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Twitter has just introduced a ‘retweet’ option. A ‘retweet’ or ‘RT’ as its called in Twitter allows users to ‘forward’ an interesting message from their own timeline to the timeline of all of ones followers.

Twitter had been sceptical in allowing such a feature at the click of a button, due to the fear of being inundated with spam ‘forwards’ choking up its social networking site. However as users tended to ‘retweet’ a message anyways, they finally gave in and have incorporated the feature into Twitter sometime last week (that too in a phased manner, not all users of twitter had retweets enabled on the same day).

Vodafone, always a front runner in social media related technology (see earlier post on Vodafone 360, a social networking coup by Vodafone), has been quick to allow the same from their mobiles. Sending a message of : “RT twitter username” to 86444 causes the last message received to be retweeted to all the followers. Vodafone users have long used the SMS method to tweet their statuses/interests. The ‘retweet’ option only enhances the experience.

In what is a shocking new development in the mobile services sector, Vodafone has enabled users, to pay for a dedicated priority access, to the bandwidth on the network. Ofcourse this is only available to the business users of the Vodafone network (and only in Spain at the moment), but might be extended to all users in the future.

What this means is that, if you pay extra, you will have a high share of the 3G bandwidth on a priority and the ones that don’t will have a slower connection. This will eventually mean degraded user experience to the normal users, who could be denied bandwith even if there was enough free, for them to use.

Vodafone ofcourse does insist that ‘ordinary users’ will not suffer any sort of poorer performance. Oh well yeah, but we at Mobile Hub, do not understand how this could be the case. If that is the case, then why throttle the bandwidth in the first place.

After a few great initiatives the last month, like the Vodafone 360 and Twitter retweets using the phone, this is one stupid step from Vodafone.

Review:

The Samsung H1 is the first handset that comes preloaded with the Vodafone 360 feature in the UK. The 360 from Vodafone is basically a one stop place for all your social networking needs. Click here for more details on the Vodfaone 360.

The Samsung H1 has quite an iPhonish feel to it. It looks and works like the iPhone. The main apps page looks a lot like the iPhone apps interface page. But no complains there.

Pic: The Apps and Calendar pages on the Samsung H1

The interface works a lot like the iPhone. Coincidence, don’t think so !!

Of the two phones on the 360 at the moment, the Samsung H1 is the higher end phone, while the Samsung M1 is on the lower end.

The massive 3.5″ touchscreen is very impressive. The screen is big enough to view a webpage or to list enough applications in a single page. The touchscreen has a feedback output to touch, so when you touch the phone’s screen small vibrations are emitted, giving that natural rough texture to touch on an otherwise soft screen. This feature makes ‘touch’ very realistic.

The 5MP pixel camera on the phone is typical of Samsung. They always tend to put in the high end cameras on their phones.

It has the WiFi built into it. So using the 360 feature on a home router would be a lot quicker. This is especially useful if you have large files to be synced up with the main server (the main feature/advantage of 360).

The integrated GPS is a handy feature. It comes pre-loaded with maps and voice directions. No other high end phone at the moment comes with pre-loaded voice directions.

The 32GB memory implies that you will never run out of space. This is enough space to store 3200 MP3 songs. (Note: The initial marketing material from Vodafone indicated a 16GB upper limit on memory, but Mobile Hub can confirm that it is actually 32GB)

The Samsung H1 is available in two colours at the moment. Black and Silver. The Black looks more impressive than the rather dull looking silver model.

Pic: Samsung H1 side view.

The phone is quite bulky. With a thickness of 58mm and weighs a good 134 gms. But with the features it packs in, that would be expected.

Specifications & Features:

• 3.5″ OLED touchscreen
• 32GB internal memory
• Wi-Fi
• HSDPA
• Bluetooth 2.0
• 5Megapixel autofocus camera with flash
• Dimentions 58×115.9×12.9mm
• Weight 134g

Summary: Playing around with the H1 was a treat. The Vodafone 360 on this phone is just a bonus.

Review:

LG, the South Korean conglomerate, has been one of the pioneers of the touch screen technology for quite a while now. The release of the LG GD510 Pop is set to keep their high standing in the market going.

LG has always tried to take the touch screen mobiles to the masses, rather than go in for the high end smart phone segment. The LG Pop for example is not expensive and is slotted in the low to mid range, as far as pricing is concerned. In terms of features it does punch way above its weight. The touch screen is a generous 3″ TFT. It looks sleek and ownable.

The LG Pop, follows in the foot steps of the highly successful LG Cookie. This means that all the basic features are included on the phone. It has a decent 3.2 mega pixel camera. This does both photos and video recording. The onscreen QWERTY is a treat to work on. This feature is nearly as good as the one on the Apple iPhone. The FM radio is a handy feature for those that want music on the move. If you prefer to carry your own music around, the memory (micro SD) is expandable to a staggering 16GB. That is enough space to fit in around 2000 MP3s songs.

The LG Pop however does not have the WiFi feature.

So all internet browsing will have to be done via the network providers package allowance.

The phone looks sleek. Weighing just 87 gms, it does neatly slip into your pockets.

Now for the important bit, pricing. It is priced just under £100 pounds, which is a cracking good deal for the features available on the phone.

Full Specification & Features:

• 3 inch TFT touchscreen display
• 3.2-megapixel camera with video option
• Onscreen QWERTY keyboard
• Internet browser
• Bluetooth
• FM Radio
• Loud Speaker
• MP3 Player
• MP3 Ringtones
• Polyphonic Ringtones
• Built-in handsfree
• Calculator
• Clock
• Games
• Gesture/Motion gaming
• Organiser
• Speaker phone
• Vibrate
• Video Player
• Voice memo
• Bluetooth
• GSM
• USB
• WAP
• Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
• Colour Screen
• Touch-screen
• Wallpapers
• 65K colours
• Internet Browsing
• Expandable Up to 16GB
• Internal Memory 42MB
• Email
• MMS
• Predictive Text
• SMS
• Dimensions 97.8 x 49.5 x 11.2mm
• Display Size 3 inches
• Weight 87g

Summary: The best under £100 phone on the market today (i.e. 14th Nov 2009).

Click here for LG GD510 Pop deals from OBIL.co.uk

Pic: Ovi loading on Nokia N97.

Nokia has finally decided to close its N-Gage gaming platform. The platform set up in early 2008, helped users download games from N-Gage, directly onto their handsets. So the way the platform worked was pretty much similar to the iPhone’s app store, that lets users get apps straight to the phone, at the click of a button.

Users of N-Gage can ofcourse continue downloading games till the end of 2010. No new games will be however be added to the existing platform.

As far as Nokia was concerned, N-Gage had already become redudant, with the Ovi Store launch. The Ovi Store is basically a store that provides different content to use on the Nokia phones. So the games content on N-Gage would also be available on the Ovi Store, which potential could cause a lot of confusion.

The decision to scrap N-Gage hence is actually a good one.

Nokia has been struggling financially recently and scrapping N-Gage is one way of reducing unnecessary costs.