HTC Flyer

"Built into the HTC Flyer is HTC Scribe technology which provides the ability to accept input via a stylus or digital pen. Such a feature means you can use the Flyer as if it were a normal notepad – except everything will be stored digitally, not something many other tablets can do! Such a feature demonstrates how the Flyer could easily fit into personal and business scenarios. Whether it be for making notes in a meeting, getting customers to sign for delivery of something, the Scribe technology gives a world of opportunities. What good would this technology be without a digital pen? Well thankfully a HTC digital pen/stylus is included."

"For the ‘power user’ a feature called Timemark enables you to capture the audio of a meeting in line with your written notes, so tapping on a word in your notes instantly takes you to that exact place in time in the audio recording of the meeting. Notes are also integrated with the calendar so when there is an appointment reminder you are automatically prompted with an opportunity to begin a new note or in the case of recurring meetings, to continue where the last meeting left off. In an industry first, the HTC Flyer tablet also features built-in synchronisation with Evernote, the world-leading notes application and service. If you spend half your working day in a meeting of some form, you can probably see the benefit of this."

"The HTC Flyer tablet premieres HTC Watch, HTC's new video download service. This service enables low-cost on-demand progressive downloading of hundreds of High-Definition movies from major studios. Perfect for those movie fans, or those who could benefit from something to watch when on a trip."

"As if the HTC Flyer feature list was not extensive enough, gaming is taken to an entirely new level by being the first mobile device in the world to integrate OnLive Inc.'s revolutionary cloud-based gaming service. OnLive is leading in the home gaming market by letting you play top video games on your television without the need to buy expensive gaming hardware or software. When integrated fully, the OnLive service will enable you to pipe the OnLive service through the HTC Flyer tablet's broadband wirelessly to your television set, or of course played directly on the tablet."

It's an intriguing mix of high-end business and high-end entertainment features and that is not something often seen in an Android tablet.

In the box

I was pleasantly surprised by the box contents. Besides the usual AC charger, headphones and sync cable, there is a very smart leather pouch with a loop for the stylus and the stylus itself. It doesn't sound like a huge bundle, but this is the first mobile product I have used in a long time that gives you everything you need to get started. The pouch is white which does make it look rather feminine and the design is also responsible for that, but it affords a great deal of protection and strangely makes the Flyer look smaller than it already is. The stylus loop is a tight fit which of course is required to stop it coming loose and overall I have to say that I am impressed by the bundle.

Design

This is hard to explain because the design is split into two halves, front and back, which look completely different. On the back you get the typically high-end HTC look with brushed metal dominating and two smaller white plastic panels at either end. It looks completely different to all other tablets and much more expensive. However, the front looks like almost every other Android tablet. The screen surround is black plastic with just a hint of metal and white plastic at the top and bottom. Each end is slightly raised, but not significantly and thus we end up with an industry standard front design.

The buttons are as you would expect; a power button top-right next to the 3.5mm headphone jack, volume buttons on the right hand side (presumably to stop you accidentally hitting them when using it in landscape) and the microUSB jack is at the bottom which could be handy for docking. There are also two speakers on the back with a large camera lens top left. The lens isn't protected, but the surround is just pronounced enough to stop it being scratched when laid flat.

I like the design of the Flyer overall, but the materials used do make it slippery in the hand. Metal and plastic look great together and add to the aesthetic appeal, but it is all too easy to drop when you are in a hurry.

The Magic Pen

I have spent a good amount of time with the Flyer so far and have been quite impressed with the set up here and the way the various features blend together. I am going to concentrate on the most talked about feature first which is the stylus.

Apple doesn't so styluses and it shows with the Heath Robinson selection of accessories and apps designed to make the iPad feel like a paper pad. None of them succeed in bringing true digital handwriting to iOS, in my opinion, and I have found the iPad to be poor in this area. HTC has taken another track and bundled a Magic Pen which is supposed to offer greater accuracy and a more realistic writing experience, and it does. It was the very first feature I tested and felt quite real to me. I'm not going to go into the technical detail here because that's not important. The Magic Pen and the Flyer feel good together, they really do.

I found myself writing longer written notes than I ever did with the iPad in the first few minutes and there are many extra tricks included to make your own notes and annotations stand out. First up there is a selection of pens, pencils and ink pens along with a range of colours and other options. This lets you highlights particular words or parts of a document and easily share them with others. The notes app makes excellent use of the pen and includes a direct link to Evernote so that you can keep everything you want backed and stored online for use elsewhere. Tapping the small icon below the screen brings up a menu at the bottom which lets you take a 'snap' of the current screen (in most apps). From here you can annotate the image and then share it in a variety of ways or send to Evernote.

