HTC - Flyer Tablet with 16GB Internal Memory - White

I love HTC. I love their designs, their metal products, and their Sense UI. Fortunately for me, the HTC Flyer has all these things. First, the positives: +Gorilla Glass screen is bright, crisp, and has amazing viewing angles (on par with my Samsung Focus' Super AMOLED). +Paired with the aluminum unibody design, it really feels like your money has bought you a solid tank of a tablet. +Sense is beautiful, and HTC has gone all out to make it pretty and functional. The widgets, while taking up the whole screen, are usually very useful. +Battery life has been above average. With almost constant use it can make it upwards of 9 hours on a single charge, sometimes 10. +Notes application is intuitive with voice recording and syncing to Evernote and your calendar. +Google Music allows me to not have to load up a single song on to my tablet because I can stream them all over WiFi. Saves a lot of space. +Keyboard takes some getting used to, but once you get rolling the portrait keyboard is excellent. Landscape keyboard is hard to use and pointless. +Web browser is fantastic; I have barely used my laptop in days. True desktop experience, and loads Flash like a charm. Super smooth 720p YouTube playback. Flash games don't work well but I never use them anyway. +Very loud and clear speaker. Works well with Groove IP, allowing me to do VoIP calls with my Google Voice. Now some negatives.. -Even with its fast 1.5 gHz processor, random things will lag. Games will work very smooth, but simple things like the application tray and the folder widget are VERY slow to scroll. -Lack of game support is a downer. None of Gamelofts HD games even show up in the Market. However, the games that worked, worked great. -Says it has 16gb of internal storage, but says it only has about 8gb of "tablet storage", along with ~3gb of "internal storage". Paired with a 16gb SD card, there is still more than ample space for apps. -No built in application to use the front facing camera. Had to scour the market for something that worked: Fring. No Skype videochat support. -No Netflix support. Forced to watch Netflix on either my Focus or my laptop. -Solid design makes it tiring to hold for extended periods of time if you're reading an eBook or webpages. -Camera is average, video is bad, but I rarely use them anyway. Autofocus is a welcome addition however. Minor nuisances: *No option in Mail for loading emails "as they arrive." My Windows Phone will pick up emails long before they reach my Flyer. *Can't uninstall baked in apps like Twitter, which I never use. *Facebook for HTC Sense and the regular Facebook app create duplicate contacts. Not a big deal because they are cleaned up when automatically linked. *Gallery seems to almost randomly sort photos, because they certainly aren't ordered by file name or date taken. Perhaps I just missed the option. *Scribe pen is not included, which is a surprising move since it is a major selling point. From what I have read I'm not missing much, and if you must have it you can pick up a Fujitsu pen that works the same for about $30. Overall it is a very solid tablet with a great design, great interface, above average battery life, and a pretty good laptop replacement. However it has its shortcomings that can distract from the experience.

I always wanted to have a tablet or an ipad for a long time but I couldn't think of a reason to use it. I already have a laptop and a netbook so I didn't want to have another electronic that basically does the same job. Also, I didn't think that the original price ($499) was justified for the 7-inch HTC Flyer, especially that the only wireless service it has is Wi-Fi and that the digitizer pen is being sold separately. Also, the price was so close to the base price of the iPad. But when I saw that the Flyer was on sale for $299, I had to get it and, man, was I glad to have it. I find myself use it a lot for note-taking in meetings and at conferences, searching for information on the internet, and checking on email. I can use it for my class so I can take a snapshot of my writing on the whiteboard. I can control my schedule on the Flyer's calendar. I normally do all those on my HTC Evo but it is a lot more comfortable to do it on the Flyer. The camera quality is good. I don't expect to take a great picture on any phone or tablet but I am pretty satisfied with the picture and video quality of the Flyer camera. YouTube app works great on my Flyer but there are some videos that won't play on it because they are not designed to play on a mobile device. But if you view them on a browser, they work fine. I am able to open and edit MS Office documents with the Polaris Office app on the Flyer. There are e-books you can read with the Google Books app, Nook app, and Kindle app. There are a lot more apps you can do with the Flyer so it is something you have to try for yourself. I give a lot of pros on this device but the only cons I can think of are the pen and the virtual keyboard. It is expensive. It was 80 dollars when I bought it. The flyer doesn't have a pen holder for the pen so it is easy to lose (but I did find a perfect case that holds the pen tightly). Also, the pen requires AAAA (yes, 4 As) battery so that takes some searching. The pen is useful but I don't use it as often as I would like. I did use for writing a note on my Flyer but I have found myself prefer to type things down than to write because it is easier to copy and paste. I already knew that the Flyer does not convert handwritten text into typed text but I like to have the handwriting option. Also, I can draw something on the Flyer or highlight texts with the "highlighter" so it is cool. It is also a little noisy too when I write on the glass but with the protective plastic cover, it helps with the noise. As for the keyboard, it is comfortable to use with my thumbs in the portrait mode but not so comfortable in the landscape mode. But I downloaded the app called Thumb Keyboard and the problem was solved.

