HTC Flyer

Processor and Memory

Display

Networking

The Pen is Mightier Than the Finger, Sort Of

Pen experiences on the latest round of touch screen devices, any of them, is a subpar. For those of us who grew up drawing and ended up with graphite and charcoal all over our palms, drawing with detachment isn't natural. When in pure drawing mode the Flyer permits a close drawing interaction. The integration of the pen with the Flyer is a step in the right direction, though Wacom tablet and pen-based Tablet PC devices continue to offer superior pen performance. The biggest problem with the Flyer is that its pen's value drops off significantly outside of the Notes app, where screen shots and kids mode become the only way to effectively use the pen.

If you look closely at the screen, you will see fine features that represent the pen tracking technology. This may be a clue to the higher price of the Flyer, as it uses a very different screen technology. I like the feel of the pen on the surface, and the Notes application is one of the better apps I've seen for note taking, but as good as it is at emulating paint and pen, pencil and felt marker, it creates a discontinuity when navigating. If you want to use a menu outside of the pen area, you have to switch to a finger. The Reader apps, apparently a Kobo implementation, also supports the pen for highlighting. The highlighting is overly heavy, obscuring the text, and unlike the Amazon Kindle, the highlighting it only private, there is not access to community highlights or any shared markup.

In some ways, this discontinuity is good. When the pen is the center of the device's attention, you can lay your palm on the device and not worry about spurious input. On the other hand, you need to switch mental modes to go from drawing, to navigating and back. I often found myself trying to tap a menu that was waiting for my finger which reduces productivity.

Perhaps the coolest things about the Notes app is its tight integration with popular note platform Evernote. If you tie the Notes app to Evernote, it replaces that application and synchronized your jots and scribbles across all devices you own where Evernote is installed.

The worst thing about the Notes app is that it is stuck inside a small form factor device. This software cries out for more room to work. Although the precision of drawing on devices has improve dramatically over the years, nearly approach the fidelity of paper, the screen creates a barrier to more expansive thinking, scrolling only down and not across, so if forces people into linear thinking.

I am a big fan of pens because they permit much more precision, but they can also be lost and in this case, they cost extra -- and the Scribe pen doesn't even have a clip, so unless you buy the right case, you will always be worrying about what to do with the pen.

Also under the hood on the Flyer are a G-sensor (for sensing movement), a GPS, a digital compass and an ambient light sensor. I'm not a big fan of ambient light sensors so I usually turn them off because I like a bright, even display brightness, regardless of its drag on battery life. And that first night, I had to eventually completely power down the unit as the GPS, very loudly, despite volume settings, kept notifying me, and the entire family, that it had lost its signal.

And speaking of battery life, the Flyer performed well in my cross-country test, allowing me to kill many pigs and monkeys, and free various exotic birds while also enjoying several hours of video. I didn't perform any formal battery tests, but like most tablets, the Flyer is an all-day device when used practically.

For a devices with a pretty small screen, HTC choose to go with action: animation, 3-D images and all kinds of widgets. Sometimes the Flyer feels a little executed (everything works) and under engineered (someone forgot that simplification is a design principle). 3-D transitions from screen elements to the clock, and plenty of movement in animated wallpapers. I've chosen to tone down the action, but much of it is just built-in.

And then there are general Android issues. The widgets for instance, take up space, a lot of space. Unlike the iPad, Android has no common organizing principle so widgets vary in size. Some things, like app icons, align well, but when it comes to widgets, the developers don't seem to have many guidelines for co-existence, leaving it to the end user to puzzle together their own experience. With all the buzz around Instragram, it is cool to see HTC included a little bit of fun in the form of Snapbooth. Snapbooth let you take an image and apply a number of filters to it that distort, pixelate or otherwise get creative with an image.

Conclusion

The HTC Flyer is a functional, seemingly well-built device, with good battery life in a form factor that may appeal to those looking for a coat pocket tablet. For me though, the device's size made it awkward to hold, which was exacerbated by virtual controls in the bezel.

• Small size makes holding it awkward
• Pen use limited to a couple of applications
• Poor speakers
• Android 2.3.3, stable, but not designed for tablets
• Expensive, especially when counting $80 add-on pen

Daniel W. Rasmus is an independent analyst and strategy consultant. He is a former Vice President at the Giga Information Group and Forrester Research. Dan is the author of five books, including Management by Design (Wiley, 2010) and Listening to the Future (Wiley 2008). He blogs regularly at http://danielwrasmus.wordpress.com. Additional information can be found at http://danielwrasmus.com.