HTCs Flyer is one of the first Android Tablets we’ve seen that could find a place in some new niches; Namely, pen input. From the outset I need to make it clear that the HTC Flyer isn’t a professional handwriting recognition product. There is no on-the-fly character recognition. There’s also a disconnect between the digitiser layer, the HTC pen-enabled apps and the rest of the finger-controllable tablet.

What is interesting though is the way HTC have enabled 4 apps that could be perfect for many people.

• There’s a note-taking application which spans standard test, pen-based text and ‘scribbles’ image and audio that is backed by the excellent Evernote service.
• There’s a PDF application which allows you to highlight and annotate over PDF files and save in the PDF format. This is one of the easiest ways to sign a PDF that I’ve ever seen!
• Thirdly, and this one impressed me more than all the other pen-enabled apps, there’s a book-reading application that allows pen-based selection, highlighting, annotation and note-making. It’s powerful and I can see this helping students to study.
• Finally, you can annotate images in the gallery.

HTC obviously have an API suite for ‘pen’ on Android so I hope to see more pen-enabled apps soon. Enjoy the video.

Tonight, May 18th at 2100 CEST (Berlin) we’re holding a live review at Carrypad.com/live Join us for chat and get your questions answered.

The question remains on the HTC Flyer does the pen input mode  allow you to rest a palm on the screen and then use the pen without the writing / snipping / scribbling ending up like a heart monitor display? It’s known in the natural input world as ‘vectoring’ and if it’s present, it makes the process very difficult indeed.

Sascha Pallenberg (Netbooknews) and I had some time with Vodafone Germany and it looks like we were given a slightly fresher build of the HTC Flyer than the one we had tried on the show floor. You’ll see the ‘palm rejection’ working well. We also take a look at some of the apps and the UI in general.

As mentioned in the previous article about the HTC Flyer, the design and software isn’t final yet so you’ll have to wait a few months before the final versions are available.

I’d love to know if you feel the extra CPU power, pen capability and Evernote processing is worth the premium over the Galaxy Tab? Personally. knowing that the Tab is getting 2.3 and that the price is excellent and quality proven, I would still recommend the Galaxy Tab unless someone really needed handwriting input (assuming it really works!)