I have been long awaiting the arrival of the Flyer. I started out with a first Gen Ipad, had that for a while, loved the concept, a former Iphone user and now android convert. Don't get me wrong, I am a PC and Mac/apple head, so my views come from a variety of viewpoints. Luck would have it that I found a store in No, CA that was willing to sell a tablet before the 5/22/11. I had called 4 stores all said they could not sell until the 22nd, I found one that said "come on in". Since the Flyer is so new, the only accessory was a Zagg Invisible shield, that I purchased and they installed, I am a believer in the shield in particular but it is worth the effort. I have an HTC EV0 4G and well this baby is it's big brother/sister...The new sense UI is awesome, it works well, and the interface by HTC makes it seem so far ahead of it's time even with 2.3 on at the present. Frankly I purchased a Xoom WiFi and Honeycomb was not all that impressive compared to the Sense 3.0 UI. I can't wait to see what HTC will do with it's UI and the Honeycomb update which is supposed to occur in the near future. I originally loved the size of the Ipad 10.1 display its was a royal "pain" ergonomically to hold and use for any period of time such as on a lap without using a pillow. I then purchased the Galaxy Tab 7 found the 7" display to be a perfect size, but I felt that the display blacks were not deep enough on the Galaxy Tab and this made some angles appear to wash out and the fonts hard to see. The HTC Flyer feels as nice and balanced for it's size and weight as does the IPAD 2. It feels solid, and gives you the feeling that your hard earned dollars went to something that looks and feels high quality and of professional grade. I am a Motorola shareholder and a believer in them, I enjoyed the Xoom but found it far too heavy and bulky feeling but it had the rubberized back. It was quality but I found having used so many portable devices that this size fits me just fine and is more portable. I was going to wait for the Galaxy 8.9 but as for portability the 7" is hard to beat but it's all preference and how you plan to use the devices. I'm loving 2011 from the standpoint of cool new devices, it's freaky how our technological life's rival and often mirror the generation's old Star Trek (tri-corder) and shows of the like. Have fun with this device, I'm so very happy I found one and I think you will too.

Ok, So I own an iPad (1). I purchased a Xoom, Acer and an iPad 2 and returned them all. Honeycomb is still buggy. The Xoom is too heavy and my wrist started hurting after a week. At first I didn't realize it was from holding the Xoom until I returned it for an iPad 2. The iPad 2 was light and worked faster than the first. But we didn't need two, plus I don't like the restrictions on Apple products. No Flash support is frustrating. Friends post things on Facebook all the time that just won't play on the iPad. I then returned the iPad 2 for the Acer a500. While it is more balanced and easier to hold then the Xoom, it was buggier the Xoom....foreclosures occurred frequently. And it also would wake up for seemingly no reason at all. Nice price but performance seemed loose. I then returned it for the HTC Flyer. Love the flyer. Easy to hold and the screen is crisp and easy to read. The built in browser comes set to view full web sites, which I love. However if you like to see the mobile sites it's an easy option to change in the browser settings. HTC Sense 3.0 looks and works great. No foreclosures so far and the operation is smooth, fast and crisp, Awesome!!! The built in widgets are great. You have the freedom to customize your screens to provide cool dashboards and simple quick access to apps. I really don't miss Honeycomb and will be happy to wait for future versions of Honeycomb that improve performance. I can watch movies, watch slingbox, connect remotely to my mom’s PC with PhoneMYPC, check weather, sports, Facebook, email and set alarm for work in the morning. I’m really impressed with the HTC and 7” may be my tablet size of choice. I also used it on the golf course this morning as a range finder (FreeCaddie Pro or SkyDroid). I also listed to music on Slacker and use it for navigation in the car. All this without errors, foreclosures or unsupported Flash messages. In my educated opinion, this is easily the best tablet on the market. Can’t wait to see the bigger HTC tables. I think they have the right plan. Just looking at the screens and widgets is enough to blow you away. Visually pleasing. Learn from my experience with the other options and buy this one if you’re ready. Obviously others are coming, but this one gets the 5 stars now.

