Helio pumps some serious multimedia and messaging into this slimmest clamshell, but can the thin shell and flat keys keep up with all the features?
Review summary of the Helio Fin:
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 Perhaps Helio feels the need to offer the most unique phones on the market. Thus, the dual-sliding Ocean, and the country's thinnest clamshell, the Helio Fin. While the Fin is an admirable phone, and can handle some of the most advanced 3G features well, we wonder if the ultra-slim design fits Helio's robust messaging and Web browsing options. The keypad is perfectly usable for calling, but for typing messages or URLs, we had problems feeling comfortable. In terms of GPS, the adage about too many cooks comes to mind. Each of Helio's mapping options packs unique features, but fails in its own way. But don't let us sound too negative. The Fin is a good all-around phone, and if you want something stylish and slim, with good features and unique content that will impress your friends, it isn't a bad choice. It isn't the Ocean, but we'll forgive it nonetheless. Release: August 2007. Price: $125.
Pros: Super-slim design. Good calling features. Nice tools for reading messages. Unique and diverse video selection. Plethora of GPS options, including Buddy Beacon.
Cons: Flat keypad makes typing difficult. Camera lens quality doesn't live up to sensor. Lots of GPS options, but none offer great navigation, and Garmin is too expensive.
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Full review of the Helio Fin:
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Design - Very good
There is no doubt that the Helio Fin is attractive, if not the best-looking flip phone on the market. On the last "Slimmest Flip Phone," the Samsung SPH-M610, we weren't fond of the duckbill face and dull lines, but the Fin is sharp and slick, with an appealingly deep blue finish. The OLED screen compliments the dark blue, and provides information quickly, though an external display would have been cool on such a thin phone.
Once you start dialing, however, you notice the curious design choices that come with building such a thin phone. The keypad may have 12 buttons, but it looks like an unbroken sheet. The buttons have some travel, but no indentation or groove to separate them. Same goes for the five way button. The buttons move surprisingly well for, well, non-buttons, but touch-typing is out of the question, and messaging suffered as well. That being said, we've seen worse.
The interface and display are as good as we'd expect from Helio. The screen is QVGA resolution, and the interface features Helio's colorful and neat wheel of icons. Helio has a new set of annoying sounds for keystrokes, but these and plenty of other sound and display options can be customized. Helio offers a H.O.T. (Helio On Top) feed service to deliver a simple news scroll on your today screen. It worked well, and had some fun entertainment news. On the Fin, the H.O.T. app can also handle RSS feeds. Still, we found this to clutter up an otherwise clean look, so we generally didn't use it. Not because it wasn't useful, it was just our preference.
Calling - Very good
Calls on the Fin had some static when reception was low, but sounded pretty good in general. Callers didn't seem to notice when we heard some pops on the line, so it wasn't much of an issue. The phone is packed with calling features, though the address book lacks the live, while-you-type searching from the home screen that we liked so much on the Helio Ocean. We also miss the online phonebook applications that are available to Ocean users. The speakerphone was surprisingly loud for such a thin phone, although by normal standards it's pretty average. Voice dialing worked accurately, and Bluetooth was easy to setup. The phone has good alert options, with unique rings that vibrate to the beat of the music, and even video rings were easy to setup and enjoy on the phone. Battery life on the phone, however, was dismal. In our talking tests, the phone died before the end of a three hour conversation. We expect twice that, and would be happier with even more.
Messaging - Good
Though the Fin has some of the best messaging features of Helio's powerhouse messager, the Ocean, it obviously lacks that phone's QWERTY keypad and comfortable keys. Because of the Fin's flat keypad, we can't recommend it for long e-mails and text sessions, but for reading e-mail, the phone does a fine job. On the EV-DO network, our mailbox populated quickly, and we were even able to send photos in a jiffy from the camera through our Gmail account. Though Exchange support is rumored to be coming to this phone--as well as the Ocean--we can't imagine doing serious business messaging from this phone.
