The popular 7″ HTC Flyer tablet has finally made a safe landing at T-Mobile this week. Way back in June it cleared the FCC with T-Mobile bands but that was the last we’ve heard of it until today. While not for sale from T-Mobile themselves you can buy the T-Mobile powered HTC Flyer right now from HTC’s website. With a new 2-year agreement the price is just $299, like it’s been for a while at Best Buy.
The Flyer is a 7″ Android 2.3 Gingerbread tablet (no official Honeycomb) with a 1024 x 600 resolution display, 1.5 GHz single-core Qualcomm processor, front and rear facing cameras, and stylus support with the HTC scribe pen [HTC Flyer Review]. While it runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread we do have a leaked Honeycomb build for those wanting to enjoy some tablet OS on the Flyer. For some screenshots and information on how you can get Android 3.2 Honeycomb on your own HTC Flyer just follow the instructions here.
The slate is priced at $299.99 when purchased with new compatible individual plans for the tablet ranging from $39.99 for 2GB of data to $79.99 per month for 10GB of data and a 2-year agreement. Users can also choose to upgrade an existing plan or add the Flyer to it but that will run you a more painful $450 or so. The HTC Scribe stylus pen is still sold separately so that will be another purchase for those interested. Either way fly on down to HTC.com to pick up your own T-Mobile powered HTC Flyer tablet.
[device id=199]
[via SlashGear]
I have this tab and its a great little in between but never would I think about putting a data plan on one ever. WiFi only for this one.
T-mobile flyer is not available through T-mobile. It is only available through 3rd party vendors. Best Buy was discontinuing the sylus/pen as of my last call to them and their stores in my area in Palm Beach, Florida are out of stock on the Flyer. When attempting to purchase the Flyer at the local T-mobile dealers the explaination was that the Flyer was only available though their business outlet. This is not true. The 800 number for their business connection was not able to provide a Flyer and or stylus. At this time it appears that although the websites and HTC refer to Best Buy and T-Mobile you will not be able to get a Flyer through either place. The concern here is also that being sold via third party (if you can get it ) means you are on your own when it comes to support or if anything happens to the Flyer. At no time during the calls and visits to stores was there an effort to escalate this issue “upstairs” without some prodding on the phone. The question is how many other products sold under the T-Mobile name are Phantom products that are only available third party. Certainly T-Mobile is not making an effort to distinguish what is third party and what is not. So next time you go to that booth in the mall (which might be the real Tmobile or third party Tmobile ) you may not know whether you are buying a covered T-Mobile product. When it comes to the HTC Flyer it appears TMobile may be the name on the device. But who will support it? After visiting numerous T-Mobile stores, three Best Buys and calling their respective numbers the information you get does not help the buyer to obtain a Flyer if they want one. Best Buy at this time has also discontinued the stylus which is one of the reasons you would want to buy a Flyer (to annotate documents on screen).
It is very disappointing that the primary parties that are listed as vendors/sources of this fine product are not helpful to the buyer in obtaining one.