It's the battle everyone has been talking about. The new contender is slim and fit, and can bob and weave, but the old champ still has the roundhouse punch. Who's our champ?
Review summary of the Helio Ocean:
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Full Helio Ocean Review:
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Round 1 - Design
This category was a close call, not because we liked each unique design so much, but because each design is slightly flawed in its own way. The Sidekick still has the cooler mechanism, and the interface responds quicker to flipping the screen open, though it isn't technically changing the aspect of the screen, just the orientation. Still, the Sidekick is very large, and the overall aesthetic of the device left us feeling like the old guy at the disco. The Ocean is much classier, but the two keypads aren't perfect, they each have their difficulties. We definitely preferred the trackball on the Sidekick, but Helio has some innovative methods for handling the five-way button. Ultimately, we preferred the wide keyboard on the Ocean, which had an intuitive layout clearly built with messaging in mind, to that on the Sidekick, which required our thumbs to hang over a shelf. Most importantly, though, the Ocean has a much better screen than the Sidekick 3. The Ocean is clear and bright, like we'd exepct from a smartphone, while the Sidekick is dull and dim. For that reason, and for its smaller, tighter design, the Ocean is our design winner.
Winner: Helio Ocean
Round 2 – Menus
The menus on the Sidekick are slick and youthful, with illustrations in the background and colorful icons. The Ocean is more stylized, at least at the top level, but then breaks down into a more dull set of lists. At the standby screen, we were disappointed that the Ocean offers few one-click options, while a quick roll of the trackball on the Sidekick 3 takes you through all your favorite features from the very top menu level. Also, we like the nested nature of the Sidekick's menu hierarchy, where simply flipping the ball right and left can often move you smoothly through menu options, instead of having to load new screens with new themes, options and layouts. Though we liked the Ocean's system-wide bookmarking, which let us jump bad to apps we had closed, we liked the Sidekick's unified menu key and wealth of soft keys.
Winner: T-Mobile Sidekick 3
Round 3 - Messaging
Both phones are able messaging devices, each with a few advantages over the other. For instant messaging, both phones support AOL, Yahoo and MSN. For e-mail, the Sidekick has a very good app for POP and IMAP accounts, but comes with no real presets beyond T-Mobile's own account. On the other hand, the Ocean comes ready for AOL, Yahoo, MSN and Gmail, as well as POP and IMAP. SMS messages look a bit better on the Ocean, though the Sidekick organizes text messages better. The unified messaging page on the Helio device makes messaging quick and easy, but the Sidekick is capable of more simultaneous conversations than, well, any other messaging phone. We could call this a draw, but instead we'll pick a selfish favorite. We use Outlook and Gmail, and though ActiveSync Exchange support hasn't appeared on the Ocean yet, Helio tells us it will soon. Neither phones support threaded SMS, which we like on our Palm (and now Windows Mobile 6) devices, so the choice comes down to the keyboard. We prefer the Ocean's keyboard for typing, and think it has the better layout for symbols and alt-characters.
Winner: Helio Ocean
Round 4 - Multimedia
This category is hardly fair, since the Ocean has access to Helio's EV-DO network, and all of the multimedia content on the carrier, including video clips and an over-the-air music store. The Ocean has GPS, which the Sidekick lacks, as well as stereo Bluetooth support. The Sidekick has a capable Web browser, and navigating pages is easy with the trackball, but the mini-map on Helio's browser, coupled with smooth scrolling, helps make up for the deficiency. The Ocean is a true multimedia phone, while the Sidekick 3 is a messaging phone with some multimedia features thrown in.
Winner: Helio Ocean
Round 5 – Calling
Both phones had a satisfyingly clean sound, with no significant issues to speak of. The Ocean had some reception trouble during our travels south, but in Manhattan both phones performed equally well. Probably thanks to its EDGE-only radio, the Sidekick manages better battery performance than the Ocean. Both phones have good speakers, Bluetooth and conference calling, but unfortunately they also both lack voice dialing, a curious coincidence. Both had excellent address books, and they also both handle address book management with a dedicated online site that provides over-the-air synchronization. While the Ocean could have had an advantage here with Outlook support (via a .csv file), we couldn't get the feature to accept our entire address book. Still, the Ocean does have live contact list searching from the standby screen, which is nice, but is it really any better than speed dial? Maybe, but not enough that we could declare a winner in this category.
Winner: Tie
Round 6 - Accessories
The Ocean comes equipped with headphones, a 2.5mm to 3.5mm headphone adapter, USB cable and charger. No microSD card is included. Though the Sidekick comes with a 64MB card, this is really a paltry excuse for expanded memory, as 2GB card prices have dropped very low recently. We'd prefer the headphone adapter to the pathetic card, and we'll use the card we already own. Still, the comparison seems silly, as both phones lack something we'd like. Even better, how about a few gigs of flash memory built in and a 3.5mm jack. Oh, there is a phone like that coming out soon? We hadn't heard.
Winner: Tie
Round 7 - Value
The devices themselves vary in price by almost $100. The Sidekick 3 costs $200 with a contract; the Ocean costs $295. Helio's All-In plan, which includes 500 minutes of calling and unlimited everything else, including texts and data, costs $65. We figure that 300 minutes on T-Mobile, including MyFaves, is probably a similar amount of actual talking time, so we opted for that $40 plan, plus the Sidekick plan, which also offers unlimited text messaging and data, for $20. So, the T-Mobile plan is $5 cheaper, but you're getting much less, because T-Mobile lacks 3G networking and 3G multimedia features. Granted, you still have to pay for music downloads and music videos, but besides the video clips, the GPS features on the Ocean are worth the extra price for the 3G. We also think the more advanced features, especially GPS, Buddy Beacon and stereo Bluetooth, as well as the much better screen, merit the price difference. Though it costs more, it represents a better value because of what you get for your money, so our choice for the value round is the Helio Ocean.
Winner: Helio Ocean
And the winner is . . .
It is a credit to the Sidekick 3, and perhaps to T-Mobile, that the device hung on so well in this duel. The phone is practically as old as Helio, let alone the Ocean. We weren't copping out declaring so many categories a tie, these phones were very evenly matched, and until recently the Sidekick was our favorite messaging phone. The Ocean takes messaging phones to a new level. Before, some smartphone features or a multimedia features might be included with a QWERTY messaging phone. The Ocean is a full-fledged multimedia device, and even steals some features from Windows Mobile, like the live searching feature. We still preferred Danger's interface navigation to Helio's, but in all, the Ocean is our new favorite messaging phone.
Champion: Helio Ocean
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