The HTC Flyer Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 21, 2011 4:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- HTC
- Android 2.3
- Mobile
- Flyer
The Cameras
The Flyer's rear facing 5MP camera doesn't have a flash however even in well lit areas its image capture quality is pretty bad, even compared to other tablets. The verdict is still out on whether or not camera quality matters in a tablet, but given that you can quickly integrate photos you've taken with the Notes app I would've hoped for a better quality sensor.
Stills are shot at 2592 x 1520 and the camera app offers the usual set of adjustments (white balance, sharpness, saturation, contrast, exposure, ISO). You can also apply real time filters (yay sepia!) to the image although I rarely find myself wanting to.
The front facing camera is no better. Images are captured at and don't bother asking about quality. It's ok is about the best I can offer.
Switching between front and rear facing cameras does take a couple of seconds but it's accomplished via a single tap. There's a little green LED that lights up to the left of the front facing sensor when it's active.
Capturing images takes about two seconds regardless of which camera you're shooting with. It's laggy enough to make capturing a moving object difficult but quick enough to be competitive with most other solutions on the market today.
Video can be recorded at up to 720p. Image quality is still pretty bad here as well. Switching between still and video capture is very quick and accomplished using a single tap.
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wintermute000 - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
unfortunately with ipad parity pricing its a fail. no 3G option either, what's the point of 7" portability if its not always on. If it had 3G for 500USD you're at least in the ballpark.I say this as a happy original SG tab owner (here in Oz, they dropped the full 3G toting version to 300USD briefly, sold like hotcakes, guess why). It really made me appreciate the 7" form factor in combination with always on internet (gingerbread surprisingly isn't too bad as a tablet OS, aside from some apps that were never meant for the bigger res). But its too expensive.
wonder if the bootloader is locked. If not the 3G version could be a nice value 2nd hand pickup in 6-9 months
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
What point is there in racing to get a $500 tablet on the market. The only people who are going to buy these things are the really dumb suckers. The same people who are most likely to be wiped out by the market changes coming over the next few years. $500 is way way wayyyy too much to be spending on what is little more than a toy. I hope all these companies fail, because the entire $500 tablet market is a malinvestment.bhima - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
I can't believe they don't include the pen for that money though. It has to be hard to decide to purchase any android tab thats over the asking price of the asus transformer.ripBear - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
SenseUI was created to solve shortcommings of Windows Mobile. HTC ported it to Android in order to create a unique offer in this platform based on the positive reviews it got from WinMo implementation.RandomUsername3245 - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Advertizing with audio that is enabled by a simple mouse-over means Anandtech.com has been removed from my Flashblock Whitelist.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
None of our direct ads have mouse-over audio (it's a policy of ours), this must've been a network ad. Do you have any details on the ad you saw? A screenshot, description, linked URL, etc... If you can email me anything you have (anand AT anandtech DOT com) I'll send it on to our ad partner that can hopefully get it scrubbed from the site entirely.Take care,
Anand
LostPassword - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
if this thing can't even come out with honeycomb out the box, good luck getting updates.taltamir - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
Puns are awesome, but you really shouldn't inform the readers every time you make one. Yes, we get it. And if we don't then that's ok too. Putting a (hey look I made a pun) after every one just detracts from the writing.Impulses - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
I didn't mind this... Although they felt like the comments editors sometimes introduce into their writer's articles, except here I think it was just Anand commenting upon himself. :pNihility - Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - link
It was tasteful. No problems with it here.