HtcFlyer
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HTC Flyer quietly gets over-the-air software update, promises to 'improve system performance'
No, it's not an upgrade to Honeycomb, but the HTC Flyer is getting some tweaks nonetheless. Over the weekend, owners of the 7-inch tablet should have seen a prompt for an over-the-air update making the vague promise to "improve system performance." We're naturally all kinds of curious, particularly given that the battery life and overall performance were already pretty solid. Flyer owners, are you noticing any differences? Do tell.
OnLive outs universal wireless controller, seamless Facebook integration and more -- we test the tablet experience on an HTC Flyer (video)
We told you that OnLive was coming to tablets, TVs, and other devices a while back, but perhaps you were vexed by the thought of controlling Duke Nukem via touchscreen or IR remote. Well, worry no more, as OnLive's made a Universal Wireless Controller to give you console controls on any OnLive-compatible device. The company's secret sauce lets it connect directly to your slate or smartphone, and there's also a USB dongle for use with PCs and non-Vizio TVs. We asked company CEO Steve Perlman what was in his wireless witches' brew, but all he would tell us is that the black magic isn't Bluetooth. We got to see the new controller in person, and there's no discernible difference between it and the one that comes with the MicroConsole -- they look the same and they play the same, plus the new gamepad has an 802.15.4 radio for backwards-compatiblity with the MicroConsole, too. Unfortunately, that dongle's not yet ready for prime time, but we're told that it'll be a "little bit bigger" than Logitech's tiny Unifying Receiver. When we went hands-on with the new controller, it was paired with the HTC Flyer. We'd been waiting to see OnLive's service on HTC's new tablet, and the experience didn't disappoint -- in our brief time with the device, gaming was as good on the Flyer as it is on a PC, with little lag and the same quality graphics. In addition to the Flyer and Vizio's VIA hardware, many more devices are set to join the OnLive family this year, though Steve wouldn't tell us who's manufacturing them. He did say that no matter what brand-name is on the front of the box, the company hopes to have 50 million Blu-ray players and 25 million internet TVs shipped with the service on board by the end of the year. To hit that goal, the company has partnered with Intel to bring streaming gameplay to devices with Atom CE4100 silicon starting this fall. Hot hardware not getting your gaming juices flowing? Well, how about some seamless integration with The Social Network? That's right, OnLive's been playing footsie with Facebook and will let users launch games directly from their profile pages. There's also automatic "Brag Clip" video uploads (to share your greatest gaming hits) and wall posts to let folks know when you start playing -- with accompanying links so they can watch or join in. All these new goodies will be on display at E3 next week, but if you're starving for more details right now, video and PR are after the break. Update: By the by, OnLive also revealed that it's launching in the UK this fall, and in about four days, you can get a signup code. %Gallery-125072%
Flyer Friday: Best Buy starts selling HTC's seven-inch slate today
We thought HTC's Flyer wasn't going on sale until May 22nd, but it appears a certain big box retailer has changed its plans. Our tipsters have told us that stores with the device in stock have started selling it today, May 20th, despite the somewhat confusing text you see in the picture above. So, if you're pining for a $500, seven-inch slab of silky smooth Sense 3.0, head on down to the local Best Buy and grab one yourself. [Thanks, Anonymous]
HTC Flyer lands at Best Buy on May 22nd for $500, Magic Pen sold separately
The 16GB-equipped, 7-inch Flyer from HTC is making its way west this week. Best Buy, which gets the honor of exclusively launching the WiFi-only Android tablet in the US, has revealed Sunday as the official first day of availability for the Flyer, at a price of $500. As you'll recall, the stylus that ships in the retail box just about everywhere else will be markedly missing from the Best Buy bundle, costing an extra $80 to those who simply must have it. You'll be able to purchase your Flyer online and at all brick-and-mortar Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile stores, but if mobile connectivity is more important to you, we'd advise holding out a little while longer for the 3G- and 4G-capable Evo View variety on Sprint.
