Back in our day, the kiddies all ran around with
Helios,
VK Mobile looked like it could be the next
Pantech, and "
Kickflip" was a phone, not a skateboarding move. Okay, fine -- we knew like one or two people that used Helio, VK Mobile never even made a dent in the US market, and skateboarding had a lock on kickflips long before the wireless industry did -- and actually, that perfect storm of bad news may have ultimately led the once-promising MVNO to the sad situation we have here today
under Virgin Mobile's stewardship. Virgin has now all but erased the memory of Helio from its website, leaving just the Ocean and Mysto to soldier on -- and the phones now go by their ODM's names (Pantech and Samsung, respectively) rather than Helio proper. The strangest part is that the Ocean seems to have outlasted its replacement, the
Ocean 2, which is now gone -- unless you hit up Virgin Mobile's Korean language site, a sub-brand in itself that it inherited from Helio and has a track record of giving members of the community better, faster access to hot devices. Any way you slice it, though, it never made sense for Virgin to run two brands -- Helio's fate was sealed the moment the sale was finalized, but considering the company's spot-on mantra of "bring awesome Asian phone tech to North America," we'll always have a soft spot in our hearts for these guys.
[Via
MobileCrunch]
posted Oct 28th 2009 5:02AM
problem was that 'awesome asian' phone they were supposed to bring was still somewhat outdated model. Understandable because most top-end Korean phones run $700-$900 with 07 level currency.
Texting in Korean to peeps in Korea was cool tho :D
Awesome.
I've been a free agent for a few months now and this just gives me another reason to dump them for someone else with NEW tech. Not even the promise of a free bb2g device is going to keep me there.
Excellent job killing it VM.
Not sure why they bothered buying helio at all, other than perhaps as a trial balloon for more advanced services than the generic shit they offer as Virgin mobile.. as well as dabble in the "contract/credit check" market..
That said, dropping the ocean2 and the rest of the line in favor of the ocean1 seems odd, unless you consider that pantech may still be making ocean1 phones for other markets OR they had a considerable inventory of them etc.
If virgin had any sense at all they would get an android device out ASAP to take over for the ocean with its custom OS circa 2005
great phones, sad news
why does everyone seem to hate Virgin phones sooo much? I've been using them for over 3 years and have had 5 different cellular carriers before them and they are BY FAR the best and cheapest. If you want an Awesome phone with most everything you desire on phones these days, get a Rumor2 and spend ONLY $20 a month for service... $10 for 1000 txt,pix,emails and $10 for 20M of web data and you're set... NO DON'T TALK ON VIRGIN PHONES, r u crazy? who talks on phones these days anyways??
Virgin Mobile has bar none the worst customer service I've seen in the wireless industry. Their system went crazy and billed me over and over in the same month, I called customer service and they told me "No, that's right. You're just not understanding. Read your terms of service." I had read the terms though, and so I asked them where in the terms. They put their supervisor on, who then proceeds to tell me:
"The sky is blue, but that isn't in the contract either. Doesn't mean it isn't true. We can bill you that amount, just accept it." (We're talking $300 in a $20 charge each day before I got it stopped.)
I stopped using them immediately, and put in a complaint at the BBB (that went unanswered, not a surprise when at the time Virgin Mobile's reputation at the BBB showed they had several hundred complaints against them and they weren't responding to any of them.)
I'd never had a more negative conversation with a customer service agent before.
that sounds like you had a monthly contract plan... why would you get a pay-as-you-go provider and choose to take their contract plan..? you are most definitely to blame this time bub... sorry... Let me reiterate, Virgin Mobile is the BEST cell provider if you don't like to talk, and you choose a no contract plan with a no contract phone... uggg
No... is that *seriously* a Samsung U600? That hasn't been interesting for 2 years!! And with an MSRP of $320?? In what dimension?? Something tells me that you don't choose Virgin Mobile for their awesome selection of phones...
I think the Ocean Series with their dual keyboard (full qwerty + numeric pad) and pretty cool. I am a fan of keys - hand eye coordination for the win.
I still have my Ocean boxed up and it was a pretty good feature phone. The "Ultimate Inbox" was hands down one of the best features it had. By pressing down on the directional pad it gave you access to all your email/im clients.
I thought Sprint was acquiring Virgin Mobile?
shut your mouth