Features
4.7
I could easily write a novel-length description of Ocean's features and probably still leave something out. Helio's bread and butter is packing their "not phones" with access to all sorts of multimedia and games that users can download or subscribe to (for additional fees) via the Helio Store. Ocean is the first device really designed from the ground up as a high-tech means of accessing all Helio has to offer. In many ways it succeeds beyond expectations, while in others it comes off a bit like a "Jack of all trades, master of none." Web surfing and messaging are Ocean's strong suites, and I'll cover those in later sections of the review. Media, games, and organizational apps on Ocean were generally good if not great, with some unique features worth mentioning.
Ocean features a redesigned user interface built around an icon-driven menu screen. A ring of choices takes you to apps including contacts, the Web, media player, messaging, planner, camera, and the Helio Store. Depending on which icon is highlighted, additional context-specific choices are available via two softkeys. While UI icons have been designed with an eye towards the younger crowd, all menus on Ocean are clean and easy to read. Helio's UI designers really did a nice job on Ocean's look and feel; it's a little hipper than, say, Nokia's Series 60 UI but perhaps even easier to use.
One caveat to that is that certain features on the device feel a bit like they were "layered on top" of the core UI and OS. For instance, accessing the Web browser launches a loading screen complete with progress bar. Leaving the browser yields the same screen en route back to the main OS. As a friend of mine put it, "It's really weird to watch applications boot up on a phone."
Helio also did a great job with the Idle Search feature, which lets you initiate a Contacts and/or Web search by typing keywords directly from the Home screen. If your keywords match an entry in your Contacts, you'll get that entry as your result; otherwise, your taken to a Web results page. Very handy. More on Ocean's Web surfing capabilities later in the review...
Two free applications - Google Maps and Helio Buddy Beacon - take advantage of Ocean's GPS capabilities. Both apps worked very well, and the MySpace generation will love Buddy Beacon, which lets you keep track of where your friends are. Me, I'd just as soon nobody be able to find me at any given time unless I specifically wanted them to. But I'm an old fogey like that.
Ocean also features a media player that can play music and video tracks from internal memory, miniSD memory cards, or streamed over the 3G data network. The music player generally worked quite well, though I did experience a one-time bug that resulted in all the tracks I'd sideloaded from my Mac showing up with Korean titles in place of the English titles they'd actually been tagged with. Music can be played in the background during Web surfing, but not while any other applications are running.
Songs can also be purchased and downloaded over the air from the Helio Store. While the experience is a good one and downloads are reasonably quick, at $1.99 per track Helio is charging double what Sprint asks at their music store.
The video player was decent, but not as great as I'd expected. Streaming video in particular was rather blocky and choppy, though still viewable in that "if it's entertaining, it doesn't have to be HD" sort of way. Video shot with the built-in camera did result in somewhat smoother playback.
The Contacts, Alarm, and World Clock applications work well, but the Planner app leaves a few things to be desired. As of my writing this, Ocean can't sync Calendar data with either PCs or Macs, though Helio says they're working on solutions for both platforms. The planner is also lacking a task list, strangely enough. On the flip side, Ocean supports over the air Contacts syncing via Helio's website. In fact, Helio makes it really easy to switch between handsets (in case you want to leave Ocean at home and take a sleeker phone like Heat out with you for the evening). On their Website you can click between your devices, making one or another active while also syncing your Contacts. Very cool if you're a multi-phone kind of person.
Camera
Helio put a 2.0 megapixel camera with flash assist light into Ocean. While this shooter's somewhat washed-out and blurry images won't win any contests, they're at least on par with standard (read non-SE Cybershot or Nokia N-Series) cameraphones. Far from awful, images captured with Ocean's camera are just a bit dull and washed-out, lacking "pop" when it comes to color or detail. The camera is backed by software that allows for myriad shooting modes/settings and makes it easy and fun to share photos via messaging and/or Helio's "Up" photosharing service. Up allows for direct uploading of photos from Ocean to a server that allows for tagging (including location tagging via GPS) and Web-based access for you and your friends. Photos can also be saved to microSD memory cards for transfer to a computer or printer.
Video capture mode resulted in movie clips that suffered from a similar dullness coupled with a fair amount of motion blur during action sequences. Movie clips may be captured at QVGA (320 x 240) or 176 x 144 resolutions, the latter specifically intended for use in MMS messages. One neat trick found on ocean is the ability to use movie clips as moving wallpapers on the home screen. While I honestly don't know that I'd actually employ that feature very often, it's still pretty cool.
Next: Display & Audio »
