HTC chalks up its first tablet, the 1.5GHz Flyer

Bringing out a tablet at the moment is like wearing trousers to leave the house – it'd be a bit odd if you didn't do it. So HTC has left its competitors to their everyday strides and broken out a set of striking pink flares. There's no Android 3.0 Honeycomb, no 10in screen and HTC's new flatlander is bringing back the stylus. This is the HTC Flyer.

HTC's first tablet will run Gingerbread Mk II (aka 2.4), though the company says it'll be upgrading to tablet-only Honeycomb in future. It shouldn't struggle with any OS, given its improbably powerful 1.5GHz processor, backed up with a gig of RAM and 32GB SSD.

The HTC Flyer is going up against the form of Samsung's Galaxy Tab with a 7in screen diagonal (1024x600) and 3G. And it's launching an offensive on games, too, announcing integrated OnLive – the cloud based gaming service.

But there's a potential elephant in the room – HTC's busted out a stylus, and not because this is resistive screen territory. This is a capacative stylus, similar to the one rumoured to be coming together in Apple's iPad design labs.

A pair of cams (5MP and 1.3MP) are present and correct, alongside the usual cluster of sensors and antennae. But next to the capacative stylus and powerhouse processor, those are mere details. We'll be getting hands-on later today.