Letsbuy.com, the online e-tailer with a reputation for bringing out the latest tech-toys to India, has launched the HTC’s first tablet — the Flyer — in India.
The 7-inch Android 2.4 device has been priced at Rs 37,499 by the online retailer and has been launched in India within two weeks of its Singapore debut. The price is higher than in Singapore, where it is available for a promotional price of around 900 Singapore dollars (Rs 32,500)
Like most HTC devices, it is higher priced compared to competition like the iPad, but leaves nothing to be desired. Unlike the Iconia tablets revealed by Acer, this one does not suffer from WiFi-only connectivity and can hold its own against the best from the Samsung Galaxy tab series.
However, unlike the others, the Flyer is still stuck with the made-for-phone Android 2.x series operating system.
Both Acer Iconia (7 & 10.1 inch) and the new Samsung Galaxy Tabs (8.9 and 10.1 inch) come equipped with Android 3 (Honeycomb) which has been specifically designed for the large displays of tablets. HTC, however, does use its on user interface (the icons and stuff) instead of the default Android ones and this may not be as big a problem as it seems as first.
The closest competitor to the Flyer in India is the Galaxy tab — not the old 7 inch one — but the new 8.9 inch one (available unofficially only), besides the iPad.
Flyer is estimated to give around 12 hours of battery life in moderately high-use conditions, and weights a hefty 420 gm. In comparison, the old 7 inch Samsung Galaxy tab weighs 320 gm, and still manages to feel heavy for those who fancy lying on the bed and holding up tablet to read like a normal book. The iPad, of course, is much heavier at more than 700 gm, but also gives nearly double the battery life.
Unlike the others, who rely on 1 GHz dual core processors from Nvidia, this one uses a Qualcomm single core processor running at 1.5 GHz. Despite the higher speed, performance would be similar or slightly inferior to the Nvidia Tegra, assuming both have an equal number of transistors.
At 1 GB, it also has nearly twice the RAM (system memory) than the old Galaxy tab, though the new ones (8.9 inch) too have 1 GB RAM.
The rest of the specs are what one would expect in a standard 7 inch tablet these days — 1024*768 resolution, front camera etc..
As of now, the Flyer is definitely the most beefed up Android tablet in India, but this may soon change with the introduction of the new line-up from Samsung and Dell. But if you must surely have a high-end 3G-enabled 7-inch tablet tomorrow (and money’s no concern,) then Flyer may be your best option.
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