HTC touts early Flyer sales, promises NFC-equipped phone within a year
It's still not dishing much in the way of specifics, but it looks like HTC is at least cautiously optimistic about the success of its Flyer tablet -- or, as the company's top exec in Europe, Florian Seiche, put it at a recent Reuters summit: "it's early days but we feel very good about it." Seiche also unsurprisingly talked up tablets in general, and said that he thought schools would "probably" shift from textbooks to tablets in "five years' time," adding that "we can't even guess the potential" in terms of the broader impact on society. Naturally, he also suggested that HTC plans to tap into that growing market with a whole range of new tablets beyond the Flyer. In terms of smartphones, Seiche said that HTC will be rolling out its first NFC-equipped phone within the next twelve months, and he reaffirmed the company's commitment to Windows Phone 7, which he expects will see a boost from Nokia (which he says will in turn benefit HTC).
HTC Flyer review
Over the past couple of years, HTC has rapidly built up an enviable reputation (and bank balance) in the smartphone space with a succession of feature-rich, smartly designed, and innovative handsets. The HD2 introduced us to the 4.3-inch form factor, the EVO 4G ushered in the era of 720p video recording, and the Legend wrapped itself inside a never-before-seen aluminum unibody enclosure. Today, the company's Android assembly line is turning out yet another groundbreaking device, though this one's closer in size to the Athena than the Aria. Yes, we're talking about the 7-inch Flyer, the most unique of this year's Android tablet offerings, opting for a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a sturdy aluminum construction that doesn't even try to compete in the race for extreme thinness, and a Magic Pen to make you forget it's running Gingerbread and not Honeycomb (yet). Also set for release under the EVO View 4G moniker on Sprint in the US, this tablet is the sum of a set of bold choices on the part of HTC. To see how well those decisions have come off, click past the break for our full review. %Gallery-123656%
HTC Flyer available across Europe today, £600 for 3G, £480 for WiFi-only version
The day every fan of 7-inch Android tablets has been waiting for has finally arrived. HTC has just announced widespread availability across Europe of its 1.5GHz Flyer. Pricing is set at £600 / €649 for the 3G-equipped 32GB variant or £480 / €499 for the one with only WiFi and 16GB on board -- though local carriers are offering subsidized pricing as low as £129 on contract. The contentious capacitive stylus, now dubbed the Magic Pen, will be shipping in each and every box, so you don't have to worry about ponying up extra for it. The HTC store linked below still offers only pre-orders, but HTC promises that there will be aluminum unibodies hitting shelves today.
HTC Flyer stylus on sale at Best Buy for $80, because matching gadgets should cost more (updated)
If you ordered the HTC Flyer because you're keen on scribbling notes and doodling over screenshots, well, today's your lucky day -- the stylus is now on sale by itself for a cool $80. That's fairly outrageous, given that you can buy the HP Slate 500's for well under that tally, and the Fujitsu LifeBook T580's for roughly $22... that is, if you lose the one included in the box. Plus, although these battery-powered pens won't complement your Flyer's aluminum chassis, they should still work with it, as all of these tablets use N-Trig's DuoSense pen / capacitive touch technology. And particularly with a dearth in apps that can take advantage of pen input, you'd better be the next J.K. Rowling if you're looking to get your money's worth. Update: We've gotten some incredulous comments and emails from folks who can't believe the Flyer doesn't come with a stylus. Well, just to settle that debate once and for all, we reached out to HTC's PR team who confirmed that the stylus is, indeed, sold separately. Sorry to be the bearer repeater of bad news! Update 2: HTC adds that the Flyer will only come without a pen if you get it at Best Buy.
WiFi HTC Flyer visits the FCC, leaves behind a line-drawn calling card
That, dear readers, is where you'll be able to find the FCC label on your brand new HTC Flyer -- well, assuming you decide to get in on the company's 7-inch dose of Android, and also assuming that HTC ever decides to actually release the thing in the US. We assume it does, as the machine has just been given the blessing of the FCC. This looks to be a WiFi-only model, also tested for BlueTooth compliance, but lacking 3G. So, if you got your pre-order in last week know that there's at least nothing federal standing between you and your $499 aluminum slice of Gingerbread, which we're still hoping will ship before the spring is through.
