Phone Series by Windows 7
Microsoft released the Windows Phone 7 OS (WP7) at the WMC (World Mobile Congress) last year, before the final SDK was avaliable in September. A few phone developers have developed phones for the platform along with Microsoft's hardware requirements, so you know what to at least expect from your phone.
Key Features
- Capactive, 4-point multi-touch screen with WVGA (800x400) resolution
- 1 GHz ARM v7 "Cortex/Scorpion" or better processor
- DirectX9 rendering-capable GPU
- 256 MB of RAM with at least 8 GB of Flash memory
- Accelerometer with compass, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor and Assisted GPS
- 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash
- FM radio tuner
- 6 dedicated hardware buttons - back, Start, search, camera, power/sleep and Volume Up and Down
Microsoft has certainly done some work on the Windows Phone platform, but the only thing regretable is that there is no backward compatibility with Windows Mobile. The Windows Phone platform also does not have copy and paste, full multitasking for 3rd party applications, Flash, and support for connecting to hidden WiFi. There is also no support for Office documents with security permissions (which totally defeats the purpose of creating a new platform).
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User Interface
Basically, the UI is simple and easy to use, with 'live tiles'. This lets you see your missed calls, messages, upcoming appointments, and maybe notifications from Facebook (which will hopefully come in an update). Scrolling is smooth, and fast. I especially found it a pleasure to scroll around the likes of web pages and applications. However, it is hard to find your applications if you have a long list of them and scrolling down to find an application is a chore, as the search button on Windows Phone is only optimized for Bing. The voice search still allows you to search for applications, and works perfectly, just sometimes making errors here and there.
The plus on WP7 is that it is build around hubs, and these hubs classify all your things into the place they ought to be. There are some gripes we've had with WP7 that we've encountered, but they will be covered later as we go along.
The thing is that Microsoft has impressed us with the 'Metro UI', as it looks attractive and simple to use. The 2D blocks of texts look passable in this metroloving world. It helps to save battery life (with the black background in place) and even if you don't need to use your phone. It would be a pleasure picking it up, scrolling through the menu to find something to do.
Hubs and Applications
People Hub
Basically, the People hub is intergrated into Facebook, that means all your contacts from Facebook will be transferred to your phone. You can choose to add phone numbers to their names, and evenchange their profile picture. You can also view their status updates from Facebook which are directly sent to the People Hub, allowing you to comment. The Facebook Sync is very well synced to the device, thus you don't really need to actually even access the application to comment. Also, if you have pinned a contact as a live tile, their status updates will be automatically updated on the live tile, thus saving time, one of the best implimentations of Facebook Sync on any social networking phone we've ever seen.
Picture Hub
The pictures hub is integrated with Facebook and Windows Live (at the moment) , meaning that your friends status updates with photos, come here and also their profile picture. You can comment on it directly using the hub, without having the need to specially go to the Facebook application for the WP7 and comment on it there, handy and decreases time spent. Here, you also can edit your background for your pictures hub icon both on the homescreen and the application itself.
Messaging
Here, your conversations are in the form of chat bubbles. Unlike iOS, the messages continue in order even though you have created a "new" SMS (a little bit of controversy over the new), in the same chat window.
Email works nice and easy like any other phone would do, but the Microsoft Outlook integration here is sweet. Flagged emails, emails with attachments and important emails are all specified into a folder.
Music and Video Hub
Here, you can view all your music and videos. It features the same interface as on the Zune devices, and if you want to playback previous played songs, the 'previously played' tab is very handy. The only thing that we hope to see in the following Mango update is to allow shuffle play and repeat play! It is a chore if I want to repeat the song again, as to how you must go onto the phone and press playback. Although that is a con, microsoft has done a good implementation of the volume control. When you click the volume control buttons on the device, a window on the top appears and you can automatically switch between tracks. This is a handy feature, which the iPhone dosen't have (no biaseness).
The Marketplace
The background for the marketplace deters on the featured application. Overall, the marketplace experience is good, although it sometimes crashes (probably due to some technical errors but we take no fault, it's a new OS).
Bottom Line
Overall, the operating system is one of the best that we've ever seen. Probably the second in place to Apple's iOS. It is user-friendly, and assumely more UI friendly than Android. It would really be an iPhone killer if it had VPN support, connecting to hidden WiFi networks support, and Multi-tasking (scheduled to come in next half of the year).