Exclusive: The Vodafone 360 Samsung H2 roars into view - photos, video

There’s been a lot of inaccurate speculation across the web about the upcoming Samsung H2 handset for the Vodafone 360 service. I’ve been briefed directly by Vodafone and I’m pleased to correct the speculation with these official specifications:

Height: 125mm

Width: 60.8mm

Depth: 11.7mm (smaller than the H1)

Weight: 137g

Memory: 16GB internal, MicroSD for another 32GB supported

Data speeds/Support: HSDPA 7.2/HSUPA 5.76/UMTS/GSM Quad/WiFi 802.11n/Bluetooth 3.0

Screen: 3.7″ widescreen, multi-touch Super AMOLED WVGA (800X480)

Video supported: H.263, H.264, MPEG4, DivX, WMV, and AC3

Sensors: Geo-magnetic, Proximity, Accelerometer, Light

Camera: 8MP Autofocus and Image Stabilizer camera with 4X digital zoom and LED flash – 720p HD video recording

Chipse: QCOM MSM 6290 and SEC S5PC111 (1GHz) app proc – hardware support for 2D and 3D graphics acceleration

Browser: Opera 10 with Flash, Webkit 3.2 Widget Engine and IBM4 J9 Java with multitasking support

Linux3 developer SDK available for native apps on LiMo

I’ve had hands-on with the phone for about 30 minutes and I can tell you that the device itself is an absolute delight. It’s modern, rounded, sleek, very zippy and it makes excellent use of the fast chipset and the graphics acceleration. Swapping between applications and services is smooth and fast. The Vodafone 360 proprietary social tools (the little profile squares, if you remember them) run really, really nicely. Plus the touchscreen is much more reliable.

And what about some pictures?

And did you say video?

I am a lot happier with the Samsung H2 than I was with the H1 — it really is a super flagship device for the 360 range — but I’m most impressed at the changes the 360 team have obviously been working on. But more on that soon.

Note: Expect to hear more news about the Samsung H2 as we get further into Q3.