New Kid on the Cell Block

Move over, Cingular. There's another not-so-cheap cell phone service provider in town. Helio is a brand-new cell phone service aimed at young-en's (that's 20-something year olds to me) who want to surf the Web, send text and picture messages, and access MySpace from their mobile. For $85 a month, you get access to Sprint's 3G network; unlimited Web surfing, data transfer, and domestic video/picture/text messaging; 1,000 minutes of talk time; access to MySpace; and live information fed to your home screen on vital topics like sports and entertainment.

So far, you have a choice of two phones: Pantech's $275 Hero and VK Mobile's $250 Kickflip, both of which feature a two-megapixel camera and support for MP3 and MPEG-4. The company plans to add more phones later this year. If you do a lot more than yammer on your cell phone, you might want to evaluate how much you spend in data and minutes, then compare that to Helio's price. Or just as an exercise in depression.

[ Cathy Lu, Digital World ]