HTC Flyer up for preorder for $499 at Best Buy on April 24th
Europeans have been able to preorder the HTC Flyer for months, and now curious Yanks are about to get their chance, too. The tablet will be available for preorder on April 24th (that's this Sunday) for $499 with Best Buy as the exclusive seller. Though our friends across the pond have been able to snag 3G versions, the one about to come stateside just has WiFi. The Flyer, as you'll remember, is the phone maker's first tablet, and has a 7-inch (1024 x 600) display, aluminum body, 1.5GHz Qualcomm chip, and a version of the company's Sense UI that was tweaked with slates in mind. Alas, It'll ship with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), but HTC is promising an eventual upgrade to 3.0 (Honeycomb) and all of the bigger-screen goodies that come with it.
HTC Sense 3.0 will only support Sensation, EVO 3D, Flyer and newer devices; older hardware left behind
Unfortunate news for anyone who saw HTC's Sense 3.0 UI and started dreaming about seeing it on their Desire HD, Incredible S or any other handset that doesn't ship with it preloaded. HTC has said that because of the hardware requirements of the fancier new Android skin, only the dual-core Sensation and EVO 3D smartphones and the 1.5GHz Flyer tablet will be benefiting from it for now. The company's expected to introduce more tablets in the summer and its inevitable march forward with smartphones will continue, but Sense 3.0 -- and those delectable multifunctional lock screens -- will remain the exclusive privilege of its highest-end devices. Update: Those older devices may be missing the boat, but they will at least get a set of floaties. HTC left a message on Twitter that the company is "working to incorporate other aspects" of Sense 3.0 that will come to older devices. Hopefully this includes that flash new weather app.
HTC Flyer begins shipping on May 9th across Europe
It's official: the HTC Flyer will begin its journey across Europe on May 9th. That's quite a bit more specific than the Q2 global release announced back in February. Now if only we had a date for Honeycomb's arrival on HTC's 1.5GHz 7-inch slate we'd be all set. See more HTC event coverage in our Liveblog.
HTC Flyer hits UK pre-order status at £600, comes with 3G and 32GB of storage
The one Android tablet that isn't riding NVIDIA's Tegra 2 dual-core chip and Google's Honeycomb iteration (but might still be worth buying) has this weekend become available to pre-order in the UK. The Carphone Warehouse is listing a £600 ($983) fee for owning the HTC Flyer, which is more or less a match for the €669 price Amazon.de is offering to German slate lovers. In exchange for a dozen rose-tinted notes with the Queen's face on them, you'll get a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 display, encased in an aluminum unibody case and powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm chip. HTC's Sense UI has undergone some tablet-friendly tweaks and there is of course that Scribe stylus to flex your artistic muscles with. 3G connectivity and 32GB of storage flesh out the Flyer's hardware offering, while the underlying Android Gingerbread OS is promised to get a Honeycomb-flavored update, most likely some time this summer.
HTC confirms Flyer tablet will get Honeycomb... sometime
HTC hasn't said much on the subject of Honeycomb for its Flyer tablet since its big announcement back at Mobile World Congress, where it said it chose not to use the OS for the tablet because it didn't have enough time to customize it with its Sense UI. It's now finally chimed in on the matter again, however, and replied to a question on Twitter by saying that it "will be offering a Honeycomb upgrade when it's made available." Of course, that statement's noticeably lacking a specific date (or even a hint of one), and it may well be wise to not hold your breath for an upgrade anytime soon given Google's recent talk of a tighter grip on Honeycomb. Still, it looks like it's definitely still on the table as far as HTC is concerned. [Thanks, Lewis]
HTC Flyer parades its many unique qualities in latest video from the company
Android tablets, everyone's got one, but none are quite like HTC's 7-inch Flyer. Built out of a single piece of aluminum and a great many chunks of silicon, it struts along at a 1.5GHz pace, carries a handy dandy capacitive stylus called Scribe, and offers up a tablet-ified version of HTC's Sense skin on a 1024 x 600 display. It's also the only portable of its kind (so far) to offer the OnLive cloud gaming service. So many features, you'd think someone would go to the effort of summarizing them, perhaps in the form of a stylish video, no? Well, HTC has done exactly that, and its latest product overview vid is embedded for you just after the break.
HTC Flyer headed to T-Mobile, according to marketing scrapbook?
