HTC's first tablet packs a punch

Having been first out of the blocks with an Android smartphone, HTC took its own sweet time to release its first tablet — HTC Flyer. It's a 7-inch tablet super-LCD display and instead of Google's brand new Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system, it runs on a heavily-customised version of Android 2.3 Gingerbread with HTC's familiar Sense UI 3.0. It has a touchscreen, but it also comes with a sophisticated stylus that can draw, highlight and erase. With its aluminium unibody capped by comfortable to hold plastic end pieces at the top and bottom — in portrait mode, it weighs 420g. Instead of the dual-core processors that have quickly become the standard for new tablets, HTC has gone for a single-core Qualcomm processor with a higher clock speed of 1.5GHz. The CPU is paired with 1GB of RAM and unlike Tegra 2-based tablets we've seen, the Flyer lacks a dedicated HDMI output. Article continues below There's a 5 megapixel rear camera, as well as a 1.3MP front-facing camera. Both are capable of recording 720p HD video footage. Camera performance is disappointing, falling well short of what HTC's current crop of 5 megapixel smartphones while video is okay. In addition to the standard camera and camcorder applications, there's Snapbooth, a gimmicky application that uses the front-facing camera to take vanity shots with various special effects. Unlike the iPad, it only works in portrait with the HTC logo at the top, and in landscape with the camera at the top. The back is mostly metal. There are two gaps for the loudspeakers, and the camera lens sits in the white plastic panel at the top but without a LED flash. App shortcuts HTC only includes three standard capacitive buttons on the Flyer. From left there's home, menu and back. The search button is gone. There's a fourth button on the Flyer, but this one is only accessible via the optional HTC Scribe — a battery powered digital pen accessory. Along the bottom of the display there's the app menu button, then shortcuts for HTC's new Notes app, HTC Reader and HTC Watch. To get to the SIM and micro SD card slots, as usual with HTC, you need to open the top panel. The 1024x600 panel is vibrant and is even fairly easy to see in sunlight. The Sense UI overlay and pen are what set the Flyer apart from the competition. There's a small green touch-sensitive button below the screen, and tapping this with the pen brings up a small quarter-circle in the bottom-right corner. There are two modes: scribble and inking. Inking is essentially a notepad where you can type, draw or highlight using the stylus. Scribble mode takes a snapshot of your current activity and then lets you draw on it. The results are then saved as an image and uploaded via Evernote, a free cloud storage app. You can highlight passages of text using the pen in the Reader ebook app, or make any footnote you like on the page. While it's all pretty intuitive, you have to get used it. More frustrating, though, is the confusion between finger-touch and pen-touch. 99 per cent of the interface is intended for finger control, but even if you'd prefer to use the Magic Pen, the Flyer won't allow you. Instead, it just takes a Scribble shot of the screen you're looking at. Even after hours of use, I still found myself taking accidental screenshots when I wanted to open menus, simply because the pen seemed the obvious tool as it was the one I was using at that moment. Even though the Flyer lacks phone functionality, it does have a SIM slot for 3G data connection. In landscape mode, many of the Flyer's apps switch to a handy two-pane mode. For example the email app lists individual email in the left pane, and loads the selected email in the right pane. The major disappointment from the Flyer is battery life. I think it is due to high-speed single-core processor. During testing it just lasted for 7.5 hours with hardcore use and the 4,000 mAh battery is non-user-replaceable.