Helio Ocean Review - Making/Receiving Calls
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Richard Baguley Published on May 16, 2007 Comment on this |
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Dialing Speed (6.45)
We measure the dialing speed of phones by timing how long it takes us to call five numbers from standby mode. On the ocean this involves sliding out the keypad, and this is one area where the dual slider design of the Ocean excels; it provides both a full QWERTY keyboard and a decent sized keypad. However, the keypad of the Ocean is far from perfect; the keys are a decent size, but they are flat and don’t have much differentiation, which makes them difficult to navigate by touch. Two ridges by the 5 key are the only way to feel your way around the keyboard. This made it a little too easy to misdial, but the keypad was still pretty fast: we measured the average time to dial at 3.1 seconds;
Talk and End Buttons (7.5)
The two talk and end buttons on the Ocean are on the front of the phone, around the directional pad. These are a little on the small side, but they are pretty easy to reach with the thumb when the phone has the keypad exposed. But again, they are a bit difficult to find by touch alone; there are no ridges to separate the talk and end keys from the others.
Call Management (5.0)
The dial button takes you to the call history screen, which shows the list of incoming and outgoing calls. Only the last 5 are shown on the screen, but older calls can be accessed by scrolling down; we were unable to determine how many the memory of the Ocean could hold. You can also filter this list to show just incoming, outgoing or missed calls by pressing the left or right sides of the directional pad. Numbers in any of these lists can be easily saved to the contacts list by pressing the menu key and selecting Save.
Startup to Call (10.53)
The Ocean is a pretty quick phone when it comes to starting up: we measured the time for the phone to go from being turned off to making a call at an average of 9.5 seconds (to ensure we aren’t waiting for the phone network, we measure the time from hitting the power button to pressing dial, not the time to connect the call). That’s pretty fast; most Windows mobile based phones take over a minute to start, and it’s even quicker than the Blackberry 8700, which took 10.8 seconds. What this means is that you won’t be waiting around for long if you need to make a call and the phone is turned off; in under 10 seconds you’ll be calling.
Ring Volume (8.54)
The Ocean comes with a good array of built in ringtones, and we measured the loudest of these at an ear-splitting 85.4 decibels. That’s with the Ocean’s TK ringer feature enabled and that is pretty damn loud; you’ll definitely hear that, evne if the phone is in a pocket or bag. It’s not the loudest that we’ve heard, though; that honor still goes to the LG Chocolate, which we measured at 88.7 decibels.
Ringtone Customizability (0.0)
The Helio Ocean does not allow you to use your own music files as ringtones. This is an unfortunate oversight for a media centric phone like this. However, some users at Howard Forums claim to have found a way around this, by emailing the files. We weren't able to test this trick, though.
Non Audio Alerts (8.0)
The vibrate on the Ocean is more of a mild buzz than a true vibrate; the phone doesn’t move and you only get a slight buzzing noise. It’s more like a mildly annoyed bee rather than a hive full of angry ones. You might feel it if it is in your pants pocket, but you won’t if it is in a jacket or cat pocket. That’s a big disappointment; we use non-audio alerts a lot, but they are of no use if you don’t notice them.
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