Can Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.5 compete against the iOS and Android?

When we first reviewed the Windows Phone 7 less than a year ago, we were pleasantly surprised by the change that Microsoft had brought into what used to be a phlegmatic Windows Mobile platform. Even though it lacked multitasking and copy-paste fucntion, Phone 7 still had the potential to outshine the leading mobile operting systems. The colourful, bright, blocky interface named the Metro UI allowed customisation, while its 'people' hub pulled feeds from Facebook and Windows Live into one window. We could move our finger up, down, right and left for navigation. Microsoft was criticised for not including multitasking in the WP7. Mango is the company's retort.

The Mango update handles multitasking beautifully. Press the Windows key or the back key to go to the homescreen. Press the Windows key to minimise the app, press back key to close it. Long press the back key to show all the running apps from where these can be re-launched anytime.As for copy-paste, a tap on the screen and a left-right slide arrow appears with a circular notebook icon. This copies the text and by pressing a similar icon, the content can be pasted anywhere-email, messages or documents.

Microsoft bets big on Mango OS

With the Mango update, Microsoft is officially launching the platform in the Indian market. Although the numbers of apps are fewer in comparison to Apple App Store and Android Market, there still are many good utility apps in Window's repertoire. To our delight, many apps we downloaded utilised the Metro UI interface.

Earlier, Facebook was in integral part of an email set-up but this has now been extended to Twitter and Linkedin. We could also list our personal email accounts in one place, making the homescreen less cluttered. The Calendar linked to personal, professional and social networking sites automatically fetched the events and showed them in different colours. Also, all communication, be it calls, messages, email, FB, etc, with a contact appeared together. Thread similarly brought together any communication with a contact on text, Facebook and Windows Live Messenger in one place. As the apps appear in the main menu in a list, scrolling becomes a bit difficult.

Hence, after reaching a pre-defined limit, a box for alphabet icons appears at the top. Another good thing about the Mango is that the Internet Explorer Mobile makes browsing easy as it renders pages with speed. Any image or document on the phone automatically gets uploaded to the Sky Drive (25 GB storage space) and even if something gets deleted on the phone, it stays safe there. With the new WP7.5, the completion has surely widened to include Microsoft among Apple and Android. Nokia is about the launch the new WP line and Samsung has already announced the availability of the Omnia W in the coming days.

Courtesy: Gadgets and Gizmos