HTC has announced that its first tablet, the HTC Flyer, is available in as of today in Europe. The HTC Flyer combines natural touch and pen interaction and is available in two models: a combined 3G and WiFi (£600 or €650) model and the WiFi-only model (£480 and €500). The combined 3G and WiFi HTC Flyer features 32GB of onboard memory which can be expanded with a microSD card of up to 32GB, while the second version only starts you off with 16GB. Both versions come with the HTC Flyer Magic Pen works with HTC's Scribe Technology for an alternative to fingertip interaction.
As well as being available to purchase in retail outlets, HTC fans can also order the Flyer directly from the htcflyerstore.com website. The HTC Flyer is now available in the following territories: the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.
HTC officially unveiled the 7-inch device at Mobile World Congress 2011 three months ago. The HTC Flyer touts a 1.5GHz single-core Qualcomm CPU, 1GB of RAM, an aluminum unibody construction, and a 1024x600 resolution. Other features include a 5MP camera on the back, 1.3MP front-facing camera for video conferencing, HSPA+ support, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.
The device is powered by Android 2.3 (codenamed Gingerbread) rather than Android 3.0/3.1 (codenamed Honeycomb). This is unfortunate because the latter is specifically designed for tablets. HTC is more concerned with getting its tablet on the market as soon as possible than having it run Google's latest and greatest.
"We are delighted by the positive reactions that HTC Flyer has received since we first unveiled it in February and are pleased to be able to bring it to major markets across EMEA," Florian Seiche, President of HTC EMEA, said in a statement. "HTC Flyer is completely different from any other tablet on the market and we look forward to hearing about the different ways in which our customers use HTC Flyer in their daily lives - for both work and play."