Okay, so if you read my blogs regularly you know I went through a whale of a time with Helio's Customer Service and Billing departments a month or two back when I was reviewing their Ocean handset.  I'm actually working on another piece about that experience, with some advice from their PR folks (who, to their credit, acknowledge the ongoing issues and are working to better them).

Thing is, Helio can't be ignored.  They take Sprint's excellent voice and data network, add some unique, forward-thinking services to it, and serve it all up on some pretty sweet devices.  Today's introduction of the Samsung-built Fin only sweetens the pot.

Helio's first flip phone device, Fin is an 11.4mm thin clamshell featuring just about as good a spec sheet as you'll find in a US carrier's lineup:  3mp camera, 100mb of onboard storage, microSD card support up to 4GB, stereo Bluetooth, and GPS.  What else could you want?  How about the integrated messaging center introduced on Ocean that lets you access various IM and Email services, including push Email?  How about mobile MySpaceand YouTube?  And how about the new Garmin Mobile turn-by-turn navigation system?  Fin's got 'em all.

Fin is available now for $179 with a Helio contract.  Definitely worth a look if you're interested in the cutting edge of cellular in the US of A ... And don't mind rolling the dice a little when it comes to customer service (to be fair, Helio has a good chunk of customers who've never reported any issues ... I just happened to fall into the other, also decently-sized, chunk).

Click here to see more about the Fin!