Ahead of our review, we take a look at the Vodafone 360 H1, made by Samsung, to see how the phone and 360 service hold up
As much as this 3D version of the 360 interface will be useful for squeezing out a few ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ noises from your non smartphone-toting friends, we found the service to be quicker to use after having ditched the 3D for the simpler 2D version. This offers more-or-less the same functionality, but lists your contacts in a simpler, text-based way.
It also makes the 360 looks a lot more like any old phone’s contact list, but then again it does pull in details from a boatload of sources. We checked out the full list, and it included most of the usual suspects like Facebook, Hotmail and Google. We were told a few more were in the works too.
Indeed, Vodafone 360 isn’t something that’s going to stop at these dedicated devices. S60 operating system versions are in the works, including ones that are designed for handsets without touchscreens.
Catering for a wide range of handsets dredges up the old phone development issue that looked like it beginning to subside, partly thanks to the popularity of the iPhone. Porting to handsets of different abilities takes a lot of time and money, and invariably drags quality levels down to an often-uninspiring middle ground.
When Vodafone 360 is going head-to-head with the latest smartphone developments like HTC Sense, and MotoBLUR we do wonder whether Vodafone will be able to keep its top-end offerings’ head above water in the long run.
The future of Vodafone 360 will largely depend on its take-up further down the price range. After all, the H1 is a device that’s aimed at £35 a month contracts, where there’s a lot of high-profile competition. At this level, the system seems to perform competently, with fairly well thought-out PC integration to boot. However, we can’t help but feel the mid-range may well be where it’s at for Vodafone 360, where buyers are less spoilt for choice.
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