14 DAY TRIAL // Helio Ocean 2, the successor of Helio's first Ocean handset (released back in May 2007), might hit the market sooner than everyone thought, as a leaked video with it appeared these days on YouTube. Unfortunately, the video was quickly removed, but there still is a snapshot from it, showing the Ocean 2 with its alphanumeric keypad out.
The Ocean 2 doesn't have radical changes when compared to the first Ocean, but it's rather an improvement of the latter. The new features that it brings include: a 3 Megtapixel camera with video recording, a touch-sensitive navigation pad, Flash support (for browsing the Web) and 1GB of expandable memory. These are added to the specs of the first Ocean: full QWERTY keyboard, 3G connectivity, built-in GPS, Music and Video players, Opera Mini, email, document viewer and so on.
The new Helio Ocean looks nice, but for the moment we can't say if it's bigger or smaller than the first-generation Ocean - which is pretty heavy and thick, weighing 5.6 ounces (159 grams) and measuring 4.33 x 2.20 x 0.86 inches (110 x 56 x 21.8 millimeters). Anyway, we should hope that the Ocean 2 will be a bit thinner and lighter. Of course, you can't make a handset that packs both a QWERTY and an alphanumeric keypad as slim as an iPhone (for example), but 22 millimeters might be too much for some users.
Since there's nothing official (yet) regarding the Helio Ocean 2, there's no word about its price. Anyway, for the moment, Helio isn't doing too well as an MVNO (Mobile virtual network operator), as the company will soon be acquired by Virgin Mobile. But this won't stop the Ocean 2 from being released, and the new handset might be getting a launch in July or August. We'll wait and see.