Vodafone 360 Samsung H1

Vodafone may have recently jumped onto the Apple cart and become the third UK network to support the iPhone, but that doesn’t mean the company isn’t looking to carve out its own niche in the highly lucrative smartphone market.

The Samsung H1 is the first handset to showcase Vodafone’s propriety 360 portal, a social networking-centric interface which looks to seamlessly blend all of your different online identities in one place.

The operating system - which is based on Linux Mobile - is similar to Motorola’s Android-based MotoBlur software, but its influence over your handset’s functionality is even greater.

Once you’ve created a 360 account you can link up your various social networking profiles - Facebook, Google, Windows Live ID, etc - and these will be tied up within the H1’s 3D interface.

For example, Facebook contacts will appear on your phone along with their profile picture and current status. Of course this brings to mind the old adage “the more you open the window, the more crap flies in”: by linking your contacts list with your social networking profiles you run the risk of a massively inflated group of people making their way onto your handset - many of which you won’t ever need to contact via telephone.

Still, such connectivity is commendable and if you’re a tremendously social beast then 360’s comprehensive integration is likely to bring a wide smile to your face.

Vodafone also deserves top marks for making the new OS so slick: your contacts appear as floating 3D 'cards' which can be browsed through using the touchscreen display. Tapping a contact brings up all of the available information for that person, including any recent messages they’ve sent you.

Elsewhere, the applications menu is equally impressive: it’s arranged in a grid format and when you tap certain applications they enlarge to create real-time widgets.

For example, the weather app will show you local information when activated as a widget. A second tap opens the program fully so you can get more detailed data. It’s an intelligent concept that we expect will be copied by other manufacturers.

Great mind, average body

Putting aside the excellent OS for a moment, the H1 is rather restrained when it comes to its physical design. It’s neat enough, with a 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen, a smattering of physical buttons, and the all-important 3.5mm headphone socket, but there are elements that disappoint.

The casing is predominantly made of cheap plastic, and on the whole the phone feels light and flimsy. The battery cover is especially poor, although the matt finish does at least offer more grip than the glossy exterior of the iPhone or Nexus One.

Although the AMOLED screen is a decent size at 3.5 inches and features excellent brightness and colour depth, it showcases an irksome speckled effect similar to that seen on the LCD viewfinders of cheap digital cameras - albeit slightly less pronounced.

It’s only really noticeable when you stare at the display for prolonged periods, but it’s worth noting all the same.

All in all, the H1 bears the hallmarks of a phone which has been developed half-heartedly by a major manufacturer on behalf of a sole network: it’s not ugly but arguably lacks the desirability you’d expect from such a top-level phone.

Thankfully it packs a technological punch underneath the underwhelming exterior. With a Cortex CPU it’s capable of some seriously impressive tricks.

The device we tested came pre-loaded with Digital Legends’s Kroll, and when we did a side-by-side comparison with the iPhone edition (running on an iPhone 3G) we were pleasantly surprised to see the H1 more than hold its own.

However, while the H1 might be able to go toe-to-toe with the iPhone in technical terms, we’re not sure that the 360 service will experience a flood of software comparable with that of the App Store.

Vodafone is adamant that developer support is forthcoming and 360’s close links with Linux - the platform on which Google’s Android is built - should enable devs to quickly and painlessly port over their best titles, but the platform’s long-term survival depends on how many people snap up compatible phones.

The debut of Vodafone’s 360 service is encouraging: the company has cooked up a solid operating system which draws together the various strands of your social networking world to create a robust interface packed with neat and innovative ideas.

However, we can’t help but feel that the H1 is a long way off being a flagship device: it feels burdened with compromise and lacks the sheer desirability of rival handsets, such as the Nexus One, Milestone and iPhone.

Vodafone has indicated quite clearly that the 360 portal is here for the long haul and chances are we won’t have to wait long for a phone which is worthy of carrying the service. Until then, the H1 will serve as a likeable - but not entirely mind-blowing - proposition.