Ahh, the Helio Ocean. Finally I got my hands on the mother of all Phones. 'Scuse me, Devices. (apparently its not a "phone")
Now that I had a chance to play with it for a few days, I thought I would go over what I like:
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Helio Ocean
1.0 The Dual slider is everything I ever wanted out of my SidekickII and didn't get! I can easily switch from keyboard to numeric keypad with ease.
2.0 I can make my own ringtones out of my own music!!(with a little re-formatting magic)
2.1 Speaking of music, I can very, very easily drag and drop my MP3's right from my music library to my Ocean's music folder! Awesome, indeed. Aaaaaand: the Ocean is bluetooth enabled, so when someone comes up with bluetooth headphones, you can listen to your tunes wirelessly!! WOOT!
2.2 The speakers on the back are killer. Really great sound.
3.0 I can surf the web faster than I could with my Sidekick, Pearl or SDA. Yes, I've had a lot of phones. But this is by far the easiest surfing experience yet.
4.0 The idle search functions for your contacts is really sweet.
5.0 OMG, the Google Maps!!! The Ocean knows exactly where you are and from the main screen you search for businesses, whatever and get point by point directions to your desired destination. This is by far the funnest thing and I played with it wherever I went this weekend just so I could see if it could "find me". I'll never get lost again.
6.0 I should probably mention the phone quality - Its amazing! Clear calls! Imagine that! And since Helio is an MVNO (virtual network operator)that uses Sprint and Verizon's networks -there aren't a lot of places that you wont be able to call from.
...And the things I wish were different or improved:
1.0 Alt Keys on both sides to make switching between numbers, letters and symbols a little easier
2.0 A wider space bar
3.0 Better video capabilities. One of the big things that Helio boasted about the Ocean was the great video. The streaming video quality is good, but getting your own video onto the phone is difficult, and playing it is even harder.
Helio has said that there is an update coming soon to allow you to hook up to your corporate emails, so this I am guessing should be our next phone here in the office. *Hint Hint, Brian!*
Thank you for the review. I love the look of the ocean; I just can't convince myself to change service providers yet. Too many of my frequently called are T-Mobile-ers. All the photos definitely made it more tempting to abandon them anyways! ^^