elio's lowest-priced phone, the Samsung Heat, is a classy little device. It's fine for accessing MySpace through Helio, but I think the cutting-edge youth who pick up Helio's service will want something with more multimedia flair. If you don't know Helio by now, they're a small, cutting-edge cell phone carrier aimed at the collegiate set. The company used to be known as the "MySpace carrier," too, but has since branched out into other forms of social networking, such as its GPS-based Buddy Beacon service. It uses Sprint's physical network to connect calls.
Measuring 3.6 by 1.8 by 0.6 inches, the 3.2-ounce Heat is small, sleek, and comfortable to hold in the hand. Turn it on and you see its amazingly sharp little 320-by-240 screen. Helio has always said it gears its offerings toward youth, and the small keys and tiny text demand young eyes and nimble fingers.
Your fingers will have to be especially nimble to handle the confusing touch-sensitive action buttons. Helio counsels patience, but I found the unlabeled buttons to be dodgier and less intuitive than, say, the LG Chocolate's. No matter what setting I was on, I was never quite sure whether the buttons registered one of my clicks, and I was often confused as to which button did what. Then again, maybe I'm just ten years too old.
The Heat is a pretty good voice phone. Reception is fine. Sound in the earpiece is loud and sharp, with a just a bit of background hiss that you can hear in quiet indoor situations. There is no in-ear feedback. The speakerphone is strong, precise, and even a bit piercing. Transmissions sounded a bit fuzzy, but the problem might have been Sprint's network at the time. There's no voice dialing, though the phone worked with my Plantations Pulsar 590 stereo Bluetooth headset.
But come on, if you wanted a voice phone, you wouldn't be going with a trendy provider like Helio. The Heat has Helio's usual array of social-networking tools, including the custom MySpace, craigslist, Wikipedia, and Digg access pages. Then there are the GPS-enabled Google Maps, the "Buddy Beacon" GPS friend-finder, and, it seems, more and more customized WAP pages and features every day. There's a lot of fun surfing to be done here, though the interface and Web browser feel somewhat slower than the ones on Helio's Drift phone.
The Heat comes with free PC-linking software, which does indeed transfer ringtones, pictures contacts, and calendar entries to and from your phone. But ringtones have to be in the oddball MMF format (not MP3), and the Samsung-written software is full of awkward English. Helio could do better here.
The 1.3-megapixel camera is as sharp as these things get, though there's a bit of shutter-speed blur in low light. The cameraphone mode takes average-quality, but unlimited-length 176-by-144 videos at 14 frames per second.
The Heat falls apart if you want to use it as an MP3 player. Although the phone has 200MB of memory, that space is divided weirdly—138MB for downloads and photos and only 16MB for files transferred over from your PC, including music. There's no memory card slot, either. That makes the easy-to-use USB Mass Storage mode sort of a joke. I tried to see if the Heat would work with Helio's own Media Mover software, but got my usual Media Mover results—a buggy mess. Helio has a downloadable music store, but I'd suggest staying away for now. Unlike other carriers' stores, it doesn't yet let you download tracks to your PC, and I had DRM-protection errors on one of the tracks I bought.
That leads to my recommendation. If you're going to go with Helio, go all the way and get the Drift. It has everything the Heat does, minus the annoying touch buttons and plus more multimedia verve. If price is a concern and you want a youth-focused mobile service, think about using Amp'd Mobile instead.
Your fingers will have to be especially nimble to handle the confusing touch-sensitive action buttons. Helio counsels patience, but I found the unlabeled buttons to be dodgier and less intuitive than, say, the LG Chocolate's. No matter what setting I was on, I was never quite sure whether the buttons registered one of my clicks, and I was often confused as to which button did what. Then again, maybe I'm just ten years too old.
The Heat is a pretty good voice phone. Reception is fine. Sound in the earpiece is loud and sharp, with a just a bit of background hiss that you can hear in quiet indoor situations. There is no in-ear feedback. The speakerphone is strong, precise, and even a bit piercing. Transmissions sounded a bit fuzzy, but the problem might have been Sprint's network at the time. There's no voice dialing, though the phone worked with my Plantations Pulsar 590 stereo Bluetooth headset.
But come on, if you wanted a voice phone, you wouldn't be going with a trendy provider like Helio. The Heat has Helio's usual array of social-networking tools, including the custom MySpace, craigslist, Wikipedia, and Digg access pages. Then there are the GPS-enabled Google Maps, the "Buddy Beacon" GPS friend-finder, and, it seems, more and more customized WAP pages and features every day. There's a lot of fun surfing to be done here, though the interface and Web browser feel somewhat slower than the ones on Helio's Drift phone.
The Heat comes with free PC-linking software, which does indeed transfer ringtones, pictures contacts, and calendar entries to and from your phone. But ringtones have to be in the oddball MMF format (not MP3), and the Samsung-written software is full of awkward English. Helio could do better here.
The 1.3-megapixel camera is as sharp as these things get, though there's a bit of shutter-speed blur in low light. The cameraphone mode takes average-quality, but unlimited-length 176-by-144 videos at 14 frames per second.
The Heat falls apart if you want to use it as an MP3 player. Although the phone has 200MB of memory, that space is divided weirdly—138MB for downloads and photos and only 16MB for files transferred over from your PC, including music. There's no memory card slot, either. That makes the easy-to-use USB Mass Storage mode sort of a joke. I tried to see if the Heat would work with Helio's own Media Mover software, but got my usual Media Mover results—a buggy mess. Helio has a downloadable music store, but I'd suggest staying away for now. Unlike other carriers' stores, it doesn't yet let you download tracks to your PC, and I had DRM-protection errors on one of the tracks I bought.
That leads to my recommendation. If you're going to go with Helio, go all the way and get the Drift. It has everything the Heat does, minus the annoying touch buttons and plus more multimedia verve. If price is a concern and you want a youth-focused mobile service, think about using Amp'd Mobile instead.
