14 DAY TRIAL // Last week U.S. Cellular confirmed that it would carry the HTC Flyer but had yet to reveal the tablet's exact release date.
It took the carrier a bit more than a week to debut the 7-inch slate, which is now available for purchase for as low as for $399.99 (300 EUR) after a $100 mail-in rebate along with the purchase of a 5 GB data plan, and $599.99 (372 EUR) after a $100 mail-in rebate along with purchase of a 200 MB data plan.
Although the tablet is still stuck on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a Honeycomb upgrade is in the works and will be deployed by the end of the year, rumors claim.
Aside the usual software included within the Gingerbread operating system, U.S. Cellular customers are provided with exclusive access to Amazon storefront app, which allows them to shop and download more than 850,000 Kindle e-books.
“The HTC Flyer helps you get more done during your day, so you can spend more time enjoying its entertainment options with your family, like watching videos, listening to music or reading e-books. Our associates can help you personalize it with apps and widgets to fit your lifestyle, and that’s one of the reasons we have the happiest customers in wireless,” said Edward Perez, vice president of sales and marketing operations for U.S. Cellular.
In addition, HTC Flyer is equipped with a single core 1.5 Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and packs 32 GB of internal memory, as well as microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB).
A duo of camera allows users to take pictures with the 5-megapixel photo snapper on the back, and make video calls courtesy to the 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera.
The tablet is also delivered with HTC Scribe technology that provides users the possibility to highlight texts or make notes. However, the HTC Scribe pen necessary will be sold separately for around $80 (60 EUR).