Helio Ocean 2 smartphone

Helio may have been gobbled up by Virgin Mobile last summer, but the brand name lives on, as evinced by the new—if only modestly revamped—Ocean 2 QWERTY slider. Is the latest Ocean worth the $70 premium over the already robust original? Set to go on sale next Thursday (Feb. 12) for $149 with a two-year contract (post-paid, not pre-paid as with Virgin Mobile’s other handsets), the Ocean 2 has been whispered about for months—indeed, the first fuzzy photos appeared on the Web last May, while a series of leaked images have had the blogosphere buzzing in recent days.