helio

Now it's confirmed. According to Reuters, Virgin will buy Helio from SK Telecom, most likely this week. The deal is not final - its terms and amount were't announced yet.

Helio is devided between SK Telecom which owns 69% of its shares, and Earthlink holding a 28% stake. Virgin Mobile will buy SK Telecom's share.

What will happen to the Earthlink's half remains unclear.

Things aren't looking good for Helio, but despite that the company is moving forward with the Ocean 2. Above is the screenshot captured from a YouTube video.

As you can see the device looks the same as its predecessor, but will be more advanced in terms of specs.

Anyway, if we consider the current situation with Helio, we might never see the device going live.

Some sources report that a large part of Helio stores will be closed in the near future as the company is being taken over by Virgin Mobile. There's a big corporate reshuffling coming up, apparently. Now we can only guess what will happen to the Ocean 2 handset, and whether Helio customers will be able to keep their phones...

For a "very limited time" Helio offers its Ocean smartphone for just $99 after rebate.

While the price seems very reasonable, we wouldn't rush, as this could mean that a new device is coming soon...

So, you can either buy the handset now, or continue to wait for the second Ocean to appear - the choice is yours.

 

Finally it happened!

Opera Mobile is now officially available on Helio Ocean devices. Users can download it from Helio’s Web Portal, however, the browser is currently available only for the Ocean smartphone.

But if everything will go as planned soon Opera Mini will be supported by the entire Helio line.

Intellect Wireless has sued Helio, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and Virgin Mobile for patent infringement.

According to Intellect all four companies are violating its patents regarding image messaging. All patents belong to the company's founder Daniel Henderson, and are titled Picture Phone with Caller ID, and Method and Apparatus for Improved Paging Receiver and System.

Helio started offering its unlimited plan for $99 per month, as opposed to usual $145.

This is a limited time offer, so hurry up.

Helio Mysto is the latest addition the company's phone lineup.

It is a slider handset equipped with a 2Mpix camera, integrated GPS receiver, Bluetooth, music player and a microSD slot. The phone will be available only in Helio’s retail stores for $149 starting December 26, 2007.

The worldwide release is scheduled on January 2008.

Helio Player is the company's new media manager for Windows.

With this program you can manage and transfer various multimedia content including music, movies and images between current Helio handsets and a PC. It also allows downloading music bought on the phone to the PC and vice versa.

Buying music through the Player costs 99 cents per track, while purchasing music on the handset will cost you $1.

Helio Ocean received a new YouTube Mobile application that will allow users to watch, rate and comment, a well as upload new videos to the famous website directly from the handset.

You'll have the ability to share videos with people from your contact list, add files to My Favorites and to create new video playlists.