HTC Jetstream review: classic tablet that is pretty nice for watching films, but not for gaming

Earlier, i’ve just shown you guys one pretty interesting tablet made by HTC - HTC Flyer.
(HTC Jetstream Specs)


As the first-generation tablet – especially the first-ever-made tablet from HTC -, HTC Flyer actually is still a pretty solid Android tablet.


After showing you with the HTC Flyer, today (as i promised in the previous review), i also want to bring up another interesting tablet from the same manufacturer.

Okay then, without further ado, i’ll introduce to you to HTC Jetstream, a 10-inch Android tablet sporting the 720p display.

This tablet is actually pretty interesting because, back then in 2011 specifically in early 2012, it was really rare to see tablets with 720p display – and this resolution used to be the highest resolution screen on tablet market (now is still the third-highest resolution screen in today’s standards).

So it’s really impressive to see an HTC tablet already adopt this medium-resolution display.

Okay then, if you’re interested to get to know with this 10-inch Android tablet from HTC, then here you go, my personal review of HTC Jetstream.

But before you read the review, it would be awesome if you could just spend a few seconds of your time to share this review to your friends or family by using the social media icons (Twitter, Facebook, Google +, etc) around this page.


If the first-generation HTC Flyer is only packing a smaller 7-inch display with low-resolution 1024x600 pixels, then on the second-gen HTC Jetstream, you’ll find many bumped up specs than the predecessor.

In fact, given that this tablet was released back then in September 2011, i think HTC Jetstream must be considered as a really impressive tablet because in 2011, it’s still pretty rare to find good Android tablets with good hardware specs around the market.

The most prominent sector on HTC Jetstream that HTC wants to brag to its rivals is definitely its design.


Back then in 2011, most of Android tablets out there used to not have some premium looking design and material just like the iPad – with its aluminum material all over its body.

However, it’s amazing to see how HTC managed to tackle that issue perfectly through HTC Jetstream.

HTC Jetstream looks so great, elegant and premium – no doubt about that.

It even looks as great and premium as iPad. And that’s really awesome because i’ve heard many many times that tablets from HTC were not that great in quality.

I think those opinions are so definitely wrong.

HTC Jetstream actually looks really great and premium – especially around the tablet market in 2011.

And it goes the same with its internals.

Compared to other Android counterparts in 2011, HTC Jetstream is actually on par with its rivals, especially in terms of performance.

It has a dual-core Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM and Adreno 205 – which used to be one of the most powerful GPUs around the tablet market.

But the question still remains, despite having premium design and good-grade hardware, does HTC Jetstream stack up against its rivals, especially in terms of performance?

Well, we’re about to find out about that in this review. So check it out!


In terms of design, HTC Jetstream actually looks pretty unique and stand out among its rivals.

In fact, for a tablet released in late 2011, HTC Jetstream has a much better looking design compared to other Android counterparts around the market that time, like Samsung GALAXY Tab 2, Kindle Fire tablet or Motorola Xoom – although, i’ve got to say that Motorola Xoom is a much better tablet than HTC Jetstream, in the whole aspect.


But it’s really great to see how HTC is still consistent to deliver what its best when making devices.

And that is its design approach, making sure that all of its device consumers not only have good performing devices, but also the devices that are worth showing off to the public – similar to what Apple has been doing the past few years.

I just really hope that, HTC is still the same when it finally outs the rumored next-gen Google Nexus tablet – a powerful tablet with premium looking design that matches the iPad Air or iPad mini 2 - or even surpass these 2 Apple tablets.

Anyway, talking back about the design of HTC Jetstream, as you can see on its rear-cover, this manufacturer uses that brushed-aluminum finish – which interestingly, similar just like what HTC did today on its latest-gen HTC One M8, with that same brushed aluminum finish.

And this makes the device, any device, looks really gorgeous.

Meanwhile, on the front side, actually there’s nothing to write about on this area as HTC Jetstream looks pretty dull and generic just like any other 10-inch Android tablets out there.

But overall, despite being not so successful Android tablet, i’m still really impressed with the design and material used on this tablet, especially on its rear-cover.

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• Mini-SIM (LTE)
• Released September 2011
• 10.1 inch LCD capacitive touchscreen display, 800 x 1280 pixels, 16M colors(~149 ppi pixel density)
• Weight 709 g
• Dual-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm MSM8260 Chipset
• 1 GB RAM
• Adreno 220 GPU
• Android OS 3.1 Honeycomb
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• microSD memory card slot for up to 32 GB
• 32 GB Internal storage
• GPRS
• EDGE
• HSDPA 14.4 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps, LTE
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth
• USB
• 8 MP rear-facing camera, dual-LED flash, autofocus
• 1.3 MP front-facing camera
• Accelerometer
• No Radio
• GPS
• Java
• HDMI port
• Li-Ion 7300 mAh battery (Non-removable)

Given that HTC Jetstream was released back then in late 2011, then the medium-grade hardware specs on this tablet are acceptable.

