Digital Trends

Helio Mysto

April 1st, 2008 | by Damon Brown

Features and Design

Despite its multimedia leanings, the Helio Mysto is small and compact; it will fit in one’s palm. Designed like a traditional slider, the top level is almost all vertical screen, about one and a half inches across by two and a half inches tall. The high resolution makes visuals bright and colorful. At the bottom of the screen are a slightly raised, round navigator pad along with two menu buttons, a call button and a cancel/backtrack key. Use your thumb to slide up the top and it exposes the bottom level with a good-sized flat keypad. (It also makes a loud, cartoon-inspired “boing!” noise, just to make sure you know the top was moved.) The numbers are fine, but the keypad gets unusually hot when it is charging – to the point where you may suddenly move away your thumb. In fact, the whole phone seems to run warm when plugged into the socket. It cools almost immediately after it is unplugged though.

The deep blue Mysto has very few extra buttons. On the left side is the volume control as well as the headphone/USB jack. On the right side are the power button and the camera key. There is a pinky nail-sized lens and an equally large flash on the back. It has 106 MB of internal memory, and can expand to 4 GB with an optional microSD. It is also Bluetooth compatible.

The Mysto runs on a fast 3G network, something that shows when browsing the internet or downloading videos. A minute and a half YouTube clip downloaded in about ten seconds – faster than some computers – and the visuals and audio were very nice. Some videos can be watched widescreen by pressing the appropriate menu key and turning the phone on its side. Multimedia power is perhaps the only truly compelling reason to buy the Mysto, so automatically add a microSD card to your purchase.

microSD aside, the Helio Mysto comes with all the necessary physical accessories: a power plug, a USB cord and a solid pair of Samsung headphones. (While part of the Helio umbrella, the Mysto is actually manufactured by Samsung.) It also comes with a simple, well designed help booklet and a CD with a more detailed manual in PDF form. The only disappointment was the lack of music software, something that could have easily been included on the disc. The 20 MB music suite must be downloaded separately from www.helio.com/support.

Image Courtesy of Helio