Helio quietly released the white Mysto and red Heat within the past couple of days to the Korean-American market. No word yet if they will make their way outside of the KA market, however if it’s anything like the Mysto’s original release, they’ll probably come out in a few weeks. Otherwise, you should be able to pick one up at a “Powered by SKTelecom” Helio dealer. We’ll try and get some real pictures up soon if possible. That white Mysto is mighty fine lookin’, oh la la je le veux!

While venturing the CTIA show floor, we ran into Luke from over at OhGizmo!, rockin’ a Mysto. This wasn’t your average Mysto, however. This Mysto had been through battles.

Okay, fine - no battles. It has, however, been run over by a car. We’ve all done it before: the device is sittin’ in your lap, you hop out of the car, and the device slams into the ground. You pick it up scuffed, but pretty much healthy. In this case, that last step never occured, with the Mysto finding itself under the wheel of a passing car.

Surprisingly, it still works.. kind of. The screen was busted, and the case was a bit beat up, but all of the functionality still worked.

Bonus post-smash feature: awesome banana shape.

It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating the 2,000 member landmark. Cake was had, circus animals were everywhere, Bono called to congratulate us.. It was all crazy.

In just the few months since, we’ve already rocketed up to 5,000 members. Almost strictly off of word of mouth, this community has already grown to represent a notable percentage of Helio’s userbase. All of us here are incredibly stoked about what this community has become. Seriously - much love.

Once Helio got word that we were about to smash through the 5k mark, they offered up a brand new Mysto for us to pass on to the community. Many thanks to them for that! So - Who wants it?

While we were tempted to do a slightly absurd contest as we usually would, we decided to keep it simple this time. No videos of you dancing, or photos of you doing a headstand. All you have to do to enter is post in this topic over in the Forum. Post about anything you want - introduce yourself, talk about your cat.. just keep it friendly. The winner will be selected at random from the valid posts.

There are, of course, a few Rules:

• Contest ends at 10 pm PST on March 10th, 2008
• Only those with 5 or more posts by the time the contest ends are eligible to win. Your contest entry post can be your first post - just make sure to get 4 more by the 10th.
• Only one post per person will be counted. We’ll have our secret ninjas on the lookout for cheaters. Just don’t try to cheat, it’s lame. (Also, anyone who cheats is ugly.)
• Heliocity admins/mods are not eligible
• Rules are subject to change

Only a week after the official launch of the Helio Mysto, the PCLink Pro software along with Helio player has been updated with drivers to support the super-slim new device. You can now manage all of your pictures, music, ringtones, calendar events, and more through these two programs, right from the comfort of your own PC! As with any update, it looks like a few bug fixes made their ways into this build of Helio Player as well. Hurrah!

Check out PCLink Pro here, and Helio Player here.

Well - The Mysto’s officially here. What do we think?

We’ve actually been sitting on this review for a few days, hoping that any applications unique to Mysto (namely TellMe) might become available a few days prior to launch to give reviewers a chance to write’em into their reviews. No such luck.

With Mysto launching later today, we’ve decided to go ahead and publish the review sans TellMe details. We’ll be amending the review in all the proper places once we’ve gotten a chance to play with any applications that launch this morning with Mysto. Update: We’ve been whispering sweet voice-recognized nothings to TellMe for the past day, and have updated the review with our experiences.

Got an itching topic we didn’t cover in the review? Let us know in the comments of this page, we’ll try to clear it up.

After a few lucky folks in NY/CA got their mitts on the Mysto nearly a month early in an unadvertised early shipment back in December, the Mysto is finally making its nation wide debut.

Later today, the Mysto will be available at all the usual spots (Helio.com, Stores/Kiosks, Phone Sales). Price for new members is $149, or $320 for existing customers.

Mysto features all the goodies you’d expect on a Helio device (Ultimate Inbox, GPS, Multimedia schtuff), while bringing a few new toys (GPS-Aware Browser, TellMe application). It’s a sexy little device - be sure to at least check one out next time you’re near a Helio location.

Two weeks ago, we pointed out that a small shipment of Mystos had been made available at the Helio stores in Santa Monica and New York. We later revised the story after finding out that they were only being made available prior to the official relaunch to those who weren’t already in contract.

Well, looks like that’s changed: Existing members can now get in on the pre-launch goodies for $320 bucks ($149 w/ new contract), placing it right between the Fin and the Heat on the pricing scale. It still has a few more weeks before it hits the shelves, so you still have a while to be the first person on the block with one.

Though we’re waiting on TellMe and a few other Mysto specific applications to go live before we publish our in-depth review, we’ve got a bit to say about the Mysto already.

After a couple of days of getting to play with the Mysto (pronounced MISS-TOE. Or Missed Dough.), I have come to the conclusion that it pretty much rocks. It’s about the same size as the Fin, only a hair taller, keeping it nice and slim for those trying to avoid the “I’m hiding a brick in my pocket” look.

It features touch sensitive buttons, similar to the Heat. Compared to the Heat, however, these buttons are far more sensitive - no problems so far getting them to work correctly. The buttons are “Haptic”, meaning the device gives off a small vibration whenever a button press is detected. (Weirdo’s who dislike feedback can disable the vibration in settings)

The device is pretty zippy. It feels like they may have beefed up the processor on the Mysto. No lockups or crashes thus far (Well, crashed once, but that was entirely my fault, not the device’s. Opera Mini 4 doesn’t work properly, however Opera Mini 3 does). Speaking of crashing: Only minutes after I received the device (in the middle of taking pictures of it like it Britney Spears), It leaped off the counter onto my hard kitchen floor. The device took it like a champ, with no damage or ill effects. Web Browser has been good to me too - just like the Fin’s, except it has been crash-free.

Bluetooth has gotten better treatment on this device compared to previous releases. It supports Headset, Handsfree, Stereo Headset, File Transfer, Object Push, and Printing. Very nice. Hopefully it’s a sign that Helio’s starting to show more love to the protocol.

The speaker on the handset is fairly loud. I was surprised at how loud it was during the few music tests I’ve done so far. I haven’t had a chance yet to test out speakerphone in a real situation, but I will have it for the full review.

And there you have it folks. the Helio Mysto. Overall, very pleased with this device. Looking for something I didn’t mention? We’ll have a full review up once we get our hands on the Mysto specific applications that are still bein’ polished up for the English market launch.