Helio Ocean Cell Phone Review
By Alfredo Padilla
Reviewed.com Editorial Staff
Published on August 19, 2007
The Helio Ocean is a high-end phone focused on giving jet setters more powerful tools to stay in touch with friends. Although there are similarities to smart phones like the HTC Mogul or the BlackBerry Curve (including a full QWERTY keyboard), the Ocean is not a true smart phone; it lacks the third-party software support and high-end features that distinguish smart phones from the more common feature phones. The Ocean does have a lot of features, however; there's an innovative dual slider design that features a large QWERTY keyboard when the top is pushed one way and a standard keypad when pushed the other way. It also includes a large 2.4-inch screen, built in GPS capabilities, and great media player features.
Dialing a number on the Ocean requires you reveal either the QWERTY keyboard or keypad. It took us an average of 3.1 seconds to make a call on the Ocean; significantly faster than most other phones. The Ocean includes a reasonable calendar and notes application for a regular phone, but it’s not nearly as powerful as those found on smart phones like the Treo 750.
The Helio Ocean did not perform particularly well in our audio tests. Received sound was adequate, but the sent sound was overly bassy, which could lead to your voice sounding more like Barry White than you might be comfortable with. We also found the Ocean's side tone (when the phone pipes your voice back into your ear so you can hear yourself) was lower than we would have liked, so you may end up shouting when you don't need to.
The Helio Ocean has a 2-megapixel camera that took reasonable photos; its resolution score was lower than we would have liked, but it did a good job of reproducing colors. The Ocean also takes video at 320 x 240 pixels, and has the unusual feature of being able to upload videos directly to YouTube from the phone. Music can be stored on 200 MB of internal memory or a MicroSD card.
The Ocean does a reasonable job of playing back music, and the built in software does a decent job organizing music and video on the device. You can purchase music directly from Helio's music store or play your own MP3, AAC, or WMA encoded songs.
In addition to text and multimedia messages, the Ocean includes a very well-integrated instant messaging client that works with Yahoo!, AIM, and MSN messenger services. We were impressed to see the Ocean's GPS capabilities can be integrated with the instant messaging client; your Ocean-owning friends can see your current location. Aside from the integration with IM, the GPS can be used in conjunction with the built in Google Maps application to find yourself and plan routes.
There is also an e-mail client, which is sufficient for basic e-mail access but isn't as good as the e-mail clients found on smart phones like BlackBerries. Heavy texters will appreciate the excellent QWERTY keyboard on the Ocean; we were able to type an impressive 53 words per minute on it. The Ocean's Web browser is less impressive; it has trouble formatting some pages and is really only useful for light browsing. The Ocean supports high speed data via Helio's EVDO network, though, so pages download quickly.
At 4 hours and 7 minutes, the Helio Ocean's talk time is a little short; that's several hours less than the iPhone (which lasted 7 hours and 4 minutes). Music playback lasted 8 hours and 9 minutes, and Web browsing lasted 4 hours and 19 minutes. These times aren't especially long, but are adequate for daily use; just don't forget to charge it overnight, or you could run out of juice the next day.
Like the Apple iPhone, the Helio Ocean is a powerful handset that includes a good range of features. Business users and those who want to organize their lives on the go will want to take a pass, though; it doesn't have the high-end e-mail and organizational features they need. The Ocean will be attractive to power texters, thanks to its excellent QWERTY keyboard and IM integration. The GPS functionality is also a nice extra that isn't available in many phones yet. Those looking for a true smart phone, however, will probably want to consider a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device instead.For a more in-depth review, visit the Helio Ocean Review at our partner WirelessInfo.com
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