Get ready to parent at 4G speed
-
"Dissapointing" on by svk1069
Pros: Excellent Messaging, Bright Screen, Innovative Design
Cons: Cramped top row of keyboard, GPS navigation sucks, Helio Support is useless, Contact sync options limited
Summary: I really wanted to like this phone. I ordered it the day it was released. When it arrived, I charged it overnight and went to set it up the next day. Unfortunately I kept receiving a roaming message every time I tried to make a call, and the data features were unavailable despite being in an area with strong Helio (Sprint) coverage. I called Helio Support and they were useless. I decided I would try to take the phone to a different area to test it, however the next day when I got up, it was working. I still don't understand the reason for the delay.
The e-mail and IM messaging features of this phone are excellent. It is extremely easy to set up and log into Yahoo, AOL/AIM, Windows Live (Hotmail/MSN), GMail, and Earthlink Mail. I specified I wanted to receive alerts of new e-mails, but for some reason I didn't. Not sure what is going on with that.
At this time you cannot sync contacts directly with your computer. The best you can do is sync with Yahoo or AOL, or upload your contacts to Helio Mail and sync that.
One of the features I was most looking forward to on this phone was the GPS abilities. You can download Google Maps for navigation, but the font is way too small to be usable. Also, it does not automatically update your location when you are following directions. You must press "next" every time which is extremely inconvenient if you are driving. To be honest, the only practical purpose for the GPS is the Buddy Beacon. Unfortunately I do not know anyone else using Helio, so I was able to play with it.
While the Helio sports a really innovative design, I did have some complaints. The most frustrating was that the top row of the QWERTY keyboard is extremely cramped by the sliding part of the phone. I am a 6'1" guy, so I have large fingers which made it very difficult to use the keyboard. I constantly was hitting the wrong key. Secondly, the build quality of the slider seemed a bit loose. I was worried that this would get worse with time.
Currently there is no way to open Office documents on the device, so its use is really just for play. The camera is nice and takes reasonably good pictures. There's lots of video and music options, but those didn't really appeal to me, so I did not use them.
Another minor quibble: while the phone comes with lots of high-quality ring tones, they are all musical in nature. There was no option to select a "normal" ring even through the available downloads. This might be kind of embarrassing if you use this phone in an office or are over 30 like me.
The Helio is obviously target at the younger MySpace crowd and not me. Keep that in mind if you are not part of that demographic.
I had to call Helio support several times while trying to "activate" my Helio e-mail (which is required in order to sync contacts). The Helio support staff was completely ignorant of their own product and services. It was my experience with them that made me decide to return this phone more than anything else.
I am sending this phone back to Helio. They do have a generous 30-day money back policy which I am taking advantage of. -
"A girl's full review of the Helio Ocean" on by cooki4casey
Pros: beautiful screen, nice keyboard, all-in-one inbox, music sounds great
Cons: things tend to be glitchy (but it is new), limits while playing music, battery is difficult to get out
Summary: **Physical**
-The Phone Itself
The Helio Ocean is SEXY. A very nice, impressive looking device, slide open the QWERTY keyboard and it is soooo cute. It fits into my hands nicely, I like to have people text me or talk to me on aim so I can hold it and type
But opened with the number pad out makes it look way chunky, as well as when you hold it up to your face. It is much smaller than I thought from seeing it online, but for a dual slider phone, I'm very impressed with the size. I just can't expect to keep it in any of my tiny purses...
-QWERTY Keyboard
The keys of the keyboard are well sized & spaced, and it easy to get the hang of even with it being my first phone with a full QWERTY keyboard. The only small problems are have are these: 1. it is a little annoying to have to hit "alt" every time I want to put a number in, since there is no number key row. 2. The top row is a bit close to the upper part of the phone, so if you've got big thumbs (or long nails, girls) it can get in the way. 3. Quite often, I find myself pressing the B key instead of SPACE. The space button is short, but you just have to get used to it and it will work.
-Number Keypad
I don't use this too often, the only thing it is useful for is if you are making a call. It doesn't seem like they tried to make it too useful, they just made it so it functioned... so the keys are kind of flat, you'll have to look to dial, and the bottom row is short/squished with the bottom of the phone being curved.
-Screen
In one word? Beautiful. The pictures and videos you see don't do it justice. It is 320x240, giving you a nice clear look at... whatever you're looking at. This also allows the browser and GPS to have very small font... which could be an issue for some people.
-Camera
The 2MP camera sounds pretty impressive. It can take shots up to 1600x1200, which is pretty cool. Yet so far I'm not super impressed with the quality. It takes its pictures best outdoors in the light. Other than that, I give it the same as CNet: mediocre. Up-close shots are out of the question. The video isn't too great either, its kind of slow and the resolution doesn't go very high. Also, for stills there is an option to use frames but I haven't figured out how to make it work...
-Other
I like having the back, play/pause and forward buttons on the side. They are very useful when listening to music And also, the 4 soft keys give the Ocean some unique abilities. When playing some games, you can close the device and play it horizontally. It looks like a cute little portable game player... thing. There's also a voice memo button on the same side as the camera button. If you press this it will instantly start recording. A fun feature
**Audio**
-Calls
Calls sound find, I don't have issues hearing and neither does the other end.
