By: Aseem Gaurav on June 27, 2011
In order to grab a slice of the fast growing tablet market in India, smartphone manufacturer HTC has launched its first tablet in India -- HTC Flyer -- priced at Rs.39,890.
Flyer has been pitched to compete against Apple iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, Blackberry Playbook and the soon—to—be launched Motorola Xoom and Huawei’s MediaPad.
The seven—inch touch screen tablet comes with Android 2.3 Gingerbread which is a smart phone operating system. It is powered by 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and has 1GB of RAM and a built memory of 16GB along with a 5 megapixel camera.
Other features of the tablet are a 1.3 megapixel front camera, an internal GPS antenna, built-in bluetooth and WiFi, and 3G capability (for some versions only). Flyer comes with pen input support for handwritten notes and a brand new tablet optimized HTC Sense interface.
The tablet also offers web browsing with Flash 10 and HTML 5. One of the most attractive features of the tablet is the HTC Scribe Technology which allows to take notes, sign contracts, draw pictures, or write on a web page or photo. The device also features HTC Watch, which is an on-demand movie download service, using which you can watch hundreds of High-Definition movies from major studios.
In terms of hardware, Flyer weights about .9 pounds (14.8 ounces) which is similar to BlackBerry PlayBook. However, the 0.52 inch depth makes it thicker than other tablets. The tablet also has an ambient light sensor, accelerometer, compass, and GPS.
In terms of audio, the HTC Flyer supports AAC, OGG, MP3, WAV and WMA and video format support includes MP3, WMV, AVI, and XVID.
HTC India Country Manager Faisal Siddiqui said the company is extremely excited to introduce this tablet as it saw an opportunity to create a tablet experience that is different, more personal and productive.
Flyer could be a great addition to the world of tablets, but it will take a while when we’ll know whether it is a hit or a miss with Indian consumers.
