If you’re thinking of retiring your old mobile phone, have you narrowed down your choices for a replacement? With the hundreds to thousands of models out there, which style do you think is best for you? You’ve got clamshell types, candy bar models, and even the slide phones. If you think they’re all the same, then here’s a slide phone you surely won’t forget: the Helio Ocean.

It’s not just your ordinary slider. The Helio Ocean is the first and so far the only mobile phone every created that sports the dual-slider feature. The Ocean slides vertically or horizontally to reveal a numeric keypad or a QWERTY keypad, respectively. Each sliding option securely clicks into place, so you won’t have to keep fumbling around for which option to use. You can only use one keypad at a time.

What else makes the Helio Ocean so famous? Since Helio is a rather young mobile network, they wanted to be specific about their target market, which are the young mobile users of the United States. Helio was fortunate enough to have tie-ups with MySpace, so youngsters across the country can log on to their accounts and upload their goodies right from their Helio Oceans.

Not only that, the Helio Ocean is said to have the ultimate inbox. This mobile phone is any messaging fanatic’s dream come true. Not only can the Ocean work with the conventional Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Message Service (MMS), bit it also does email and Instant Messaging (IM). When creating either an SMS or MMS message, the user doesn’t need to specify which of the two he will be sending, as the Ocean determines it right away. If a message contains text only, then the Ocean sends it as SMS. If a picture, sound file, or video is attached, the MMS sending option is immediately activated.

So what about IM? You don’t need to be logged on with your laptop or desktop PC to enjoy the perks of IM. Your Yahoo! Messenger profile doesn’t need to be on “I’m on SMS” mode all the time. The Helio Ocean already comes installed with Yahoo! Messenger, AOL AIM, and MSN Live Messenger. Clicking on the icons from the Ocean will instantly log you on with the quickness of high speed internet. Not only that, if you store your friend’s YM, AIM, or MSN ID’s on your Ocean, your phone will immediately let you know if they’re online, in any of the three IM clients.

Finding your friends has never been simpler than on the Helio Ocean. The Ocean supports GPS and is enabled with Helio’s Buddy Beacon service. Friends within the Helio network can locate their buddies via GPS and view their map positions in real time. Who wouldn’t want to try that nifty idea?

The Helio Ocean is quickly becoming popular for more of its cool and innovative features. Getting this unit is a bargain at $295 with subscription from Helio. You can get your hands on the famous Helio Ocean and at the same time get more for your money with the outstanding functions of the phone.