Helio brings a Korean standout slider phone to the US

Helio increased its portfolio of handsets today with its release of the Mysto, a slider-style device produced exclusively for US distribution by Samsung.

The 3G CDMA device is based upon Samsung's U600 released last year. It has a 2.22" QVGA display, 106 MB of internal memory expandable to 4 GB via MicroSD, mono and A2DP stereo Bluetooth support, and an MPEG-4 video camera.

Mysto supports WHERE, a location-based application platform from uLocate Communications, that automatically tailors application data and search queries to the user's location. It also added Tellme, a one-touch voice search application made by Microsoft.

Joint owner SK Telecom sunk a further $270 million into Helio in September, alleviating some pressure the mobile phone company was putting on partner Earthlink. Some speculated that the real success of Helio would come from SK Telecom targeting the Korean-American niche market with its "Helio Powered by SK Telecom" campaign. By adding an already popular device by South Korean company Samsung, SK looks to be doing just that.