Helio began as a telecommunications company founded January 2005 in Los Angeles, California. In spring 2007, Helio introduced their newest mobile phone, the first of its kind that is a dual-slider: the Helio Ocean. This new model came as a pleasant surprise for mobile fanatics, and it slowly became a popular alternative to other famous but more expensive brands. This PDA phone packs in an ocean of possibilities for the busybody or the fun lover.

The Ocean measures 4.3 in x 2.2 in x 0.9 in and weighs 5.6 ounces. It has an appropriately large 2.4 in LCD screen at 262,000 colors and 320 x 240 pixels resolution. The oval-shaped body of the Ocean has an integrated antenna and comes in black finish. When held vertically, the Ocean slides up to access the number keypad. When slid horizontally to the right, the Ocean reveals a QWERTY keypad and operates in widescreen mode.

Helio boasts of the Ocean’s seemingly unlimited phonebook capacity. It can carry up to 4,500 entries, each entry can contain six phone numbers, four email addresses, three street addresses, three instant messenger ID’s, company and department name, and even URL’s for homepages. Each entry can be put into a caller group, tagged with a photo ID or with a polyphonic ring tone ID.

The Ocean is an excellent tool for messaging. It supports Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS), email, and Instant Messaging (IM). Helio was smart enough to integrate several email services onto the Ocean: from Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, Gmail, MSN Hotmail, Helio Mail, and Earthlink Mail. With just a click on a tab or icon, users can immediately be directed to their desired mail client. For those who are hot on IM, the Ocean also carries functions for Yahoo! Messenger, AOL AIM, and MSN Live Messenger. As messengers are able to synchronize their Ocean’s contact lists with the IM services, they can easily be alerted when a friend is online in any of the IM programs.

For the multimedia lovers out there, the Helio Ocean has good stuff up its sleeve. You can download over the air song files in mp3, WMA, and AAC format in less than one minute. Each song costs $1.99. Playback quality is well-appreciated, both on the loudspeakers and headsets. The Ocean can also play live TV feeds, in clear and smooth quality. TV show clips from MTV, Comedy Central, and Fox Sports can be accessed at an additional fee per month. Photos and video files can be transferred from a laptop or desktop PC using the USB or the SD card.

There is a lot that remains to be said about the cool and ultra useful features of the Helio Ocean. One can only begin to describe the many wonders it can do to improve work and play. The dual-slider technology innovated by Helio really did double the Ocean’s capability, compared to other mobile phones. As it has been said, the Helio Ocean does offer an ocean of possibilities.

Helio introduced the Ocean when they released it in the United States in May 2007 at a suggested retail price of $295 with subscription. A lot of people have been rather relieved that this baby costs much less than the iPhone, at $499 to $599 a piece with subscription. Since then, many have been putting these two devices head to head.

This pocket-sized Ocean has a lot to be proud of, anyway. It’s the world’s first-ever phone that is a dual-slider, meaning you can slide it vertically or horizontally, to access one of two keypad options. Text and data input is made less of a hassle with a numeric keypad and QWERTY keyboard. Also, typing in memos and text messages can be faster with the built-in T9 dictionary.

The phone has Evolution Data Optimized (EVDO) support that lets it get online and download large files at high speed. Users can even enjoy live streaming video from the Ocean’s 2.4 inch Quarter Video Graphics Array (QVGA) LCD screen at 240 x 320 pixels resolution. You can watch music videos and movie clips on portrait mode or landscape mode. Images are smooth and require a very minimal amount of buffering to load.

The Ocean also has a Click-Free Search feature. Simply tap in the keyword of what you want to search for, and the Ocean lists down links, downloads, photos, even GPS coordinates related to your search item. Plus, checking email from Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, Gmail, MSN Hotmail, Earthlink, and Helio Mail is a snap with the Ocean’s quick links and icons. For Instant Messaging (IM) clients like Yahoo! Messenger, AOL AIM, and MSN Live Messenger, the Ocean has quick sign in buttons for you. Also, the Helio Ocean can alert you whenever your buddies are online in any of the three IM clients, simply by inputting their IM ID’s onto the Ocean’s phonebook.

Integrated Messaging is also proudly performed by the Ocean, which means you can send either SMS or MMS without having to select the option. Whenever a message contains text only, the Ocean will immediately flag it for SMS. And when a photo, video, or sound file is included, it will be sent as MMS.

Downloading games and applications is very much possible with the Ocean. It supports Java games, and even allows its users to play in 3D mode or online multiplayer mode. Gamers enjoy these great options, since video and music playback quality over the speakers or headsets is a-one. Who says you can’t do all this in a pocket-sized device?

The Helio Ocean is great at areas where the iPhone is at its weakest. For example, when it comes to 3G network, you can connect through it with lightning speed. It has a unique dual slider system where numeric keypads are revealed when you place the phone vertically and a QWERTY keyboard when positioned horizontally. The minor glitch, however, there is that you can’t open both simultaneously as they belong into separate layers.

Ocean also finds its edge in terms of its e-mail messaging services. You can integrate almost all known mail services in the web such as MSN Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail in one messaging dashboard. Latest buzz is that Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync program may just find its way to Ocean, synchronizing contacts, calendar entries, and corporate e-mail. It also makes instant messaging a lot easier through its Presence Detection feature. You can type the name of your contact in the home screen. Helio’s Smart Dialer will then reveal complete contact information of the person as well as icons that indicate if your friend is actually online.

If all these highly efficient features are already provided by Helio, what’s the iPhone for? For one, it isn’t simply an ordinary phone. It can also function as an iPod. It has a very wide screen complete with touch controls which allow you to enjoy any form of media to your heart’s content. This includes videos, TV shows, music, movies, and audio books. Through its Safari web browser, you can view any web page exactly as they are. You can zoom them by merely tapping with your finger its multitouch display.

The iPhone is for multitaskers. It tries to imitate the sophistication and power of any advanced operating system like widgets, calendar, text messaging, and Notes, among others. This means you can download an e-mail while you surf the Web.

The phone is equipped with its own built-in sensors. A simple rotation of the device will automatically convert its setting from landscape to portrait. This also changes the way images and texts are displayed on screen, so it will use the entire web page width. So which one is better? Honestly, only time can really tell.