Camera - Good
The Fin doesn't have the worst camera we've seen on a multimedia phone from Samsung, but it still isn't great. Color was fairly accurate, even under our indoor, fluorescent conditions. Still, pictures were soft-focused or plainly blurry. They may look fine on the phone's screen, but with a 3-megapixel sensor, the lens isn't living up to the task. The Fin packs all of Helio's interesting and fun photo editing options, including the ability to quickly upload to Helio's UP server. From UP, you can upload to Helio's MySpace portal in addition to other Web services. We like the upload options, and sending photos to Helio UP was easier on the Fin than on any other Helio phone we've tested before. Still, we can't help but wish for a much better camera instead, perhaps with a good lens and autofocus. Then, we'd be much more interested in uploading our photos for all to see.
Video - Very good
Though Helio phones can play videos sideloaded to their microSD cards, Helio has also continued to build its original content library. YouTube is available from Helio's proprietary deck, and plenty of clips from iFilm and other online providers stream from Helio's video page. Also, Helio offers a deep selection of music videos for purchase and permanent download. The picture quality isn't as good as video on Verizon Wireless' V Cast Mobile TV, but the content offering is better than even the major carriers provide on their streaming services. Streaming videos loaded in about 10 seconds and played smoothly. Though we did encounter a few hiccups during playback, things never ground completely to a halt. We were happy to hear that stereo Bluetooth is also supported by the video player.
Audio - Good
To test the audio on the Helio Fin, we decided to take a more in depth look at the Helio Music Store. Similar to the Sprint Music Store and Verizon Wireless' V Cast store, Helio's store offers one-at-a-time over the air downloads. The pricing is in line with Verizon's $1.99/song as opposed to Sprint's recent $0.99 price cut. We downloaded Pharoahe Monch's new album, "Desire." First and foremost we were impressed to even find the album, complete and unedited. On iTunes, the unedited version is missing a track. Second, we were disappointed that there is no way to download a complete album. There is no obvious way to queue a track for download, and you have to wait for one to finish before starting a new download. Once downloaded, the track immediately starts playing, so you have to exit the music player, open the music store, search for the album, and select the next track. The process took a tiresome 30 minutes to download all 13 tracks.
The player itself is fairly simple, but the phone does have some nice EQ options, including some so-called 3-D surround settings, and even a manual EQ. A dedicated music button on the keypad lets you start playing right away, but the phone lacks any advanced, dedicated harware controls. Stereo Bluetooth was easy to setup, and sounded as good as we've heard on any music phone.
Web browsing, GPS, etc. - Good
Helio's Web browser is fairly competent, and is filtered by Google to make pages easier to read on mobile screens. Our homepage came through completely, and even thought it was reformatted into a single column, it was still manageable and--dare we say--informative. The mini map doesn't live up to the mini map on Nokia's N-Series browser, but is still helpful for scrolling through long pages quickly. If only entering long Web addresses on the flat keys were a bit easier...
For GPS, surely no phone on the market has as many options as the Helio Fin, though none are quite satisfying. Our favorite, the Buddy Beacon, uses Mapquest maps to find friends on a buddy list. Unfortunately, our buddy was using a Helio Drift (only days old) that had problems updating its Buddy Beacon application. Still, we’ve seen the app in action, and we've always thought it had great, untapped potential. Social Location Based Services are the way to go.
Google Maps looks good and can give you directions. Unfortunately, it won't give you those good-looking directions while you drive; you have to click through each turn instead. For live directions, Helio offers Garmin Mobile as a daily subscription app. For $3 a day, Garmin Mobile will navigate and even speak directions to you. The price is outrageous, and, having used the program for a few days, we can't recommend using it except in a pinch. It often had trouble finding our location, and occasionally tracked us so far from proper roads that it spent minutes relocating and reloading maps. The voice directions were very impressive, but the visual maps lacked detail at any but the closest zoom level. Unfortunately, at that zoom, our car was moving too quickly for the GPS to track smoothly. Helio needs a new program, or a free one, and hopefully both.
Comparison
Compare the Helio Fin with similar products
Who is the Helio Fin for?
Calling addictsMultimedia enthusiastsTeens
Price and availability
Available in the U.S. (Helio) in August 2007, the Helio Fin is priced at $125 to $175.
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