Helio Ocean 2 hands-on with video

Helio Ocean 2

Helio Ocean 2

Helio Ocean 2

Helio Ocean 2

Helio Ocean 2

A few days back we received a new Helio Ocean 2 from Virgin Mobile. Virgin Mobile is an MVNO^(INFO) that recently bought its competitor, Helio, in order to move into the more traditional contract based customer model. Because Helio has always managed to get some cool and exclusive handsets, Virgin Mobile has kept the brand alive, as is evidenced by the new Helio Ocean 2 by Virgin Mobile.

The Ocean 2 is built by Pantech, and has been rumored to exist for quite some time.

In terms of the form factor, not much has changed on a large scale, but there have been a number of tweaks. A new soft touch paint scheme has been added, and the Ocean 2 has much smoother lines than the original device. You can see a direct comparison of the new and the old versions in the video, below.

Overall I was really pleased with the design of the phone. The keyboard and keypad work very well, and the new dual-mode optical/mechanical d-pad works quite well, too. I did have problems with data, though. Connectivity on the device was painfully slow for some reason. Even when showing 3 bars of signal, I still had trouble getting anything but a trickle of bytes across the phone's EV-DO 3G data connection. This made web browsing pretty painful, and meant that I never got the Microsoft Exchange support to work.

That's a shame, because the messaging client on the Ocean 2 is really nice, just as it was on the original Ocean. It has a single inbox for text/MMS messages, email, and instant messaging. It is very easy to organize and navigate, too. And since the Ocean 2 is a dual slider, the app works with both the QWERTY keyboard and with predictive text on the 12-key alphanumeric keypad.

In any case, enjoy the video below and check out the rest of the photos on the next page. The Ocean 2 is available now online from Virgin Mobile for US$150 for new customers, after rebates.