Vodafone 360 Samsung H1 review

Can Vodafone re-invent mobile social networking?

The definitive Vodafone 360 Samsung H1 review
The definitive Vodafone 360 Samsung H1 review

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Battery life on the Samsung H1 is a mixed affair – it will stay pretty strong for quite some time with light to moderate usage, but start to hammer the phone (not literally – that's guaranteed to run the battery down in a second) with a bit of music and messaging and internet use and the bars will begin to drop off.

The battery life is pretty consistent with a 1500mAh option, and even when down to one bar of power it will still hang on for a pretty long time.

Vodafone 360 samsung h1

In terms of connectivity, the H1 has all the usual suspects. 3.5G/HSPDA is startlingly quick at times (for instance, when downloading music) and Wi-Fi is similarly stable (with a cool tethering graphic for when you connect up).

However, one annoying feature is that it doesn't auto connect – when you turn the phone off and on again, Wi-Fi is disabled and you then have to re-search for your network, which gets irritating.

GPS is average, although works quickly when in an open field with nothing to block its view of the sky – use it in the city and it takes a bit longer. Not as long as Windows Mobile phones, but it's a bit sluggish.

Vodafone 360 samsung h1

Bluetooth we've already covered – connecting via A2DP is no picnic and the connection constantly failed on us, which was irritating to say the least.

And speaking of irritations, while the PC studio installed quickly and easily, there seem to be some driver errors, as the phone wouldn't synchronise no matter how many times we connected it up.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief


Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.