There are some inconvenient aspects to using a pen like this. For example, when you have clicked the pen icon you then need to use your finger to selection an option. I can't see how HTC can get around this, but it takes some getting used to.

This is by far the best digital inking solution I have used to date and shows that a truly great solution should be possible in the future. It is likely that updates will be released for the Flyer that help the pen feature work even better, but for now I have to say that it works well enough for me to use it in meetings and for whenever I want to take notes. I have not been able to say that about any other tablet or smartphone.

I have done a lot more on day one such as testing the music and video functionality, using Flash in web and exploring various other aspects of the system, but those will wait for the next write up.

Audio

Audio quality is excellent, it truly is, and music pumps out of a decent set of headphones in a manner that will please all, but the most obsessive audiophile. The music software is pleasing to use and makes scrolling through tracks as easy as can be, and overall the audio side impressed me much more than I expected. Even the external speaker is quite good and loud enough to share your media with others. It lacks some depth, but would suffice for watching a film without headphones if need be.

There are some sound settings built in to the music player and these are, as usual, hit and miss. They work well enough, but do make you fiddle around when you don’t need to. This is a problem with all devices that attempt to offer specific sound environments for different types of music and you are better off finding one you like and using it for all types of music. Irrespective of the above, the audio quality is very, very good.

Video

I transferred a couple of films over and started watching one with headphones attached. It looked good and everything was in sync, and then I discovered a little icon bottom left of the video menu. I tapped it and the sound burst into life, I tapped it again and surround sound arrived. There are multiple options available here, but for someone like me who still owns an old standard definition television, the inclusion of surround sound makes the entire experience much more immersive than I have seen on other tablets. I loved it and don’t like the thought of watching films and TV episodes on my smartphone again.

I tested many mediums including YouTube and I found the experience to be crisp and clear thanks to the 1024 x 600 screen and it worked much better than I had initially expected. I could live with the Flyer as an entertainment device and the sound capabilities push it up even further in my estimation.

The inclusion of Watch is most welcome and offers the ability to download and rent movies directly on the Flyer. The catalogue is not big at the moment and the pricing is on the high side, but the option to do this is a step forward. With Google Movies on the horizon, we are likely to see greater competition in this space and thus the pricing should be driven downwards.

Watch offers movies at roughly the same price as iTunes to purchase and rent, but there are some strange omissions within the current set up. For example, a browse through the TV episodes brought up no pricing at all and I had to set up an account to even see the prices. On this occasion I didn’t want to go that far.

Camera

The 5 Megapixel camera on the back is OK, but doesn’t feel like a 5 Megapixel camera at all to me. It’s not too bad and can take some good snaps, but doesn’t even rival the cameras HTC puts in its smartphones so don’t expect too much. There is also a 1.3 Megapixel on the front for video calling and that’s your lot.

The software available for video calling currently is limited and using a tablet for taking photos and video is never going to be high on the list of priorities so the actual quality of the camera is never going to have a huge impact. It is ironic that the camera here is way better than most tablets so that says a lot about cameras on tablets and how seriously manufacturers are taking them.

Looks like I had the Flyer the wrong way around, but as you can see you won't be using it as your main video camera.

Gaming and apps

I haven’t had much time to play with games on the Flyer so far, but Angry Birds works so what more do I need in life? Joking aside, the use of Gingerbread does throw up some inconsistencies when it comes to apps. For example, engadget will only run in a small window as does a checkers game I tried, but every other app and game I have installed so far works full screen and if high resolution.

There has been a lot of discussion about the use of Gingerbread and app compatibility (Honeycomb coming soon), but for most users the number of apps available from the Android Market will be more than enough. The lack of any warning that an app is not fully compatible doesn’t help the experience though and it would be nice to see this sorted.

I have been fairly happy with what is available so far, however, and will continue to explore before making a final judgement on Flyer apps and games.

In the five days I have been using the HTC Flyer, I have spent more time with it than most smartphones I have reviewed over the past year.

I hadn’t experienced this with a tablet before, but I was dragged back to it time and time again. Note-taking in particular became the uppermost use for me and I have already collected a substantial set of notes which have been automatically synchronised to Evernote. That may not sound brilliant when the price of the tablet is considered, but as I have said a few times this week the solution works better than any other I have tried.

HTC smartphones tend to follow the crowd and add some features that are slightly different to others, but in the case the Flyer is different in many ways to the ever growing raft of tablets entering the market. The Magic Pen is the stand-out feature, but that should not detract from the build quality, the speed and the form factor which all come together to make my favourite tablet so far.

I don’t know why it is my favourite, but I believe it to be a combination of many factors and the smaller inclusions that make it different to the rest. The pen input, surround sound, size and build and almost everything else about the Flyer make it a hugely likeable product and one which enables me to accept the lower than average battery life and non-tablet OS.

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