First Look: HTC Flyer 7.1" inch Android Tablet

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

We've found the prospect of HTC Flyer intriguing from the first time it was leaked back in February. Well, after three long months we've finally gotten our mitts on HTC's bold new tablet during a customer event in downtown Toronto. Not only did we get an awesome walkthrough, we also got to meet Youenn Colin, one of the industrial designers from HTC"s firm One & Co. All that and a slideshow right after the jump.

We like 7"inch tablets, we like their portability and also the innocuous nature of the device that doesn't call attention to itself the same way a 10.1" inch tablet would. The HTC Flyer, clad in a lightweight but resilient aluminium unibody enclosure and a few subtle coloured rubber panels feels three generations ahead of last year's boy wonder, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7" inch. It just feels slimmer, more contoured and substantially lighter even if the dimensions are not too different. Both run phone versions of Android so no Honeycomb goodness either way.

Compared to our BlackBerry PlayBook, we see some similarities in strong design and build quality but the HTC Flyer is more flamboyant overall than the conservative but rock solid PlayBook. The contrast is palpable, the PlayBook looks serious and built for the corporate world, just the same way Navy blue 5 Series BMWs have "suit" written all over them. The HTC Flyer is more about fun, like an Audi TT convertible with the top down. They basically do the same things for you, but one seems to look and feel a bit better doing it.

The design of the HTC Flyer is totally in line with the rest of HTC's design language. At first, the Flyer does look like a jumbo smartphone but once you play with it a bit more you quickly realize a lot of the widgets and apps have been tabletized. The demo unit we had was a WiFi only version (the 16GB variant of which is available in the US for $499).  Below is a quick video of all the Flyer's key features and functions.

HTC seems to be paying the most attention to material, design and interesting new use cases. Their HTC Sense overlay is hands down the most elegant, least obnoxious user interface on Android devices today and they've created some really compelling apps running on Sense that lend themselves to better use of the tablet. 

Then there's the $80 stylus, which received a lot of flack for:

1) being a stylus in this age of finger-happy tablet use 

2) for being an $80 extra something you can easily lose.

Sure, the stylus can be used to take notes, draft quick sketches and even capture screenshots (a killer feature that puts all other tablet screenshot shortcuts to shame) as well as offer some real note-taking functionality.

Do you need it? That depends. I mean the thing comes with a software keyboard after all. Stylii remind us too much of the dark days of calibrating digitizers, resistive screens, PalmPilots and TabletPCs. I think we've moved from that paradigm.

Now, if the stylus turns the Flyer into a mini-Wacom tablet, that's a different story altogether, but seeing as it is the only Android device with a stylus, we're not expecting too many applications of any substantial scale to support it.

When we get excited about a new device or gadget, we're always often let down by something when we finally see it in person and spend hands on time with it. Either the build is odd or there's something funky about the fit and finish. Not so with the HTC Flyer.

The HTC Flyer was better than we had imagined, it doesn't pretend to be anything that it isn't. It is an extra-large Android smartphone, without the phone component but with a larger screen and a rich array of functions and truly useful features and widgets.

Build quality and design is beautiful, unique and it just feels so well balanced to hold. Functionality, that we'll have to test once we've reviewed it further. But for now it really looks and feels good. If HTC can sell this in Canada for $499, then this is hands down the only 7" inch Android tablet worth considering.