I've owned two HTC phones (Hero and EVO), so I'm familiar with the HTC product. I'm of the opinion that HTC develops good products, so I was anxiously awaiting The Flyer. For me, this tablet is exactly what I was looking for. I picked mine up 5/26, so I've been able to play with it for four days now. I like to set my toys up before I dig into them, so I spent time downloading and installing certain apps, and choosing my background, widgets, etc. The first thing that I noticed was the tablet speed, very fast. I've not experienced any delays or hiccups or force closes since I've had the tablet. Multi-tasking is brisk and does not lag. The single core 1.5 ghz processor is plenty horsepower for this tablet, and I had an existing 16 gig SD card, so I doubled my memory off the bat. The 7" screen is gorgeous, and movies and videos look fantastic. I think the speaker system is average, nothing great, but nothing bad either. I personally plan to use headphones when listening to music/movies. My Google apps account showed right up obviously, so I had the opportunity to download and install previously used apps. There were only a few that were not available in the market with the tablet, but that is a bit deceiving. Of all the apps that I installed on the Flyer, I want to say that 30-40% of them were not ready for tablet use. They worked, but they looked small, like for a phone screen, not a 7" screen. The app was centered on the screen, but did not fill the screen. I'm sure once Honeycomb is pushed to the tablet, all applications will be full screen. The camera (5 megapixel), as I'm sure you have read, does not compare to camera's like on the EVO or Thunderbolt. It's average at best. I don't plan to use my 7" tablet to take pictures, so it wasn't a big deal for me. The front facing camera is 1.3 megapixel, just like the phones. Unfortunately, I have not found a video chat app to use. Qik is not included in the software. Finally, the stylus (pen). I actually bought two tablets, one for me and one for my woman. We then purchased one pen to share. The pen itself is sturdy and the response on the tablet is amazing. I've played with the pen somewhat, but not enough to give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. My girlfriend will probably use it more than I will as she is drawn to those kinds of tools/software apps. As a first impression for me, though, I could live without the pen. Bottom line for me, I was looking for a fast 7" tablet, with a great user interface, a bright screen, and the ability to customize it the way that I want. I found it in the HTC Flyer! And, Honeycomb is on the horizon for it!

