an overview of all your tabs on top of the screen simply by clicking the tab icon. Similarly, for Twitter, if you tap on a post in your feed, it divides the screen into two and displays the entire post on one side. If the post contains a link, it will also open up the webpage so you can view content at a glance. The same goes for Gallery and Calendar apps. However, this split view only works in landscape mode.

The Android keyboard was a pleasure to type on, both in landscape and portrait mode. It was quick and responsive, and HTC's word prediction software is spot on.

Entertainment

One of the main considerations of many tablet buyers is understandably the screen. So far, the best screens I've seen on any tablets are in the iPad and the Blackberry Playbook. The Flyer's capacitive screen with a 1024x600 resolution doesn't disappoint. Navigating the tablet was really easy, and video playback revealed good colour reproduction, decently sharp images and no stutter between frames. At 7-inches, there's plenty of screen real estate for more than a couple of people to watch a movie comfortably. The stereo speakers at the rear are loud, to say the least. You can activate surround sound by tapping the icon at the bottom of the screen, but it's only when you put on a pair of headphones that you see how effective it really is. The music player app has some neat equaliser settings too.

The Flyer has two cameras, a rear 5-megapixel one and a front facing 1.3-meg camera. The main camera gave us some decent results – nothing as good as the Playbook, but definitely better than the iPad 2. There are a bunch of interesting effects to choose from. I actually enjoyed the front camera more, mostly because of HTC's Snapbooth app. All the effects that you get on the main camera are available here, and it's a fun way to get together with friends and create a fun Facebook (or Google+) album.

The Flyer does ship with HTC Watch and OnLive, which are the company's movie download and gaming service, but these aren't available in India as of now.

Magic Pen

Having read this review so far, you might wonder where exactly the magic pen fits in. I've already mentioned that the pen isn't a stylus, so what is its USP exactly? The pen basically converts the entire tablet into a scribble pad. Once the tablet is unlocked, you can either take a screenshot or open the Notes app simply by tapping the pen on the Scribe icon. After that, the tablet becomes your personal canvas. You can choose from a variety of pen types, colours and nib sizes.

Of course, the purpose of the pen isn't for creativity alone. You can take a screenshot of an interesting website and highlight a paragraph, and send the image across to your friends via email, social networks or Bluetooth. If you're a student, the pen works to underline important sections in a chapter, or make notes by the side of the page. The Reader app allows you to view all your notes at a glance, which is really convenient. Or you can even attempt what I tried, and draw moustaches on friend's photos and upload them on Facebook.

Performance

The Flyer is powered by a 1.5 GHz processor, Adreno 205 graphics and 1GB RAM.

We ran a couple of benchmark tests on the Flyer. On Quadrant, we got an average score of 1,857, and on Linpack, we got a result of 54 MFLOPS. To give you an idea, Moto Xoom scores an average of about 2,283 on Quadrant after an update, and 42 MFLOPS on Linpack.

I didn't face any issues with the tablet freezing, but it wasn't really what I would call snappy. Simple things like changing orientation and opening apps took a while longer than most tablets, but it's not really something to be concerned about.

Battery life was outstanding – it's the only tablet I've seen so far that can equal the iPad's 9-hour mark. We used it continuously, with Wi-Fi on and Gmail and Friend Stream running in the background. We even managed to catch a couple of hours of Angry Birds Rio, web browsing and video watching. Basically, it can keep you entertained on a long haul flight.

Our Verdict

The HTC Flyer does come with its set of compromises – an unabashedly steep price tag, outdated Android Gingerbread operating system and a chubby form factor. However, I think that the company should win brownie points for originality. It's the first tablet after the iPad that's actually brought something different to the table, and if you think 7-inches is more your type, then it's the best droid tab to go for right now.

Love: Magic pen, good battery life

Hate: Outdated OS

Rs 39,890

ketaki@thehindu.co.in

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