Windows phone, as we all know that holds a huge amount of potential, Last Month Steve Ballmer & Co. unleashed it major annual update named Mango also know as Windows Phone 7.5 that contains over 500 features, according to Microsoft. A new model of phone from Samsung and HTC just touched the market with new Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 Mango update that will take on the iPhone and Android phones.
Phones from Samsung and HTC already introduced their smart phones with new Windows Phone 7.5 mango update which is a free update prior to old Windows Phone 7. Apple iOS has none of the customability, Android none of the perfection, and webOS none of usability that Microsoft has Managed to put together into a stunning, distinctive and good looking OS. Of course there are lack of apps to choose for Windows OS, and Windows Phone lacks some features comparably, But the OS has refined, elegant form that sets a part it from competitors.
Microsoft’s finally incorporating multitasking, social network integration, lots of needed improvements to email and Exchange, new voice dictation features, and many more.
Overall Windows 7.5 Mango is a platform that is capable of handling all of our needs.
Hardware Requirements
All Windows Phone 7.5 device will include a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, DirectX graphics hardware support with hardware acceleration for Direct3D, a minimum of 384 MB of Ram, 4Gb of Flash memory, WVGA (800*480)display resolution, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, micro USB 2.0, Wifi 802. 11 b/g support, Bluetooth and four required sensors (with more options).
Microsoft said that it will not support dual core CPU due to the performance gains which weren’t enough to justify the battery efficiency concerns and additional costs.
Messaging and Social Network
Microsoft’s commercial marketing pitch for Windows Phone is “Put People First”, and Mango is aiming to improve its goal. WP 7.5 is already integrated with social network platforms such as Facebook ,Twitter and LinkedIn .
The “ME” tile can update any of the connected social networks, and people can follow friends through the people hub. People hub also includes History Pivot that tracks your interaction with individual friends.
The Messaging app in Windows Phone allows users to read and send SMS and MMs messages. The messaging interface itself is colored when the incoming and outgoing messages arrive and displays different colors. Messaging app allows users to switch back and forth between Facebook chat and SMS. There is another new feature integrated with Messaging app and that is :Voice Integration which allows one to easily dictate text messages using only voice commands.
Windows Phone 7.5 Mango includes an update for Email which allows users to check their mails via a threaded view , which denotes that one can view an entire conversation without searching through their email history. Mango also includes a feature which will enable one to combine two or more email accounts, integrating them as one, thus one will be able to manage their email without losing the benefits of not having multiple accounts.
Bing
Users can search through Bing with just a single touch of a finger on a dedicated search button on the bottom right of every Windows Phone. Mango has added several new features to the area in a handy little tool bar at the bottom. First feature is Scout, followed by Bing Music Search and Bing Vision.
Bing Music allows one to listen to music in 10 seconds after pressing the button. The last few features of Bing are Vision and Voice and these all new features have great potential to compete against the best which Apple and Google has to offer.
Multitasking
It can be somewhat nerve-wracking when we can’t save our spot during a game when a phone call comes in and we have to start it again from the same place after the end of the conversation. In Mango, all of these limitations are rectified.
A simple long press of a back button pops up your most recently opened apps in a webOS-style card view (each card being a thumbnail of that particular app). However multitasking hasn’t greatly improved so far because of certain third party apps which aren’t compatible with the latest updates.
Apps
Since Mango’s introduction, Microsoft’s app market has skyrocketed from 18,000 apps to 30,000 apps so far. Though it may not be able to fully compete with Android app and Mac app store at the present time, Microsoft is working diligently to give its competitors a good fight.
Office
Mango update includes better SkyDrive that plays a vital role in Office, which allows one to sync every type of document such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and One Note between their phone and Cloud. Word and Excel together offer 9 new document templates which enables one to quickly create documents.
Word now supports copy and paste and the ability to add comments to specific words or phrases, while Excel offers quick formulas such as sum, max, min and average. PowerPoint offers smoother transitions between slides and better text rendering.
With Microsoft Office 365 you can also sync your account – including your business mails, calendars, contacts and tasks. New Mango update allows one to set up their account with Outlook Mobile, once they are done with a users account they will be able to download Lync from the Marketplace, which gives one ample interaction with their company, multi person chat, employee searches and much more.
Miscellaneous Features
Miscellaneous Features
Microsoft said that new Windows Phone 7.5 Mango includes over 500 new features apart from above features it includes
Custom Ringtones – A most useful and much needed feature, users can add custom ringtones though they can just chose from music, and users need to add a file that is less than 30 seconds to zune software and change to genre ringtone.
Calendar – allows users to easily access and maintain a To-DO list,
Hidden WiFi – allows users to connect with hidden networks.
Speech to Text – all around improvement to Speech to Text, making the system more integrated with the OS.
Internet Sharing, video chat, Battery Saver, access camera gallery with phone is locked, indoor maps for malls, airports and Internet Explorer 9 are other exceptional features included in new update.
Conclusion
Finally Microsoft did a great job and introduced some much needed improvements to Windows Phone that will allow Microsoft to be in race. There are some areas which have lack of efficiency and Microsoft needs to work on those exceptions such as multitasking and notifications (which are complete ignored in new Mango Update). Overall we can say that Windows Phone 7.5 is a solid OS that can go head to head with Android and iOS.
One more thing, there is lack of Windows Apps are available in market only 30,000 comparison to the Android and iOS they are just like a bunch of mangoes. But we hope soon Microsoft Windows phone will stand in front of its other competitors and give a solid fight to Android and iOS.