In fact, despite being an old-gen 2011 tablet, i’m personally really impressed by the whole spec sheet of this tablet.

I mean, if you look back at tablet market that time – where Samsung GALAXY Tab was still in its early stage of gaining popularity and Amazon was also still really busy promoting its homemade Kindle Fire on its website -, then what HTC Jetstream has to offer, especially its hardware specs, actually looks impressive compared to its rivals.

Not to mention, the first-gen Sony Xperia S actually was released a year after HTC Jetstream made its debut.

Anyway, HTC Jetstream features a 10.1-inch display sporting the HD 1280x800 pixel resolution, a dual-core Snapdragon MSM8260 processor clocked at 1.5GHz per core, 1GB of RAM, 8MP rear-facing camera (which is really impressive for a 2011-released tablet), Android v3.1 Honeycomb out of the box (which is Android build OS dedicated ONLY for tablets), 32GB of storage with microSD card slot, a huge 7300mAh power battery (which again, is just amazing for 2011’s tablet market) and many other impressive goodies.

So personally, i’m kind of confused every time i heard many reports that HTC tablets suck. I think that is so wrong. And HTC Jetstream clearly shows that perfectly.

This tablet is gorgeous in design, it has many great hardware specs (whereas most of 2011’s tablets were not so great in spec sheet), it even has cellular connectivity 4G and 3G – which were considered as new technology back then -, and the most importantly, this tablet has one of the best mobile GPUs in 2011 – Adreno 220.

Although Adreno 220 GPU is now considered as so-3-years-ago technology in today’s standards – compared to the latest-gen Adreno 330 GPU -, this GPU is still powerful to run any graphically demanding games across Android ecosystem, even in full graphics.

So with all of these impressive goodies, then it’s really clear for us to see that HTC Jetstream is actually a complete package of Android tablet – despite being not so popular in tablet market.

I’m glad this tablet doesn’t use that outdated “resistive” screen technology. It would definitely make the touch experience much worse and laggy.


As i mentioned above, one of the things that makes me really amazed on HTC Jetstream is definitely its display.

For your information, even the second-gen iPad released in March 2011, still uses that low-resolution 1024x768 pixel display, as opposed to the HD 1280x800 pixel display on HTC Jetstream – which was released in September 2011 -, although Apple finally upgraded the display of iPad through the 3rd-gen iPad with much higher “Retina Display” 1536x2048 pixels in March 2012 – which was 6 months away from the debut of HTC Jetstream.

So that means, HTC Jetstream amazingly used to have a much higher-resolution before the iPad 3 came out – which is an interesting fact about this tablet.

Anyway, for a 10-inch tablet with this HD 1280x800 pixel display, basically everything that you throw on this tablet will look sharp – no doubt about that (i mean, even on my 14-inch display of my laptop, everything with 1280x720 pixels already looks sharp and crisp).

So for doing any basic – mostly media-consumption tasks – like watching movies, reading books/magazines, browsing the web, checking out photos or even playing heavy games -, this tablet without a doubt will deliver an eye-pleasing experience to you, and in smooth performance, thanks to its adequate hardware.


Similar just like on any HTC Android devices, the UI of HTC Jetstream still looks pretty similar, with that giant weather and digital clock, plus some other HTC-designed Android icons a la HTC Sense UI.

So if you’ve already loved all of the traditional icons on your HTC Sense UI on your HTC device, then you will feel at home when using this tablet.

Speaking about its software, HTC Jetstream comes with Android 2.3 Honeycomb out of the box – which is the Android build specifically made only for tablets.

So there will be some other standard stock Android features that will be found on this HTC’s tablet.


As i mentioned above, despite being an old-gen 2011-released tablet, HTC Jetstream surprisingly is already packing some really impressive goodies, especially in the performance department.

It has a dual-core Snapdragon MSM8260 processor, 1GB of RAM and Adreno 220 GPU.

Talking about its mobile GPU, Adreno 220 may not be considered as a beast anymore for today’s standards – especially given that most of top-shelf devices today already adopt the real beast Adreno 330 GPU.

However, that doesn’t mean that the Adreno 220 GPU inside this HTC tablet will be inferior in performance.

