As the tablet ecosystem hurriedly juggles to face the new iPad 2 threat, attention turns to slates with differentiating features to see if they’ve got what’s needed to stand their own against the Apple juggernaut. The HTC Flyer's stylus input option may not have met with universal approval at its MWC 2011 launch, but it looks like those keen on digital inking may well have a solid experience with the 7-incher. Carrypad tested out one of the most important features, palm-rejection, to see if the Flyer could hold up to proper pen use.




Palm-rejection is basically the ability of a touchscreen device to ignore the touch of a hand leaning on the screen while a pen or stylus is being used. Officially known as vectoring, if not implemented properly then the tablet will mis-interpret the various points of contact, and skew the on-screen cursor. It’s particularly difficult on resistive and capacitive-only touchscreens, and is what makes so-called capacitive styli generally disappointing to use.
Happily, the Flyer’s system looks to be reasonably good, aided most likely by the fact that the stylus itself uses an active digitizer (which, we’re guessing, deactivates the capacitive touchscreen layer when it’s near the tablet’s screen). Interestingly, Carrypad suggests that the firmware version had a lot to do with palm-rejection efficacy, so with the Flyer still not expected for a couple of months, that leaves HTC plenty of time to improve the system even further.