Pantech
Helio Hero

The Helio Hero was made by Korean manufacturer Pantech. It was based on a popular high-end handset that was already being sold in Korea and was “designed to maximize the high-speed 3G experience for US consumers.” It was one of two launch devices for a new mobile brand called Helio, a joint venture created by California-based EarthLink with Korea-based SK Telecom which was a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that used Sprint's high-speed EV-DO network. Helio was conceived to target “young, tech-savvy consumers” between their late teens and early 20s. The Helio service was designed to help groups of friends get connected. The anchor partnership, announced at the same time as the handset was launched, was support for the social network MySpace. The Hero, which sported quite a bulky design, had a rich set of features and was described as “a multimedia powerhouse”. It had a 2.2-inch, 262K-color high-resolution QVGA LCD display, “industry-leading audio capabilities” with full duplex stereo speakers, removable memory, and a two-megapixel camera. It also had a co-processor chip to support high-quality music and video playback.