greasy taint

I received a text message from Helio (my friendly cell phone service provider) :

Congrats, you have free Mobile to Mobile on Helio! You can now call your friends that have Helio anytime w/o using your minutes.

Normally that would be great news. But the problem is, I don’t know anyone else on Helio. Everyone I know uses one of the big mobile providers (cingular, sprint, verizon, tmobile).

Do you have Helio? Would you like to talk to me for free? Leave your phone number in a comment. I promise not to write on the door of a rest stop bathroom next time I find myself in the middle of I5 lookin for love at 3am.

But if you are tired of your provider, you should give Helio a try. They have some good plans, and they use Sprint’s network, so the reception is good for the most part. And their devices are tizight!

I have been using the Helio Drift (picture above), which I’ve been happy with for the most part. Biggest problems I have :

1. Battery life sucks!
2. I can’t check my gmail on the phone’s browser or install the java gmail app

But Helio also has a new device coming out called Ocean. It’s a dual slider. One slider contains the number keys for normal phone calls. A second slider has a full QWERTY keyboard built for a 12 years old’s hands. But still very cool.

And like my drift, it has GPS with google maps on it. Which comes in handy from time to time. And if you happen to be a myspace whore, you can get your fix with your phone (DOH!, I forgot, it’s not a phone). Also Helio has unlimited text messaging and multimedia messaging plans, which are very cost efficient if you are a text whore, like me.

So go get a Helio, and lets yack it up.

I know the recent at&t / sbc / cingular stuff going on has been confusing. So Stephen Colbert helps explain the mess.

Watch as Stephen Colbert busts out the feared double wag of the fingers. And remember I’m flacid with rage.

So yesterday after many frustrating days/weeks/months of poor service from Cingular, I decided to say “fuck you very much” to them and switch to someone else. And in order to hold on to what little youth I have left I decided to be adventurous and try one of the smaller MVNO type companies. These are small specialized (read : more expensive) companies that cater to specific demographics. The one I went with is Helio. Yes, the people who like to say “Don’t call it a phone”.

Helio uses Sprint’s CDMA network, which I had used years ago. I didn’t really have a problem with their network at the time, but it was more the way their services were setup. Voicemail, SMS and MMS were a mess. But things have been cleaned up and fixed since then. And plus they have a nice fast EV-DO data network. Why do I need a fast EV-DOO-DOO network you say? Well I don’t. But it’s nice to have if you like to tinker around on your phone, like I do. I use my phone for address, phone number, movie listings, checking email, checking weather, checking random news etc. BUT, now with Helio, and my new Samsung Drift (Samsung SPH-A503) phone, I can use Google Maps just like I do on the computer. Why? Because the phone has GPS built in. So I can pull up the google maps app, and it can locate my current position and I can get directions to any other address. It’s actually very impressive how fast it is. So now I have my own border-line retarded GPS navigation device.

Plus the phone is slick.

Here are my current gripes with my new service/phone :

1) Up until late last night I was not able to receive text messages (SMS). But that seemed to get resolved “somehow”. So that’s no longer a concern.
2) Picture messages (MMS) don’t seen to be getting to my phone. I seem to be able to send them out, but cannot receive them
3) This is suppose to be a multi-media device that supports music and video play back. But I can’t get the freaking Helio Media Mover software from working. It crashes everytime I connect my phone to the computer. So I’ve been unable to get any music on there. Although some of the ring tones on this phone are better than the gay ones we normally get by default.
4) One part of the phone’s design that sucks is the location of the back button. It’s a small button directly under the down part of the directional buttons. So a lot of times when I try to push down, I end up pushing back. And that fucks shit up. I wouldn’t even consider my fingers fat, so they obviously didn’t think enough about it. Come to think of it, since one of the partner’s in the Helio project is SK Telecom, a south korean telecom company, most of the phone on the network will be from Korean companies. So they are naturally designed for the korean market, where I guess fingers could be smaller and thinner.
5) The phone doesn’t feel too solid when it’s open. Its a slider phone so it doesn’t stay too balanced. This is probably something I’ll get used to and figure out over time.
6) Its a little pricey. $65 for 500 anytime minutes.

Ok, now for the happy portions :

1) The phone is nicely layed out and navigation is easy (except for that back button problem). Samsung is usually good at this. I have look at some motorola phones, and WHOA, what a fucking mess in the navigation menus. It’s as if a bunch of idiots with no clue about User Interfaces threw that shit together. Personally the best navigation experience I ever had on a phone was a Sanyo. Those japanese certainly know what they’re doing. <japanese_accent>Ho, thank you very much.</japanese_accent>
2) I like the PC Link software that works with the phone. Instead of having to painstakingly enter all of my contacts’ names and numbers into the phone, I was able to enter it all into the software on my computer and easily sync it over. Worked flawlessly. <japanese_accent>Ho, thank you very much.</japanese_accent>
3) It has a 2 megapixel camera on it. My first digital camera, a Canon SD330 (I think), was a 2 megapixel camera. Scary. Not sure if need such high resolution on a cellphone, but I have it. And it does videos too. Haven’t figured that part out yet though.
4) Buddy Beacon : It’s an application that allows me to locate on a map where my buddies are. But unfortunately these buddies also need to be Helio users. And thats a big catch. Most of my friends are on Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint. So I might need to make new Helio buddies. Maybe if I hang out at Tilly’s in the mall I might meet some.
5) Google Maps integration as previously mentioned
6) Instant messaging software for Yahoo, AIM, and MSN that actually works.
7) Not sure if this is a selling point for me, but they have some myspace access from the phone. I haven’t tried it yet, but heard it’s cool. Neat gimmick, and great marketing.
8) Unlimited data usage. Since the $65 is an all-in-one plan, I get unlimited sms, mms, browsing, google mapping, buddy beaconing, myspace browsing, news and email reading fun.
9) The initial price was a good deal. The phone I got retails for $225. But at the grand opening of the Helio store on the Santa Monica Promenade, they were having discounts. So I ended up paying $56 including tax for the phone. And it came with a charger, usb data cable, free software for connecting to the phone and a stereo headset. Cool eh?

And here’s the same commercial with some different sounds that someone decided to record in… enjoy … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIgPA8SA6uQ