Ushering in what appears to be an ongoing partnership with Samsung, Helio has officially taken the wraps off its
Drift slider. While it might not be able to run with the latest and greatest that Korea has to offer in its domestic market, the Drift looks to stand head and shoulders above the lion's share of handsets in US circulation with a fairly impressive spec sheet. Besides the expected QVGA display, decent storage (128MB, to be exact) with microSD expansion, 2 megapixel shooter and EV-DO, the Drift sports a true GPS receiver. That in itself isn't terribly notable or interesting, but Helio's bundling the Drift with a GPS-enabled version of Google Maps, which when you take into account the routing, real-time traffic, and satellite view capabilities, might make a dedicated nav system obsolete for some users. Helio's also using the launch as an opportunity to introduce "Buddy Beacon," a location-based system in the same vein as
Loopt for locating and mapping a preselected list of friends. Add in a web browser that's been revamped for speed and A2DP support, and the Drift -- in either white or black -- suddenly seems like a bargain at the $225 asking price.
posted Nov 9th 2006 12:01AM
Wow i cant wait till my contract is up in april and i cant wait to see the rumored qwerty phone
Honestly this phone sounds hot. Stuck between the love for my 8125 the need for a faster processor That new HTC ROM with true TASK MANAGER like features or a new smaller simpler phone with teeth... This baby here has fangs!
GPS-enabled phone using Google maps sounds really cool! BTW i like those little nice shiny gadget.
Except helio doesn't have Helio to helio minutes yet and their night and weekend minutes are the basic 9pm to 6am...other than that SPrint i mean helio is great.
Since this is a CDMA phone, can I use it with Verizon?
This really does look fantastic. Any chance 3rd-party apps like Opera and GMail can be installed? What about using it as a bluetooth modem?
Damn, I thought I had sworn off CDMA phones but this changes everything.
Dumb question I could probably find the answer to on here somewhere but what network are they piggybacking off of? I'm assuming Sprint.
No you can't use it with verizon
And yes, it is piggybacking off sprint
Interesting... I just called the 800 number on their site to find out if you can use their devices as external modems. The customer service guy I talked to said it was "a big no-no right now". So does that mean I'll get my hand slapped if I figure out a way to do it?
Either way, they can't be *that* opposed to it since they sell a hybrid 3G/WiFi PCMCIA card.
so i have sprint... if i buy one of these phones can i activate it with sprint and use my current plan and all that stuff? sprint has the worst phones and im tired of my a900 already.
nope, all helio devices are exclusive to helio members - they can't be used with other carriers.
But they are using Sprints network, you are telling me that there is no way to use a phone made to work on Sprints airwaves on...Sprint? Is it impossible or just not something that would be easy like with say a firmware crack or such?
Sprint and Verizon are designed to only allow phones that were created for their network to work. So it doesn't matter if they are both CDMA and or if they are even using the same network, the same way you can't take an Amp'd phone and use it with Verizon. You can't take Helio phones and use them on Sprint. Same network yet not compatible, unless Sprint makes a policy change this will never occur. The problem is that they sell Sprint phones and they have people that are trained on how to handle those issues, those people never receive official training or have access to tools that will help them support phones that were not designed to be used by Sprint customers. CDMA is just locked down to keep things more organized. This is not a Sprint issue, a Verizon issue or even a Helio issue, unless the company you want to use makes a policy change to allow foreign(competing) handsets on their network this will never change - at least with the Big 2 domestic CDMA carriers and probably most MVNO's. It kind of defeats the point for the carrier when you think about it, they want you to be seen carrying a XYZ phone that using their network, if you are using a competing carriers phone other consumers get confused with brand recognition and this is an issue. If you want freedom with your phones go to Cingular or T-mobile, but then realize you won't get CDMA phones or features. Thats just my 2 err 25 cents.
i am stunned, i thought that they were going to be a jit company, but they are really pulling strings, they are doing the same as anycall did and pulled samsung into the party. looking forward to see how it works in my hands.
helio has surprised me enough to by one. bye bye, laptop, palm, and mp3 player stuffed into my bag. i am downsized to carrying a nice gadget in hand with all the capabilit-ies. ;)
I've just started using this phone along with Helio this week and so far it's been digilicious. For me, GPS + Google Maps is the killer app, and it works wonderfully. Oddly, the buddy beacon uses Mapquest's maps - go figure... I love the relatively open media format too - I can put my own music and videos on the phone - hooray! Here's hoping everything with Helio and the Drift stays this good - w00!
Ok, so I have the black Helio Drift with a 2gig expandable memory card, I have a good bit of music on there, but HOW in the world do I put movies on there. My friend has a Hero and he has movies on his. The file I want to put on my phone is in MPEG format, and when I load it into Helio Media Mover, it just says Waiting To Encode...what format does it need to be in? I have tried MPEG, MP4, and 3GP. Any suggestions?? Thanks.
I have bought a used helio hero, i called the customer service and they told me i can't use it because it already registered under the name of the other person, what am i supposed to do for buying the 500 mnts plan for my phone?any idea?
thanks.
NICE and fast!
OH.. And they just kicked in Mobile to Mobile.. whoohooo.. free minutes calling to my buds now!