Helio Hero

At a time when MVNOs like Amp’d are struggling to reach 10,000 subscribers, it’s hard to imagine that there’s much demand for yet another hip virtual carrier. Helio’s giving it a shot anyway. It features exclusive phones straight from South Korea, a tie-in with MySpace, and a unique way to get your news fix without having to surf the Web. You can even “gift” content to other Helio users. But given the sky-high price of the phones and the initially buggy software, we’re not so sure how many people will sign up.

 

We tested Helio’s service, which rides on Sprint’s high-speed EV-DO network, using the $275 Hero phone. Measuring nearly one-inch thick and weighing 4.7 ounces, this chunky black slider sports a big 2.2-inch QVGA display and dedicated buttons for the camera, music player, and video player. Two stereo speakers are located on either side of the phone, and a relatively large lens for the two-megapixel camera resides on the back. The only feature missing is Bluetooth.

 

What makes the Hero cool isn’t its specs, but Helio’s innovative services. Our favorite by far is Helio on Top (H.O.T.), which streams news, sports, and other headlines—along with corresponding thumbnail images—right to the handset’s main menu screen when it is idle. (One example: “Stocks drop on N. Korea test and rate fears”) Take your pick from dozens of channels and get feeds from up to 10 live channels, delivering content from the likes Yahoo News, The Onion, Fox Sports, and Fandango.

 

If you happen to be a MySpace user, you’ll love the deep integration with the Helio service. You can do everything from update your blog and find new friends to read and write MySpace mail. Uploading photos could be easier, however. You first must send your pics to “87” in an MMS message, then go to the photo section of your mobile MySpace page and click on the Upload Photo button. You can also send your photo to “Helio Up” in the address book.

 

What about the pictures themselves? They’re not as crisp as you would expect from a 2-MP camera, mostly because the Hero lacks autofocus capability, which hurts action shots. On the plus side, the video we captured looked relatively smooth compared with cheaper camera phones, and we like that you can send video messages up to 1MB in size.

 

When you’re in the mood to watch video, Helio offers a decent selection of clips organized by categories: Sports, Music, Comedy, TV, Trailers, and News. There aren’t many content providers within each category, but there’s enough to kill some time. We streamed a brief reality-TV style modeling competition from Ripe TV—complete with slow-motion jogs on the beach—and the picture looked okay, with only a few buffering pauses.

 

Loading your own MP3s is easy (if slow) using the included USB 1.1 cable. The phone has 70MB of memory, which you can expand with the microSD Card slot. Helio doesn’t yet offer over-the-air music downloads like Amp’d.

 

Gamers will be disappointed with Helio’s meager selection. As of press time, this carrier had only 40 titles. The only 3D game that impressed was the exclusive Fortune Golf, which sports cool fly-overs before each hole and slick character animations. Helio promises over 40 more titles by September. By then, the independent ratings provided by IGN.com and the ability to rent games for a week for 99 cents will make the Helio games more appealing.

 

During one of our playing sessions the Hero displayed a white screen of death, forcing us to reboot the phone. That brings us to this carrier’s biggest weakness: buggy software. We experienced several error messages (like “Move to Streaming Page” and “Move to Home”), as well as some menu dead ends, especially when trying to use the Back key to return to a previous menu.

 

Given that Helio’s All-in Memberships include unlimited MySpace, H.O.T., and wireless Internet access, plus video messaging and streaming, the starting $85 per month calling plan for 1,000 anytime minutes is fairly reasonable. Opting for 1,500 minutes costs $100 and 2,500 minutes runs $135. You can also get an a la carte plan for $40 per month with pay-as-you-go data.

 

Helio offers other perks, such as Yahoo search and the ability to download video ringers. Ultimately, however, this upstart needs to offer a more stable platform if it hopes to lure early adopters away from the uncool carriers.