Fun and functional, the Vodafone 360 M1 smartphone also boasts a competitive price tag.

A smaller version of the Vodafone 360 H1, the Vodafone 360 M1 feels solid to hold and appealing to look at thanks to its simplistic design. The 3.2 inch touchscreen takes up most of the front with three buttons beneath, all encased in black, white or red plastic. Despite the case being plastic, the M1 manages not to feel cheap – even though it literally is.

 

Pocket-friendly, the Vodafone 360 M1 is also easy to navigate. The touchscreen is responsive and the images look clear, so you can swipe, scroll or tap your way through the screens. The three physical buttons let you go straight to the call and message timeline, contacts and applications.

 

Run on the LiMo operating system, the phone displays contacts in 3D. So the timeline, rather than being a straightforward list of calls, emails and text messages, has displays with photo and details which run in the order of happening for you to scroll through. The contacts page has an individual tile for each person so you can add their email address, numbers, social networking sites and instant messaging accounts – and then chat to them straight from the contacts page. There is an option to search for a particular person although the Vodafone 360 M1 presents your most frequently contacted people at the front, so you won’t need to search very often. With regard to the 3D display, you can easily revert to lists if this quirky way of viewing is not for you.

 

You can communicate via text message, picture message, instant message, email or via networking sites – as well as making a call or a conference call. The email feature supports push emails so you receive messages directly on the phone from your various accounts, and you can open and view Word, PowerPoint, Excel and PDF documents. If you want to share photos, the inbuilt 3-megapixel camera will make this easy for you, and it comes with an 8x digital zoom for taking close-up shots.

 

 

The Vodafone 360 service is installed on the M1, the second phone in the 360 range. This means you can network fully with friends, grabbing all your details from sites such as Facebook, MSN and Google Talk and adding them to your phone. The process for registering with 360 is easy and once you have signed up, you can search for other members to interact with. As well as the social networking functions, you can see where friends are in real time with the maps option. The photos you take on your phone are automatically uploaded to your picture gallery with the date, time and location, which you can then swap and share with contacts.

 

If you want a Vodafone 360 service-supported smartphone, which includes the back up service so all your files and images are kept safe, then the Vodafone 360 M1 ticks this box. It may have a smaller screen, internal memory and camera capability, but the smaller cost should more than compensate.