Helio Hero

Editor's Note: As of August 2006, Helio has released an update to the Hero that adds an instant-messaging feature to the phone. It was not available at the time of this review.

The Hero marks the debut of the brand-new Helio cell phone carrier, a joint venture by California-based EarthLink with Korea-based SK Telecom that launched early May 2006. Helio is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that piggybacks on Sprint's high-speed EV-DO network but offers its own line of phones and services. Like most of the youth-oriented MVNOs, such as Amp'd and Virgin Mobile, Helio's target demographic ranges roughly in age from the late teens to the early 20s. This is especially emphasized with Helio's big claim to fame: all Helio phones will have integrated access with the mobile version of MySpace, a social-networking site popular with today's youth. Aside from being the first Helio phone, the Hero is also the first high-end handset created by Pantech, a Korean company, specifically for the U.S. market. Along with features such as a camera and a music player, Helio vamps it up with a unique user interface that certainly sets it apart from the rest. The Hero goes for $275 in addition to Helio's monthly rates, a hefty price to pay for a supposedly youth-targeted phone.

The first thing you might notice about the Helio Hero is that it's not a compact phone by any means. It's a bulky affair, clocking in at 4.3 by 1.9 by 0.9 inches and 4.7 ounces, but its weight and its slightly tapered curves actually result in a comfortable feel in the hand, and the Hero cradled our ears just fine when opened. The slider phone is attractive, with a black finish and silver accents all around, and its prominent 2.2-inch, 260,000-color screen is a showstopper. However, we could hardly see the display in bright sunlight.

In the upper-left and upper-right corners of the screen, you'll find dedicated video and music buttons, while two soft keys and a navigation toggle sit below the display. When in standby mode, the toggle acts as a shortcut to the browser, applications, video, music, text messaging, and the Helio On Top service (more on that below). That's followed by the usual send, power/End, and Back/cancel keys. On the left spine, there is a volume/speakerphone button and a voice recorder key, while the right spine houses a headset jack and a Micro SD card slot. Located on the back is the camera lens, complete with a sliding cover, a flash, and a self-portrait mirror. Slide the phone upward, and you'll reveal a hexagonal keypad, resembling a honeycomb. All buttons are slightly raised above the surface, leading to a tactile and user-friendly experience.

By far, Helio's user interface is one of the most innovative we've seen to date in a cell phone. Its main menu consists of several bold graphics grouped together in a circle, doing away with the traditional boxy grid. It's supereasy to navigate, thanks to a very user-friendly interface. You can customize the backlight time and the font size but not the screen's brightness.

But enough about the design--you're probably most interested in the phone's features. Aside from a 2-megapixel camera with flash, the Hero sports a WAP wireless browser, a music player, a video player, a voice recorder, a speakerphone, a video recorder, and EV-DO support. The address book holds about 500 entries, each of which accommodates two numbers, along with three additional numbers or e-mail addresses and photo caller ID. You can organize the callers into groups or pair them with one of 19 polyphonic ring tones. Other features include text and multimedia messaging, e-mail, a calendar, a wake-up call, an alarm clock, an anniversary reminder, world time, a tip calculator, a regular calculator, a stopwatch, and a notepad. There's also a neat feature called Spam Inbox designed to capture all your junk e-mail, but with all the spam out there, we imagine this will fill up fast. Despite this long list of features, we were absolutely disappointed with the lack of support for instant messaging and Bluetooth. The Hero is Helio's flagship phone, so we expected more from it, especially for $275.

The most important feature on the Helio Hero is, of course, the much ballyhooed MySpace integration. With one click, you can access your MySpace account on the browser's home page. Just sign in with your login and password, and you're ready to blog on your MySpace page, check your mail, and widen your extended network with thousands and thousands of "friends." Sure, it doesn't have the typical multimedia onslaught that is the MySpace experience, but it's good enough for that quick fix. The one thing we dislike is that you can't upload the photos from your camera phone straight to your MySpace blog. Instead, you have to send the photos to your Helio account via a multimedia message, then login to MySpace to retrieve the photo, requiring a lot of extra work and time. Also, all uploaded photos will have a nonremovable Helio watermark on the lower-left corner, which we found a little annoying.

Hide Review