Taiwanase smartphone maker HTC unveiled its first Android Tablet – the Flyer at the Barcelona Mobile World Congress.
The Flyer is a 7 inch tablet running at launch time Android OS Gingerbread 2.3, and not Honeycomb 3.0 designed specifically for tablets. HTC justifies this choice by the time spent integrating their own Sense layer over Gingerbread 2.3. In a way, HTC Sense resolves a lot of the issues that comes from using a smartphone OS on a tablet device. However, a first feel of the tablet running Gingerbread is more like that of a giant smartphone; thankfully, HTC confirmed that an upgrade to Honeycomb 3.0 should be available in the near future.
Under its aluminium unibody design, the Flyer hides a single core 1.5GHz processor, a display with a 1,024 x 600 resolution, 1GB of RAM, and support for all different media file types. Mobile broadband via quad-band GSM/EDGE and tri-band 900/1700/2100 HSPA at 14.4Mbps will be available as well as the common high tech essentials such as Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, gyroscope, digital compass, and light sensor.
The Flyer includes two cameras. A rear 5 megapixels camera with autofocus and a front-facing 1.3 megapixels camera will be included for video chats.
The Flyer will come with 32GB of storage with the option to add extra storage room through a microSD slot. Multi-touch finger input is available and a pressure sensitive stylus will give users extra precision in note taking or drawings via HTC Scribe technology.
Timemark is an interesting software created by HTC that will prove very useful for note taking. It will syncs note taking on your device with recorded audio. Tapping on your note will take you to the audio section it was taken from. Pretty neat for anyone who doesn’t want to miss anything.
Another interesting feature is the Mobile Cloud Gaming with OnLive that will allow you to play online on your tablet or even TV screen.
The Flyer will also introduce HTC’s new video download service – HTC Watch. This feature will allow users to view directly from their device the latest movies in High Definition.
The Flyer is expected to release in the second quarter of 2011.
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