Messaging, Internet & Connectivity
4.7
Messaging generally works very well on Ocean. Messaging features unique to Ocean include a nifty alert system that puts an icon in the status bar when you have new messages of any flavor, and the ability to send photos over IM just like on a PC. Also, the home screen shortcut to messaging is two-fold: a quick tap "down" on the D-Pad takes you to the main messaging screen, while a longer press in the same direction lets you compose a new message. Sweet.
Push email is supported for AOL, Yahoo! and Windows Live. Instant messaging also works quite well, though there is a wee bit of a lag during IM sessions as compared to a PC. In general, though, messaging is pretty speedy thanks to Sprint's 3G data network. All in all, Ocean is one of the most comprehensive email phones on the market right now.
As mentioned, Ocean uses Sprint's 3G EV-DO network for data services, including connections to the Internet. Sprint's EV-DO service is often cited as the fastest in the U.S., and I certainly was happy with the data speeds I got on Ocean.
Ocean's Web browser and Idle Search functionality were amongst the features I was most excited to try on the handset. After a few weeks surfing the Web on Ocean, I came away mostly impressed with a few caveats. The biggest hitch with the browser is that it defaults to reformatting incoming Web sites via mobile.google.com, essentially giving you WAP pages at blazing fast 3G speeds. Hidden at the bottom of every page you visit is a "view this page in HTML mode" option, which takes you to Ocean's excellent full-HTML browser. While I can see the reasoning behind defaulting to a WAP view on a device whose screen is less than three inches wide, I really wish there was a way to change that default setting to "full HTML" in a preferences menu. WAP pages are better suited to mobile browsing tasks like weather, sports, and stock updates, but there are plenty of Web pages I like to check in on during the day that simply don't look right after mobile.google's reformatting.
Ocean's HTML mode does a very good job rendering most Web sites, including some JavaScript support. The browser also features a zoom function and a Nokia-like minimap feature, both of which help you to more efficiently view Web pages originally designed for much, much larger screens. RSS feeds are automatically handled via Google News Reader, which is another handy touch.
The aforementioned Idle Search function is also really handy for those, "If only I knew the answer to ..." situations. With most mobile phones you have to drill down through a few levels of menu, launch your mobile browser, and then point it to a URL before you can enter your search terms. Ocean's Idle Search lets you type keywords directly from the homescreen and hit go, launching you out to a results page with tabs for Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, and Yelp results.
When reviewing a new handset, my benchmark mobile browsers are Nokia's N-Series, Opera Mobile, and the UIQ browser on Sony Ericsson smartphones. It's hard to say if Ocean's browser is better or worse than those three, as it does some things really impressively and others not quite as well. Idle Search, for instance, is basically unmatched by any other mobile I've seen. There also aren't many other handsets that combine full HTML browsing in landscape mode with full-on 3G data speeds that work in the U.S. (Nokia's N75 for Cingular comes to mind, but the good browser on that phone is buried in menus beneath the not as good Cingular-branded browser).
On the other hand, the default WAP mode "feature" is pretty annoying. And the browser did crash on me semi-regularly in HTML mode when it ran into sites it just couldn't deal with.
All in all, Ocean provides one of the best mobile Internet experiences available today, but not without some serious quirks. Hopefully Helio will address those quirks in short order via over the air updates - remember, this is a first generation, Rev. A product. In the meantime, whether or not those quirks will bother you is really a matter of personal preference. For my money I prefer the Nokia browser mostly because it uses HTML mode all the time and renders pages just a bit more accurately than Ocean does. Then again, when it comes to pulling the device out of my pocket and searching for a piece of information, Ocean is a good step or two ahead of the field. If you're considering Ocean and Web browsing is a key feature for you, definitely try before you buy if at all possible - it's a somewhat subjective experience.
As mentioned, Ocean is a dual-band CDMA device that operates on Sprint's network (with Helio providing service as the MVNO). Ocean's data services are handled via EV-DO connectivity that makes for one of, if not the, fastest cellular data connections currently available in the U.S. Unfortunately, laptop tethering is not currently supported on Ocean.
Ocean features Bluetooth connectivity with support for object exchange and A2DP stereo audio. Calendar syncing is not currently supported, though Helio says they're working on solutions for both Mac and PC systems. Contacts can be synched over the air via Helio's website, and Helio subscribers with more than one device can sync contacts across handsets and also change their active handset via the website. A USB data cable is also included.
Ocean also features a whopping 200MB of internal memory and a microSD removable memory card slot (no microSD card is included in the packaging). One odd quirk about the memory is that music and video files cannot be saved directly to a microSD card - they must first be saved to the internal memory and then moved over to the external card.
