HTC Flyer - A hands on review

From it announcement in MWC 2011, HTC is hoping that its new tablet able to take a bite from the market dominated by Apple iPad. But does it have what it takes to do so?
HTC Flyer is an Android 2.3.3 based tablet. HTC has optimized its HTC Sense UI for tablet usage. Not only that HTC also included a HTC Scribe™ digital pen which allows you to do a multitude of wonderful thing, including drawing, note taking, text-marking, and highlighting (with choices of colors).

HTC has opt for the smaller form factor of 7 inch tablet for Flyer. The tablet sports a 7″ 1024×600 Super LCD display with multi-touch capability. With weight around 420g and thickness of 13.2mm (0.52″), it light and really fit into your hand. It feels thinner as well. Aesthetically, I am more towards Samsung Galaxy Tab design, HTC Flyer looks quite smart with it aluminium and the white plastic chassis.
Under the hood, HTC Flyer is powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon processor with 1GB RAM and 32GB ROM. The tablet also has a 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera. There are a few hard buttons around it’s body for power on/off and volume up/down. On the screen there are the normal Home, Menu and Back buttons. I couldn’t really find the microSD slot as claimed by HTC in its website.
The speedy 1.5GHz processor really put HTC Flyer ahead of other Android tablets with single-core processor. There is no noticeable delay when I flicked thru the Home screen nor when flipping thru the pages of the e-Book when compared to Samsung Galaxy Tab (might caused by Samsung own UI).
I have never tested HTC Sense UI before, but I was quite impressed with the one on HTC Flyer. The desktop and widgets rearranges itself when you rotate the tablet from portrait view to landscape view and back. You can even see all the seven home screens by pinching or pressing the Home button.

Another feature which the tablet boosts is the HTC Time Mark. It allows you to take note (together with HTC Scribe™ digital pen features), voice recording as well as post picture. And all these are synchronized with the calendar.
In summary, I am quite impressed with HTC Flyer. But how will it holds itself against the hordes of Android Honeycomb tablets with dual-cores processor. According to Adam Mills (www.gottabemobile.com), HTC has just confirmed that HTC Flyer will be getting Android 3.0 Honeycomb update at some point shortly after launch. One thing for sure, HTC Flyer clearly deserve a great consideration if you are planning on having a tablet sometime soon.
As of now, no price has been announced for the tablet. In order to remain competitive, I believe HTC should priced it around RM1200 – RM1500 RM1,400.00-RM1,800.00.
UPDATE:  www.soyacincau.com reported that Maxis will priced HTC Flyer at RM2499.00, which is way above my estimation. However also reported that Maxis will offer the tablet as low as RM199 with maximum contract term of 24 months. WOW!!! What's the catch? I think we'll just have to wait until May 12th to find out.

HTC Flyer will be available for purchase at Maxis on 12th May 2011. You can register your interest at Maxis website.
Follow the link below to register your interest with Maxis.
http://www.maxis.com.my/personal/Tablets/index.asp
*pictures are taken from wwww.htc.com