Just when you thought the Tablet market had reached saturation point HTC has stook their hand up to officially enter the race after months of rumours with a new 7-inch Flyer Android tablet, has a 1.5GHz single-core CPU, 1GB of RAM plus 32GB of flash storage and a 1024 X 600 display.It also comes with a pressure sensitive stylus.
Called the Flyer the device has a 5 megapixel camera on the back paired with a 1.3 megapixel camera on the front.
The 4000mAh delivers four hours of continuous video playback claims HTC. Memory can be expanded via a microSD card.
Both Telstra and Vodafone are set to range the new device which will go on sale in Australia sometime in May 2011.
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The3 downside is that the device, which will compete head on with the Samsung Galaxy S 7″ will only have Android Gingerbread 2.4 which is designed for Smartphones and not the Google Android Honeycomb OS which is specifically designed for Tablets.
HTC says it’ll be indistinguishable from 2.3 as far the end user is concerned. I doubt this.
A new version of the HTC Sense UI software will be included with the device which has a white back.
HTC said that their OnLive cloud gaming offering will be built into the Flyer in the form of an application that users will have to open up to access content online.
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Engadget said of the device “We spent a bit of quality time with a Flyer unit recently, although we weren’t allowed to turn it on, and our early impressions are rather mixed. On the one hand, we do appreciate the ruggedness and durability that’s afforded by the one-piece aluminium shell, but on the other, the Flyer is quite the chunky beast in your hands. We’d imagine strapping in such an extra-speedy processor is the main culprit for its extra girth, though the Flyer is, ironically enough, not terribly light either. We found it heavier and generally a lot less polished from a design perspective than Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. Anyhow, HTC should have functional units for us immediately following its MWC presser this morning, and we’ll be delving in deeper with this super-specked device. Hang tight”.
Consumers in Australia could be paying over $800 for the device. HTC’s European Product Director Phil Blair said that the company was looking at a way to bring that cost down for some consumers.
“We’re going to launch a Wi-Fi variant of the HTC Flyer in the future, which should be offered at a more accessible price point “It won’t ship at the same time [as the 3G Flyer] but it will launch soon afterwards, although we don’t have an exact date.” He said.
HTC Australia executives have refused to commenton any issue involving the Company including their new tablet offering, since the shock exit of former sales and marketing director Anthony Petts who quite the Company in December to take on a senior role at Motorola.
