It's been about 2 weeks since I got my grubby hands on the Helio Ocean and people keep asking for my take on it after some use so I thought I'd share it. First of all, I want to say that I'm pretty convinced that it's the best QWERTY option out there. Having played with all of the recent blackberries, treos, sidekicks, motorolas, etc I just think the size, shape, additional functions, and overall usefulness of this thing just leaves the others in the dust. It's not perfect, but it's really good. In evaluating this there are two breakouts - hardware and software. Hardware is what it is, but software could presumably be updated on the device I'm actually holding right now so I'm going to talk about those on their own. If you don't care about this don't worry, that's all you need to read. If you do, review continues after the jump.

Hardware. The actual device itself. Here's what I like:

• The keyboard is fantastic. I've used it a lot and had very few mistypes.
• Dual sliding action makes it extremely flexible for a range of uses.
• Size. When I first took it out of the box it was much bigger than I thought it would be and I was a little bummed but got over that 24 hours into using it. After comparing it in size to other devices people are carrying around I think it's exactly the size it should be.
• Camera. The photos this takes look amazing.

...and what I don't like:

• Camera lens placement. You pretty much have to be in QUERTY mode to take a photo with this otherwise your finger covers up the lens. This means that you kind of have to also use two hands to take a photo. You can take one with one hand but it takes some getting used to, and you can't be the subject. Because of which buttons need to be pressed to take a photo, it's almost impossible to take a photo of yourself without using both hands.
• Hinges. These scare me a little. I haven't had any problems, but compared to other devices that "slide" this one feels a little flimsy. I've had no problem with it, and I've been using it A TON, but if I had to guess where the weak link in the hardware is, that would be my first guess.
• No bluetooth file transfer. Wah. This only really bothers me because I have to drag a cable around in my bag and I want LESS to carry.

Software. The apps and stuff running on the phone. Here's what I like:

• AIM (though I wish sign off on it's own so much)
• Google Maps (with GPS)
• Improved UI. Seems like minor tweeks to the Helio interface from previous Helios and this just seems to work a bit better.
• Web browser. Finally away from that crappy WAP version with a real HTML reading browser. I love it.

...and what I don't like:

• Gmail. This one is a knife in the gut for me and others I've talked to. Helio claims Gmail is built into to the device. It isn't. Well, not really. Sure you can check and receive gmail, but the thing that makes gmail so much better than general email is the filtering and ability to have messages skip you inbox all together. Not only does the gmail app on the Ocean not follow any of your filtering rules, it doesn't sync with actual gmail at all. This means that there is always 100 messages in your inbox on your Ocean, while in your actual gmail account there might only be 5. It seems to pull the 100 newest messages, no matter what. But worse, the actions aren't synced either. If I read a message on the Ocean it's still marked as new on my desktop. If I delete a message on my desktop it's still in my inbox on the ocean. The mobile version of Gmail provided by Google is more functional than the built in version on the Ocean, unfortunately it doesn't seem to work on the Oceans browser.
• IM. I've frequently gotten notifications that I have a new AIM message, and click it to find nothing so I'm left wondering if someone sent me something I didn't get or if it was just a glitch. Also only AIM is a bit of a bummer. I'd like gtalk at least, but Y!M also would be sweet.