Does Anyone Out There Have Helio?

I desparately need a new cell phone (my screen has been broken for a year and a half), and cell phone company.  I have been thinking of getting Helio - they have a 3MP camera phone which is far more affordable than any other 3MP camera phones out there.  I have wanted to begin moblogging forever now, and this phone would allow me to do so without forking out $500 for one of the really good camera phones on the market (even Verizon's FlipShot is around $300 - for that, I could buy a new camera).

Helio is a lot more popular on the West Coast than it is here in the Great Lakes States, but I was wondering: does anyone have Helio?  Any complements or complaints on the service/price/phones, etc?

If you do have Helio, and would like free month of service, you can email me your number and I will use you as a reference when I set up my service, and they will give you a free month.  I promise to never call you or sell your number! 

And before you Apple nuts start bombarding me, listen here: I cannot afford an I phone.  It has a 2MP camera, and the monthly service fee does not include texting, surfing, geotagging, etc.  Helio has a plan with unlimited web usage and texting.  I hardly ever use any minutes, but I do plan to use the phone to send lots and lots of pictures to my Flickr map.

Any advice would be useful!

Comments

[geedeck]

Someone has already told you about mpixels not being perfectly useful, so I'm going to follow up with useful suggestions.

Sony Ericsson. And only SE. They make a Cybershot series of phones that AT&T sometimes carries. Even my old w810i made fantastic shots @ 2mpixel w/ a led flash... till I was robbed. Check ebay, as the phone companies might not have what you need, and any unlocked phone should work on a GSM (ATT/TMobile) provider.

[Sarah]

PS: the iPhone rate plan *does* include unlimited data usage - trust me - i do lots of surfing on this thing...

PPS: I'm posting from it right now...

[lisa the waitress]

The camera phone will not replace my current camera; just add to the things I am able to photograph, and will mainly be for the purposes of geomapping & moblogging. Most of the pictures, I am thinking, will be outside.

I do really hope to get a new camera this year, either a better point & shoot or an SLR; alas, every time I have extra cash the car breaks, the water line needs the roots drilled out, someone needs a filling, etc. etc. I suppose that's life!!

[Guy Mann]

Your photography will suffer, greatly imho, by using a camera phone. This may not be readily apparent in shots like the one you linked from flickr but I think you will really notice the difference if you try to take handheld, lower light, near-macro food like those you often post here.

[Christian]

The Helio Fin has a 3MP camera and I love it. It allows you to take pictures, add the geotags with the built-in GPS and upload them to your Flickr account in two clicks. Nice! It's super slim, too. Another one to look at is the new Helio Mysto that just came out. It only has a 2MP camera but everyone I've heard from that has one loves it so far. Check out heliocity.net for a review and lots of help from the Helio community.

[Oeni Meani]

I recently bought a 2MP Verizon LG phone with a QWERTY keyboard for $100 bucks and am pleased with its quality. I don't know if it would be appropriate for your needs, but thought I'd share...

[lisa the waitress]

Thanks for the info - I don't really know that much about camera phones, and I realize the quality won't compare with a regular camera; the only thing I have to judge by are flickr photos. Here's a link to a picture taken by a Helio fin:http://www.flickr.com/photos/lephty/2152568409/ of course, there are terrible photos, too, but there are terrible photos taken by even the good cell phones.

[JD]

Just remember this - more megapixels does not equal better quality. In fact, with an image sensor as tiny as on a phone, cramming more pixels in that area could actually be worse.

(I have no other relevant info...)