-Music
The music sounds fantastic on here. Whether using headphones (it has a 2.5mm and comes with and extension to plug 3.5mm headphones in) or the speakers on the back, it sounds great. I'd definitely say iPod quality. And with 200MB of internal memory, you can put a decent amount of songs on before needing to buy a micro SD card.
-Speakerphone
The speakerphone isn't anything spectacular, but it works well enough. If you are in a noisy environment, like driving in a loud area, it will be hard to hear. Otherwise, it works fine for me.
**Software**
-Inbox/Message Center
I LOVE THIS. When I would read about it, I thought "well, that'd be neat to have I guess." I OBVIOUSLY did not comprehend what great fun this is. I love being able to download my e-mails to my phone and reading them wherever I am. It keeps everything all in one place and its easy to switch from your AIM buddy list to your Yahoo e-mail to your MSN Live Messenger.
-Media Player
Simple to use, organizes your music into Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, and Genres. It has a sleep timer, shuffle, repeat (all and one), and four different equalizers. The only problem is you can't do anything else while using it... only Surf the net (to download songs?). I wish I could text while listening to music...
-Browser
You can view the internet in either WAP or switch to HTML. Pages look great, just like they should in the HTML browser. It isn't too quick but not too slow either. After the first day I got the phone the browser stopped working and I had to call customer service and reset. Now it works, but sometimes it will freeze and I have to fight to get the battery out. So I don't use it as much as I thought I would.
**Reception**
I've had the phone for just over 5 weeks, and have had some dropped calls. But in most places I get at least a few bars. I recently went camping though and was lucky to see one bar. The 3G availability is pretty good too, I am not very far from Seattle so I get it great at home. But I don't think I'll get the same visiting family in northern California this summer.
Overall: I absolutely reccomend this phone. It brings so much in one beautiful package. -
"troubled to begin with" on by rice12
Pros: larger screen and all your mail in one area
Cons: I will list below
Summary: I like this phone and it does have a lot of potential. i just hope they get some of the bugs out. So here it is.
1. the bottom of the corners of the numerical keypad are hard to reach, cuz you cannot use the qwerty keypad all the time for texting.
2. I let my friends test out my phone and they went on the net. eventually through the course of the day the phone would not load any content.Thinking possibly the network was down I just waited for the next day . When next day came the phone still did not work. I called helio to try to remedy the problem. I had to clear some cache's and cookies but still did not get the phone back up and running. Eventually the tech walked me through to basically reboot my phone.this caused me to lose all of my address book and some new numbers I inputed that i did not get to save on their website. I got all the numbers back except for a few, so my loss was minimal. oh, and i did try to shut the phone on and off and take out the battery which usually solves my phone problem with other phones. one more thing, everything else was working on the the phone. just the internet was down.
3. when closing the the numerical keypad to the qwerty i noticed that the i would get, how do i say this..discolored and weird hash lines. It only happened a couple of times but
it did not deter from my use the phone.
4. this should be listed with the internet problems. But I tried to load a page
and then the phone would go black and I could not wake the phone back up. So I had to pull the battery out and put it back in and then turn on the power. This solved the problem
5.Also with the internet. When i tried to go to do a html page. I would get grey areas where content should be. like the phone did not have enough memory to load it. It did not happen all the time but it did happen and can be quite annoying.
6. I thought the speaker phone was not loud enough to actually use when driving. I had to actually strain to hear it.
7. the text volume sounded too low as well, meaning the text alert.
I think that is all that i found wrong so far. I only had the phone two days and thought it would be too soon to have problems such as these. but then again i usually never get the first versions of products so as to avoid problems as these.
I do like the phone and I am hoping for the best. Hopefully as time goes on i can write a really great review. -
"The Ocean's software could sink the phone!" on by cima113
Pros: Solid phone.
Cons: Poor software
Summary: I ordered Helio's Ocean and have been using it for about 4 days now and I gotta tell you, its a good phone but there are issues. Hopefully they can tweak the software and fine tune the users experience.
The phone has a simple interface UNTILL you use the web browser. It is beyond confusing as to how to get to some of their touted features. The browser needs better forward and back page buttons. It has a back button but needs a forward. The video stream link section forces you to scroll through pages of video clips your not even interested in just to get to the ones you want. It would be nice if they grouped the videos by show names first and then list each episode. The main web page isn't customizable so you cant just quick pick the sites you use daily. You are forced to save them through a bookmark listing in a menu. Very annoying considering how much clicking it takes to navigate web pages.
Integration of media The phone has a nice camera and the ability to snatch images off websites. The audio player is surprisingly loud and clear. The problem starts when you want to use this media in say contact cards or use a song as a ring tone. Either the steps needed are just too complex to do, or the software isn't sufficient in assisting the user in making it happen.
Like I said the phone is good but the software needs work. The phone's software should make it simple to add an image from the web to a contact card, wallpaper or to select a song as a ring tone. they need to make the phone work for the user instead of the user working for the phone. -
"Outstanding" on by misssie
Pros: Intuitive, reliable, Bluetooth compatible
Cons: After 2 weeks use, no negatives
Summary: We now have 6 Helio Oceans in the extended family and have received our first bills. With all the texting and phone calls, web search, photo upping, etc., the cost was still way lower than Verizon or Cingular. The feature set is generous and the phone itself is cool. Love the google maps and buddy beacon.
Write a Review
Check coverage in your area 
