The Fin clamshell is Helio ’s best look piece of hardware , ginmill none . ( And pun mean . ) Samsung ’s Ultra designers made sure of that , giving the earpiece an 11.4 mm thick visibility , OLED external filmdom , and uncompromising magnesium shell , making it almost as thin as an iPhone , but not quite as slender as a candybar like the Sony Ericsson W880i . The software is Helio ’s latest as well .
The Fin ’s OS is the same as the older sliders , but it ’s pluck to near Ocean standard . It has the generous e-mail / IM client . The camera can upload via HelioUp to Flickr and Youtube with geotags . And it has entree to the amazing Garmin twist - by - twist GPS diligence that organizes local searches by space from you and your handset , and the vocalisation nav even reads street names . The only thing missing , compared to the Ocean , Helio ’s Hiptop Killer ? is Exchange support , which is coming shortly . And obviously , the QWERTY .
Which bring me to the computer keyboard . Like the Ocean ( despite it being made by Pantec , this by Samsung ) it has a faint , spongy feel . This was affirm by those of us on faculty not using iPhones the remainder of the time . The key do n’t snap , and with the flat , keyless face , it ’s hard to tell where your finger is on the keypad without using the two little centre as reference , or looking . gratefully , the keys are crowing , and I ’m certain with enough fourth dimension , one could get used to this sort of layout . There is a play / pause clit and a camera push hardcoded above the dialpad .
Like the Ocean , Bluetooth is still crippled , as the send picture feature does n’t work for me when testing it with a Mac or PC . It ’ll forge with headsets and stereo headsets for audiostreaming , too .
There is no fashion to get image off the gadget except by saving to memory card , or broadcast them to Flickr . I ’ll test their screen background software in a second and update this stake . ( Justin from Helio tells me it has link and image sync , and the software is Samsung ’s . )
The tv camera itself takes shot at over 2000 pixels wide , at 3MP , and in secure light , the colour is great , the image sharp , but the grain is overpowering .
Helio ’s Hot divine service is great , and its launching was time with the launching of the Fin . The other French telephone , except the Ocean , can make use of this costless RSS reviewer that can accept up to 10 feeds at once , and display them across your earpiece ’s unused pageboy . Very utilitarian . Check out the screenshots in our picture gallery to see what it looks like , but basically , it ’s a newspaper headline , and image . It auto - checks every 15 hour , or can be refreshed manually . I bed anything that makes use of the phone ’s primary display while it ’s passive .
The Fin can use Garmin ’s awing peregrine software . It mimes the blank UI of the touchscreen full - sized GPS machine , utilizing the internet and the earpiece ’s emplacement sentience to do a middling freaking good job of GPS on a phone . you could search for nearby stores , banks , airports , whatever , and sort by law of proximity to your current location . That ’s nerveless , and even cool , the list of tip of pursuit seems to canvas from the cyberspace , meaning that the leaning will always be pretty up to day of the month . Then there ’s this turning - by - twist service , which is awesome because it has voice prompts that read street names . Many full standalone GPS equipment do n’t even have this , but if you ’re operate to keep your heart on the road , voice command with street epithet are critical . adorable .
The speakers on this twist are incredibly meretricious for such a slim machine . The speaker , two-channel , are on the bottom of the handset . Used with Helio ’s over - the - conducting wire music armed service , which has a LOT of songs , I ’m glad with the music artistry of this phone , even more so than other Helio handset . The headphone / mic set utilise the Samsung data port and not a standard minijack , but you could , as I ’ve say above , use bluetooth headset and stereo earphones or else . expert stuff . Except that this earpiece only has 100 MB of storehouse , and does n’t come with a microSD card . For $ 175 , ok . But maybe this should have been $ 199 with a 1 or 2 GB card . Tough call .
Lo ! It burden by USB ! ( Ocean does , but slowly . ) Yay ! But jacking in by USB does n’t provide any mass memory board potentiality other than a lousy 16 megabyte of storage firewalled from the phone ’s figure and euphony . Boo !
The screen is skillful , 320 by 240 , but there ’s a dandy little OLED sieve on the outside . Two colour , I believe . It shows track name , when music is playing , but mostly content alerts , signaling strength , stamp battery , and the fourth dimension .
I like this headphone far more than the Drift or Heat . The Ocean is much fat , but with the QWERTY and widescreen modes , it is far better at take advantage of the beefy feature like YouTube and IM . I ’ll call this the only non - Ocean Helio you should consider , but the Ocean remains my primary choice . Unless I ’m wearing tight jeans . What else do you want to know ? [ Helio ]
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