Helio Ocean

Mar 26 2007 - 11:06 AM ET | CTIA

helio ocean qwerty

CTIA 2007 -- Jon Gales -- - The Helio Ocean by Pantech is the first major handset announcement out of the annual CTIA conference. Highlighted by a unique dual-slide form factor, the Ocean is the most unique Helio handset by far. Executives at the startup carrier have been buzzing about the device and noted that this device has actually been in development since before Helio was officially a company.

helio ocean tiny The Ocean has both a numerical keypad and QWERTY keyboard. With the numerical keypad slid out the device looks like a conventional slide-style handset and behaves as a phone. With the QWERTY slid out the Ocean transforms into what's best described as a Sidekick competitor.

“Finally, you don’t have to choose between a device that’s good for talking but a nightmare for messaging, or one that’s good at messaging but feels like you’re holding a brick up to your face when you try to make a call,” said Sky Dayton, CEO of Helio

Features of the Helio Ocean include:

  • QVGA screen with 260k colors
  • 200 MB internal memory plus microSD card slot (USB mass storage mode supported)
  • EV-DO 3G data
  • 2 megapixel camera
  • Media player with support for MP3, AAC, WMA, MPEG-4, H.264, VOD and MOD
  • GPS
  • Stereo Bluetooth
  • POP, IMAP, Exchange email support (plus popular web mail)
  • Full HTML browser

The Helio Ocean will go on sale later this Spring for an estimated $295. It's an exclusive to Helio. MobileTracker will have more on the Ocean as soon as we get a hands-on look.

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