I mean, for a 2011-released tablet, having the Adreno 220 GPU on any device means that all the apps and games around that year will run perfectly on that device, even the most graphically demanding ones.

And it goes the same with HTC Jetstream, on this tablet, there is a plenty of games that will run on this tablet without any problem.

I even believe that, even with this “outdated but still powerful” GPU, there are still many today’s games that will work on this tablet (and i will let you know about this in the near future of course – so stick around on this page).

Meanwhile, for doing any basic media-consumption tasks - like reading books/magazines, watching HD videos, browsing the web, checking out photos or using live wallpaper -, there’s no problem for this tablet to execute all of these tasks in smooth performance, even all at once, thanks to its 1GB of RAM.

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As i already told you above, the Adreno 220 GPU on this tablet may now be considered as “outdated” for today’s standards in tablet market.

However, that doesn’t mean that this GPU will suck in gaming performance.

In fact, i personally believe that there is a lot of Android games that would work seamlessly on this tablet, even the most graphics intense ones.

For older games released in 2012, then it’s obvious that HTC Jetstream won’t have any problem running them all – like PES 2012, Asphalt (5, 6, 7), Modern Combat (1, 2), N.O.V.A (1, 2), Need for Speed Undercover & SHIFT, Dead Trigger I, GTA Vice City, ShadowGun, Real Racing 3 and many other more.

However, for the latest graphically demanding games like Modern Combat 4, Asphalt 8: Airborne, N.O.V.A 3, GTA San Andreas or Dead Trigger 2, i haven’t known that specifically – at least for now. But definitely, i’ll let you know once i’ve found out about that.

But basically, these games will still run on this HTC tablet, but they probably won’t run in full high graphics.


One other strongest point of HTC Jetstream is definitely its camera.

Again, i think it’s really amazing to see a tablet - released in 2011 like this – already has an 8MP rear-facing camera.

I mean, even the iPad 2 (the one released in 2011) didn’t have any rear-facing camera – which Apple made it up with 5MP camera on the iPad 3.

So again, HTC managed to beat Apple for the second time in this department (the first one is the HD 1280x800 pixel display on HTC Jetstream vs the low-resolution 1024x768 pixels on iPad 2).

And this is the second interesting fact about HTC Jetstream.

In terms of quality, the photos/videos taken with of HTC Jetstream may not be as great as on the iPad 3.

But it’s still amazing to see this old-gen tablet already adopt this 8MP camera whereas the other rivals in 2011 were empty-handed in this sector.

Besides, even though its quality has nothing to write home about, at least, it still gets the job done and the photos and videos are still worth sharing to your Instagram or Twitter followers, right?

And that what really matters for today’s micro photography.


After that 8MP camera, the next awesome thing on HTC Jetstream is definitely its battery capacity.

HTC Jetstream is packing a giant 7300mAh Li-ion power battery.

And this is still considered as really huge even in today’s standards.

With this gigantic battery, you are provided by HTC with such a long-lasting battery life on this tablet.

So if you love enjoying contents on this tablet, like movies, books, magazines, web articles, photos, music or games, you should have no worry at all about its battery life.

You can expect this tablet to last probably around 10 hours for those media-consumption activities.

However, if you’re type of power users and would like to use this tablet in heavy intense mode without resting the screen at all – like for watching movies in marathon or playing games in the row -, its battery life probably could drain to zero in around 6 to 8 hours the longest, which is not really bad, even good for a 10-inch tablet.


So my final conclusion about this device is, despite being an under-the-radar tablet in 2011, HTC Jetstream is actually still a good quality tablet.

It has a gorgeous premium design (especially its rear cover), it has a lot of high-grade hardware specs (from an HD display, a dual-core Snappy Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, Adreno 220 GPU), it has a nice 8MP camera, a huge 7300mAh power battery ensuring a long-lasting all-day battery life and it has a huge database of Android games and apps that would work on this device.

However, if you’re planning to get this tablet in the near future, then you might want to switch to other options given that HTC Jetstream is probably pretty hard to find lying around the mobile or tablet stores in your town – although you can still buy the used or refurbished model of this tablet around the online retailer websites.

There are many other 10-inch tablets that are still better than HTC Jetstream, like Sony Xperia S, Sony Xperia Z, Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 (with LTE and Snapdragon 800), iPad Air, Microsoft Surface Pro, Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10, Google Nexus 10 and many more.

Besides, all of these new-released tablets have much better performance and gaming capability than HTC Jetstream.

So you’re getting a more reliable device for playing games, especially the latest graphically demanding games.

Have any question? Leave your comment here!