Sprint may not be the only US carrier spreading its wings with an HTC tablet this summer, oh no -- promotional materials obtained by PocketNow point to the HTC Flyer launching with T-Mobile as well. Though the marketing mockups don't prove that Madam Magenta will actually be offering the 7-inch Gingerbread tablet with Scribe stylus (or distinguish between T-Mobile USA and its European counterparts, for that matter), the carrier's clearly given it a lot of thought, and HTC's spec sheet for the Flyer has indeed listed the AWS bands necessary to carry T-Mobile USA's 3G data since day one. Sneak a peek at what T-Mobile's in-store tablet kiosks might look like at our source link below.
HTC's WiFi-only Flyer launching exclusively with Best Buy 'this spring'
Now that it's received its big US debut courtesy of Sprint and under the name EVO View 4G, HTC's Flyer tablet is free to, um, fly under the radar with a WiFi version this spring, exclusively through Best Buy. Specs on the Flyer are somewhat atypical for the current crop of Android tablets, as it opts for Gingerbread instead of Honeycomb and a 1.5GHz Qualcomm chip intead of the popular Tegra 2 dual-core solution. That, and it's a 7-inch tablet with a capacitive stylus and an aluminum unibody shell. Notably, this WiFi-centric variant looks set to beat the WiMAX-capable EVO View (which Sprint expects in the summer) to market, so we'll be keeping a very curious eye on pricing as and when it is announced. For now, we have a retailer and a rapidly dwindling release window. Oh, and a press release, which you'll find just past the break, augmented with a neat little promo video. [Thanks, Michael]
Sprint's HTC EVO View 4G hands-on (video)
Well, if you were keeping abreast of the happenings at Mobile World Congress, then Sprint's EVO View 4G launched today at CTIA may seem pretty familiar to the HTC Flyer you saw there. These two HTC devices are essentially the same, with just a couple of minor cosmetic differences and some UI changes shown in the video that follows. We're still not completely sure about the Scribe pen, though it certainly is an entertaining thing to play with. The Evernote app makes great use of the stylus allowing images to be scribbled on and saved, notes recorded -- with voice and your text input -- and of course everything can be shared. We're not massive humans here at Engadget, and we're happy to report that the device can still stay planted fairly comfortably in hand. A standout amenity is the ability to drop apps from the lockscreen onto a small target, and have that app open immediately rather than having to go find it once you've unlocked the device. All this and more is just below the fold. %Gallery-119519%
Sprint makes EVO View 4G tablet official: 1.5GHz, WiMAX, 7-inch screen, and a stylus to boot
Sprint has stopped playing coy about one of the worst-leaked devices in recent memory and has at long last made it official. The EVO View 4G is a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 Android tablet with a 1.5GHz processor, 5 megapixel rear- and 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, a WiMAX radio, and HTC's loving application of Sense for a UI. If all this sounds familiar, it'll be because we're really talking about HTC's Flyer tablet, introduced at last month's MWC, and just like it, the EVO View will also feature the HTC Scribe capacitive stylus. The Evo View 4G will ship with 32GB of storage "this summer." You'll now find the full press release and spec sheet (including a healthy gigabyte of RAM and a 4000mAh battery) after the break, and some preliminary shots below. Full hands-on to come! %Gallery-119505%
Samsung Galaxy S II Mini leaks out for Three, plus Nokia X7, Flyer and PlayBook release dates in UK
No, not the Galaxy Mini, that low-end Android sprout -- this looks like Samsung's smaller alternative to the upcoming Galaxy S II superphone. We just got handed UK carrier Three's entire spring-summer lineup, and the Android 2.3 handset certainly stands out, pretending to be miniature in spite of a 3.7-inch screen (think Droid), a 1.4GHz processor (think Pre 3) and 21Mbps HSPA+ connectivity. But that's the tip of the iceberg compared to what's in store for Three -- it looks like the Nokia X7 is alive, well, and tracking for a June release (not to mention the LG Optimus 3D), and tablets will drop too, with May bringing the HTC Flyer and the WiFi-only BlackBerry PlayBook launching in June. See specs and slated launch windows in our gallery below, and join us in hoping these documents portend a rapid US release. [Thanks, Anonymous]