The HTC Flyer when launched was priced at $499 which was an insane price for a 7 inch Gingerbread device. No doubt that the hardware specs were truly latest with 16 GB onboard memory, yet it did not justify $499. Once it came down to $299, this seemed to be the best bet for the buck. Compare this hunk with samsung 7 inch galaxy tab and it wins hands down in every aspect. Agreed that it is Gingerbread and not Honeycomb but an update is expected. Even if it does not get released, Gingerbread is good enough for a 7 inch tab as all the phone apps run well on a 7 inch tab and dont face the resolution issue as on a 10 inch tab. So really dont even need a Honeycomb on a 7 inch and especially with the wonderful HTC Sense UI (i also own a HTC Sensation and will buy anything with HTC Sense on it) I really dont miss Honeycomb on it. Also, the fact that Android market is not yet matured for Honeycomb apps, it makes all the more sense to stick to Gingerbread for the time being to make the best of all the apps currently available for the phone. Coming from HTC Sensation, using this tab was more of using an enlarged Sensation phone and from day 1, i knew what is what but that is just a bonus. Even people moving from another vendor based UI to Sense UI will find it that it is very easy to navigate and the animations are truly world class. Havent used the Pen yet. Will wait for its price to come down further and am sure that it will be a great experience as well. For $299, even if you compare to the yet to launch $199 Kindle Fire or $249 Nook Color, this wins handsdown because for the $50/100 more, you get a full version of Android with Android Market place and all of Google Services and not a skinned down version of Android as on Fire and Nook which am sure most will root and install full Android...so why take the trouble??? secondly the onboard memory is double (16 GB) compared to 8 GB on Nook and Fire and so does the RAM (1 GB) vs 512 MB (or less) on Nook and Fire. So this is how I would compare it. Finally, remember that in real this is a premium tab whose price has been marked down and it is truly premium in experience.

I work in a research lab and this has been an awesome tool for work. It is so much easier to document systems. Just snap a picture and any notes I need to document in terms of trouble spots or where wires are connected can be easily done with lots of colors. That alone makes the stylus worth it. I can also snap pictures of Labview code and mark it up then when I get back to it I have all the notes I need to continue with my project. It's also worked great for taking meeting at notes and small little notes throughout the day in general. Never again will I have to go searching for a post-it with a key bit of information that I needed or sort through mountains of lab notebooks. You can also read and mark-up .docx and .pdf. Actually a lot of professional viewers completely missed this feature. There are more apps than the e-reader app. I love the 7" form factor. It is actually a size I can carry around with me all day without resorting to a man purse. It's also extremely easy to hold with one hand and typing in portrait mode is a near perfect experience. Check out thumb keyboard app which will let you have a a great keyboard experience for landscape too. Also, the battery is fantastic. I've never had to worry about the battery at work. No trouble getting multiple day charge out of it. Overall, HTC did a fantastic job making Android 2.3 usable for a small tablet due to all of the customizations they added to their apps. That being said it is not perfect. While you are taking notes, if you hit the home button instead of the back button, you can lose your work. And sometimes notes just cannot be opened because they are stuck in an endless save loop. However, these are all software issues I know will get fixed. Until then I will just deal with it. Finally, while the screen is very bright and crisp and looks tough, It scratches very very easily. Please buy a screen protector. Just trust me on this.

I tried both the Motorola Xoom and HTC Flyer extensively (as in, did life with each for a few days to make up my mind.) The Xoom is a great tablet, but the form factor of the Flyer won me over. It is so much more portable and comfortable to hold with one hand, or to hold and type on. The 10" tablet pretty much requires you put it down on your lap or a surface to type, and the larger size = heavier and more unwieldy, which is annoying for reading. The 7" screen with 1024 x 600 resolution is plenty for viewing webpages well, doing e-mail/calendar/contacts stuff, etc. The size is perfect for e-books, blogs, etc. The processor is plenty capable for everything I've tried. (I'm not convinced that a dual core processor would be a benefit--especially in Gingerbread.) The Flyer is missing one star because of the software. HTC Sense on the Flyer (a special Tablet version) is really nice. Gingerbread is snappy and stable. But, in their quest to sell media through their proprietary apps, and their desire to control the Sense experience, HTC blocks some apps from the Market. (At least, that's what I'm guessing is happening when I can't find apps in the Market.) As of this review, Honeycomb has not been released for the Flyer. HTC says it will be. That'll be its own review--I like Honeycomb, but there are less apps available. Truthfully, though, I'm finding more and more tablet apps I'd like to use that won't run on Gingerbread, and that is making me look forward more to the Honeycomb update. (HTC better not renig on that one!) To wrap it up--nice, quality, well-performing tablet. The size is perfect for me. (A 10" tablet could function as a laptop replacement, perhaps, but not for a portable internet/media device + e-book reader.) I thoroughly enjoy my Flyer, find it very useful, and am rarely out and about without it (that last bit is largely due to its size...)