Helio Fin in the hand
(Credit: Corinne Schulz/CNET Networks)Helio calls its new Fin phone the thinnest flip phone in the U.S., and at 0.45-inch, it's true. It's also Helio's first clamshell, with a wide and long rectangular shape plus a tiny OLED external display. The Fin's design leaves me somewhat cold, with its staid-looking appearance and obscenely flat keypad (seriously, it feels almost completely flat), and is just a tad too skinny for my liking. However, we do like the large internal display, and performance was great. Also, the Fin has an impressive set of features--a 3.0-megapixel camera, built-in GPS, EV-DO support--plus a slew of innovative software applications as well. They include a new GPS turn-by-turn maps application courtesy of Garmin, an uploader that can transfer your images and video to Flickr and YouTube, and a simple RSS feed aggregator that will stream your favorite news feeds directly to the Fin's home screen. Take a closer look at the Fin with our slideshow or check out the review for more information.
Helio's Fin is thin
(Credit: Helio)Helio has just come out with what it's calling the thinnest flip phone in the U.S. Dubbed the Fin, it's a Samsung device that has a thickness of only 0.45-inch, which is even thinner than the Razr. The Fin is quite the supermodel phone, with a blue-black magnesium shell coupled with an understated yet simple design. From the looks of it, it appears to be an improved version of the Samsung D830, which is a GSM phone currently only available in Europe and Asia.
While the D830 has a 2-megapixel camera and 80MB of memory, the Fin will have a 3-megapixel camera and 100MB of memory. In addition, the Fin has EV-DO speeds, a full HTML browser with page zoom, a 2.3-inch QVGA display, a microSD card slot, built-in GPS, stereo Bluetooth, a music and video player that supports MP3s, AACs, MPEG4s, and H.264 video, and full-featured messaging options. Email options include POP3 and IMAP support, web email access, and push mail support for Yahoo, AOL, Windows Live, and Helio Mail. Similar to the other Helio devices, the Fin also supports GPS services like Buddy Beacon and Google Maps for Mobile.
But that's not all--the Fin comes with Helio's recently updated HelioUP software that will allow you to upload photos and videos directly to Flickr and YouTube. Since the Fin has GPS, you're able to automatically geo-tag your photos and videos with location information. This means you can have your photos appear on Flickr's World Map, letting friends and family know exactly where you are on, say, your epic summer road trip.
And what's a summer road trip without GPS-enabled navigation? Yes, Helio is debuting a new service with the Fin called Garmin Mobile, a moving map with turn-by-turn directions in real-time, complete with voice instructions. There are almost six million points of interest programmed into the service already, with gas stations, ATMs, and more. Garmin Mobile is available as an option for $2.99 a day.
Also, at long last, Helio has made its H.O.T. (Helio On Top) feed reader customizable, meaning you can now add all of your favorite RSS feeds to the feed reader and have the latest headlines stream in on your phone's home screen. Previous feed "channels" from MTV, The Onion, and so forth are still available of course, but at least now you can choose to have feeds from your favorite blogs too.
We're excited to see such a fully-featured phone like this in such a slim package, and thankfully it's not too pricey either. Available at only $175 with a $50 discount, the new Helio Fin sounds like a good deal.
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