Top Ten Things You'll Hate AND Love About the Helio Ocean

I’ve been excited and have waited for the Helio Ocean for as long as I’ve known about its eventual release. Like many, I was quick to slap some cash down and get the beast. And like many early adopters, I find myself regretting my decision. As much as I’d love to love this phone, it’s increasingly difficult to do so. Continue reading to see why Helio insists you “Don’t call it a phone.” – and agree.

1. The Battery Life
   On the official Ocean page, Helio states up to 5.1 hours of talk time. I honestly can’t imagine how you can achieve that when the phone is ready for a full charge within 20 hours of its last charge. I’ve only talked for a max of 15 minutes on this phone today, so it telling me the battery needs charging in its 20th hour on a full charge is ridiculous. Many others are complaining about the same issue. I'm not saying they're misrepresenting their statistics, because I don't know their testing environment, I'm just saying they're very unreachable.
   • For the record: I’ve been using devices for a long time, hell, I am often asked to teach people how to use anything from cameras to USB memory sticks (no, really).  I charged my battery fully before its first use, no matter how impatient I was to use it, and let it drain till the last low-battery warning before charging it again, as I do with all my devices. I do this each and every time because charging a device midway is just a bad thing to do. That practice has not helped in this matter. Sucks. Update: It takes quite a few charge cycles to condition the battery. Longer than you think it would... just keep conditioning the battery and after about a week, you should see significantly improved battery life.
2. The Protective Lock When It’s Closed
   This one is a pain. With the sliders closed, you can’t press any buttons and have the phone instantly spring to life like most others. You’ll have to hold them down just to wake it up, in which case you have to hold them down again to activate its function. Fine, that’s understandable, but hell, if you want to do something really quickly like activate the camera, you’re SOL unless you open the slider (in any configuration) and hit the button you want. There’s currently no way to disable this lock.
   • Ironic function: If you hold down the red/end-call button, it’ll ask you if you want to turn off the lock. You say yes. The lock is not disabled permanently, however, it's only temporary.
3. The Camera’s Constantly-Resetting Settings
   Whenever you make setting changes to the camera at any time, they won’t stay after the phone function closes or the phone goes to sleep. Yeah, it’s that bad, especially the default settings it continually resets itself to: A resolution of 320x240 and “fine” quality.
   • A scary scenario:  You want to take a picture really quick, say, like in an emergency. Let’s say a car hits another car and attempts to run (because it’s so popular today to shirk responsibility for the things you've done) and you want to be a Good Samaritan and take a picture of the event. That is an emergency. You try to activate the camera (read #2) and once you get it open, its default resolution is 320x240 and the quality is “fine”. It’s probably too late to change it. Taking any type of picture will probably not help anyone because that resolution is absolutely ludicrous.
     Update: This can be partially fixed, but if you open the T9 keypad in portrait mode and use the camera, your resolution setting is seemingly reset. The above scenario (hit and run) in this case still applies.
4. Nurse, get this phone a Red Bull, stat!
   Ever have a girlfriend that continually fell asleep when you wanted her to do something potentially important? Neither have I. That’s why I hate this part about my phone: when it goes to sleep, it really goes to sleep, closing anything that’s open… that is, when the phone is in its closed form or in the off-chance, you’re listening to your music. The only way to keep the programs open is to actually have the slider open. I shouldn’t have to tell you how easy it is to close a sliding phone, because it’s obvious.
   • A real-life scenario: You’re driving and you want to have Google Maps open with the GPS functionality doing it’s magic. Hell, have the site-to-site directions going as well and live traffic reporting. Once it’s closed and if it goes to sleep, the application is closed too.
5. The Web Browser That Just Browses
   Hey, I’m not one to expect a phone that isn’t a phone to actually browse the web and do it well, but I’ve got to wonder if Helio actually tested this phone before releasing it. So far, I’ve had ZERO luck trying to log into anything… MySpace or Flickr or anything that has a log in form. You just can’t do it, and if you do, it’s after a lot of trouble. If MySpace is one of the first links you get on the Ocean’s browser homepage, you should definitely be able to log into it flawlessly, especially if it’s an interface specially made for Helio – one of their big touts. I’ve been unable to log in with any of my three most used (at this time) accounts: MySpace or Flickr.
   • The Breakdown: The phone relies on this technology referred to as the “Google Mobilizer”, a feature that effortlessly converts any website into one you can browse on a phone. Only this feature often breaks any type of form you’ll come across, breaking your experience completely. For the record, I disabled this whenever possible, and it’s still impossible to log into MySpace or Flickr. Don’t tell me my credentials are wrong, because they’re not.

 Things You’ll Love

6. It  Charges Extremely Fast
   But only probably because it dies so quickly, too. Charge it for an hour and a half and it’s back to a full charge. Keep a charger on you, nuff said.
7. The Form Factor is Awesome
   I switched from a Cingular 8125 (the HTC Wizard) with a touchscreen and slideout QWERTY keyboard. I’ve seen my friend’s Samsung slider that has the T9 keypad slide out. This is the best of both worlds, baby. Face it, dialing on a touchpad is terrible. The lack of tactile feedback (where you can’t feel what and where you’re dialing) is a pain, because it’s impossible to dial without looking. Based off your phone’s CPU power, it may be slow for the camera to recognize where you’re dialing. If the alignment is off, you’re easily pressing other buttons even if you see where your fingers are. But on this phone, dialing is painless. Texting is painless. Everything about it, input-wise, is absolutely painless. Good job!
8. 3G Access
   It’s fast and responsive. E-mails are sent and received quickly, and with the package, it’s dirt cheap compared to other providers. (I’m saving over $50 a month from Cingular for the same or similar features.)
9. Integrated Google Maps with GPS and Live Traffic
   Yeah, it requires JAVA and takes a bit to start up, but once it’s running, it’s awesome! Site-to-Site directions with GPS, live traffic updates and switching from traditional to satellite imagery is effortless and painless! Just don’t let it go to sleep on you (See #4).
10. Instant, Painless Searching
    If you’re in your contacts, you can start to type the contact’s name in T9 or QWERTY and it filters down the results immediately. I don’t even scroll my contacts anymore, and there’s no need for speed dial. If you have the QWERTY open and are sitting on the idle screen, typing in any amount of text immediately prompts you to search online. Clicking OK (the Flame) opens your browser and gives you an awesome, tabbed interface that shows results in Yahoo (defaulted), Google, Wikipedia, Amazon.com and some service I’ve never used called

I’m Not Bitching Just to Bitch, I’m Bitching to Improve
Again, I’m not some soured customer looking to flame a company or new product, but with these legitimate, major inconveniences, I’m looking for improvements by the manufacturer. I know any device has its quirks and flaws, and I’ve seen most of them mentioned on Howard Forums, which is why I’ve intentionally left this at 5 legitimate hate/love items.

With the Ocean very early into its infancy, however, and Helio looking to make a good niche in the mobile market, I’m hopeful that Helio’s going to do everything they can to improve their “beta” device.

That said, it’s just a phone. Using it as a phone works perfectly fine. It’s when you want to use it as something other than a phone, you’ll really run into the inconveniences I’ve outlined in 1-5. It is a lot smaller than a Sidekick and doesn’t remind you of it each time it’s in your pocket, but there are many things Danger has done that makes Sidekick a much more matured device.