Helio Ocean Now Available

contents

hardware

Ocean has arrived. The world's first dual-slider combining a traditional numeric keypad and a separate full QWERTY keyboard in a single device, Ocean delivers the definitive 3G mobile experience in an uncompromising form factor, exclusively on Helio's nationwide service. Designed to keep people connected like never before, Ocean merges Instant Messages, text messages, picture messages and emails from the major portals and ISPs in one location. Running over a nationwide high-speed 3G network, Ocean also offers full over-the-air music downloads, video-on-demand, a high-resolution camera, an HTML browser, GPS-enabled Google Maps for mobile, Buddy Beacon, first-of-its-kind full Web search from the device home screen, integration of IM presence into the address book, GPS tagging of photos and videos, MySpace on Helio and more U.S. industry firsts, all in a single, beautifully designed package.

Voice, IM, text, email, search, music, video and the speed of 3G – Ocean has it covered, by design. With a flowing minimalist face and a soft-touch surface, the shape-shifting Ocean slides vertically to reveal a traditional alphanumeric keypad for comfortably making calls, sending quick texts or surfing the web, and horizontally to reveal a separate wide full QWERTY keyboard suitable for the heaviest of emails or text and picture messaging, Web searches and full screen landscape viewing of crisp images and video. Ocean answers the question of full keyboard for messaging speed or traditional keypad for voice without the uncomfortable compromise of a QWERTY keyboard on your cheek – now you don't have to choose.

Ocean combines email, text messages, picture messages and Instant Messages in a single messaging hub that's just one touch away. Ocean's integrated messaging dashboard includes out-of-the-box access to Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, MSN Hotmail, Gmail, Helio Mail and EarthLink email. Just enter an ID and password and Ocean is ready to go with no additional software or manual setup required. Ocean also lets users add two additional IMAP or POP3 email accounts and supports push mail from Yahoo!, AOL and MSN. Soon after launch, Ocean will also support Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, which will be automatically downloaded to Ocean devices when available, combining business with pleasure as Ocean wirelessly synchronizes Microsoft Office Outlook email, calendar and contacts from a Microsoft Exchange Server. Want instant gratification? Ocean incorporates Instant Message access through Yahoo! Messenger, AOL's AIM Service and Windows Live Messenger all in this single messaging paradise.

Integrated messaging means users don't have to choose between text messages or picture messages. Ocean does all the work through one interface, automatically sending an SMS for text messages or an MMS when a picture or video is attached, so staying in touch and sharing life as it happens is quicker and easier than before.

Ocean's Contact list syncs with Yahoo!, AOL and Helio Mail address books and introduces an industry first of "presence detection" so users can instantly see which IM service their friends are logged into directly from their Contacts. Just start typing a name from Ocean's idle screen and the Helio Smart Dialer searches the address book by first and last name and pulls up full contact information, complete with icons to show if a person is logged in to Yahoo! Messenger, AIM or Windows Live Messenger. Getting in touch with friends has never been easier.

Searching the Web on a traditional "phone" is a multi-step process. With Ocean, there's no need to search for a search box. Just begin typing on the roomy QWERTY keyboard from the idle screen and the device automatically switches into search mode, delivering tabbed results from Yahoo!, Google, Wikipedia, Amazon.com and Yelp on a single screen, another Ocean industry first. Ocean also has a built-in HTML browser so users can visit WAP sites or freely surf the Internet. Ocean's Web browser also offers features like a mini map, zoom and full page viewing so navigation is easier than before.

Ocean sports a large, 2.4-inch, 260K color high-resolution QVGA display viewable in both portrait or landscape modes, external stereo speakers, Bluetooth for wireless voice and stereo Bluetooth for untethered music and videos, a 2.0 megapixel camera with digital zoom and flash for photos and over two hours of continuous video recording, 200MB internal memory expandable via microSD to 2GB, and USB Mass Storage Mode for drag-and-drop sideloading of content from a computer. Ocean supports an array of audio and video formats including MP3, AAC and WMA audio, and MPEG4 and H.264 video, all delivered over a nationwide high-speed 3G network.

Ocean also carries a multimedia chip designed to optimize music playback for up to 15 hours of continuous audio, has blazing fast USB sync speeds and is the first device to support over-the-air music downloads from Helio Music as well as side-loading of individually purchased and subscription music tracks from popular music services. Ocean even allows users to browse the Web or their music library without interrupting music playback.

Ocean's 2.0 megapixel camera takes advantage of Helio UP, which lets users take a picture with their device, tag it with metadata including a title, description, keywords and location information and upload it directly to Helio Album, Helio's photo service. Helio UP is also GPS-enabled, giving users the option of attaching their GPS coordinates to their photos and video and uploading them to a photo service for the first time from a mobile device.

write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Computing News :: home page